Largest urban areas of the European Union.html
 
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This is a list of all the urban areas of the European Union which have more than 750,000 inhabitants in 2005.

This list is an attempt to present a consistent list of population figures for urban areas in the European Union. All the figures here have been compiled by Demographia.

Contents

Important notes

  • This is a list of urban areas, not a list of metropolitan areas. Urban areas are contiguous built-up areas where houses are typically not more than 200 metres apart (discounting rivers, parks, roads, industrial fields, etc.). A metropolitan area is an urban area plus the satellite cities around the urban area and the agricultural land in between.
  • This is a list of urban areas, not a list of administrative cities. The list below contains for instance the urban area of Lille-Kortrijk. Lille and Kortrijk remain two very distinct cities, each belonging to a different country, culture and language area. For a list of the largest cities of the European Union by population, please see Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits.
  • The study of urban areas is useful to analyse how cities develop, which in turn can be used to define transportation, planning and environmental policies, to adjust administrative boundaries etc. At the same time its limitations have to be acknowledged. It is a purely geographic study and disregards all other factors that contribute to the analysis of the functional city. For instance, several cities in the European Union such as Brussels and London have introduced green belts which impacts the urban area but not the "perceived city" as these green belts have now become integrated in what people consider to be the functional city. Furthermore the list does not make a difference between cities that have multiple satellites and cities that do not. Therefore two cities with the same demographics for their urban area will have an equal ranking on this list, even if one of the two cities may be much larger as it is the core of a number of satellites.
  • Please do not be surprised if you are used to higher figures for the cities listed below. London is sometimes listed with 14 million inhabitants, Stuttgart is frequently listed with 2.2 million inhabitants, Munich with 2 million or more, etc. This is because figures here are only for urban areas, which are typically smaller than metropolitan areas. Urban areas can be computed by private people or institutions using maps and looking where the built-up area stops. Metropolitan areas, which imply much more complicated definitions (such as the proportion of people in satellite cities working in the core of the metropolitan area), can be accurately computed only by statistical offices, after they have chosen a definition for metropolitan areas.
  • Several large urban areas in Europe are not listed since they are not part of an EU member state. These include Moscow (14,150,000), Saint Petersburg (4,570,000), and Istanbul (10,970,000, including suburbs in Asia).

Urban areas over 750,000 inhabitants

Rank Urban Area State Population
(2008 est.)		 Density (per km²) Annual growth rate (%)
1 Paris  France 10,660,000 3,400 0.83
2 London  United Kingdom 8,320,000 5,100 0.07
3 Ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet)  Germany 7,250,000 2,750 0.01
4 Madrid  Spain 4,990,000 5,200 0.27
5 Milan  Italy 4,150,000 1,750 -0.16
6 Barcelona  Spain 3,930,000 4,850 0.12
7 Athens  Greece 3,760,000 5,400 0.29
8 Berlin  Germany 3,680,000 3,750 0.00
9 Naples  Italy 2,970,000 3,850 -0.13
10 Rome  Italy 2,720,000 3,200 -0.16
11 Katowice-Gliwice-Tychy  Poland 2,620,000 3,400 1.11
12 Frankfurt  Germany 2,340,000 3,350 0.50
13 Lisbon  Portugal 2,310,000 2,550 0.39
14 Birmingham  United Kingdom 2,280,000 3,800 -0.03
15 Manchester  United Kingdom 2,240,000 4,000 -0.03
16 Rotterdam-The Hague  Netherlands 2,100,000 2,450 0.39
17 Budapest  Hungary 2,090,000 2,350 -0.19
18 Cologne-Bonn  Germany 2,030,000 2,100 0.50
19 Warsaw  Poland 2,010,000 3,700 0.07
20 Bucharest  Romania 2,000,000 (2003) 7,000 0.101
21 Hamburg  Germany 1,925,000 (2001) 2,700 0.431
22 Munich  Germany 1,675,000 (2001) 3,600 0.721
23 Brussels  Belgium 1,625,000 (2005) 2,150 0.021
24 Vienna  Austria 1,550,000 (2001) 3,400 1.041
25 Copenhagen  Denmark 1,525,000 (2003) 2,350 0.041
26 Leeds-Bradford  United Kingdom 1,499,000 (2001) 4,050 0.241
27 Stockholm  Sweden 1,400,000 (2000) 2,700 0.581
28 Marseille--Aix-en-Provence  France 1,350,000 (1999) 1,100 0.461
29 Turin  Italy 1,350,000 (2000) 2,750 -0.161
30 Lyon  France 1,349,000 (1999) 1,400 0.501
31 Stuttgart  Germany 1,250,000 (2001) 3,000
32 Dublin  Ireland 1,230,000 (2006) 2,800 1.141
33 Prague  Czech Republic 1,200,000 (2003) 4,200 -0.071
34 Glasgow  United Kingdom 1,200,000 (2001) 3,250 0.071
35 Valencia  Spain 1,175,000 (2001) 4,300 0.291
36 Amsterdam  Netherlands 1,100,000 (2005) 2,650 0.411
37 Helsinki  Finland 1,100,000 (2000) 2,250 0.811
38 Lille--Kortrijk  France,  Belgium 1,050,000 (1999) 2,200 0.501
39 Sofia  Bulgaria 1,050,000 (2001) 5,050 0.781
40 Porto  Portugal 1,035,000 (2001) 2,650 1.051
41 Nuremberg  Germany 1,020,000 (2001) 3,050
42 Lodz  Poland 950,000 (2002) 5,250 -0.671
43 Antwerp  Belgium 915,000 (2003) 1,400 0.051
44 Nice  France 889,000 (1999) 1,250 0.521
45 Newcastle upon Tyne  United Kingdom 880,000 (2001) 4,150 0.161
46 Liverpool  United Kingdom 816,000 (2001) 4,400 0.111
47 Thessaloniki  Greece 800,000 (2001) 4,100 0.391
48 Gdansk  Poland 775,000 (2002) 5,000
49 Toulouse  France 761,000 (1999) 950 0.721
50 Bordeaux  France 754,000 (1999) 700 0.601
51 Florence  Italy 750,000 (2001) 2,750
52 Palermo  Italy 750,000 (2001) 5,150 0.121
53 Riga  Latvia 750,000 (2005) 2,900
54 Bilbao  Spain 750,000 (2001) 5,800
55 Seville  Spain 750,000 (2001) 5,550

EFTA countries

Two European Free Trade Association countries have urban areas that would be included in the list if they were EU member states.

Urban Area State Population Density (per km²) Growth rate (%)
Zürich  Switzerland 830,000 (2003) 3,650 0.351
Oslo  Norway 800,000 (2004) 2,450 0.991

References

Figures without citations are from Demographia: World Urban Areas

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae United Nations: World Urbanization Prospects

See also

External links


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