An ''aire d'attraction d'une ville'' (or AAV, literally meaning "catchment area of a city") is a statistical area used by France's national statistics office INSEE since 2020, officially translated as functional area in English by INSEE, which consists of a densely populated

urban agglomeration An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...

and the surrounding

exurb An exurb (or alternately: exurban area) is an area outside the typically denser inner suburban area, at the edge of a metropolitan area, which has some economic and commuting connection to the metro area, low housing density, and growth. It s ...

s, towns and intervening rural areas that are socioeconomically tied to the central urban agglomeration, as measured by

commuting Commuting is periodically recurring travel between one's place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regul ...

patterns. INSEE's functional area (AAV) is therefore akin to what is most often called

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...

in English.

Definition

INSEE's AAV follows the same definition as the

Functional Urban Area The larger urban zone (LUZ), or functional urban area (FUA), is a measure of the population and expanse of metropolitan and surrounding areas which may or may not be exclusively urban. It consists of a city and its commuting zone outside it. Th ...

(FUA) used by

Eurostat Eurostat ('European Statistical Office'; DG ESTAT) is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in the Kirchberg, Luxembourg, Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Eurostat's main responsibilities are to provide statis ...

and the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

, and the AAVs are thus strictly comparable to the FUAs. Before 2020, INSEE used another metropolitan statistical area, the ''

aire urbaine An ''aire urbaine'' (literal and official translation: "urban area") is an INSEE (France's national statistics bureau) statistical concept describing a core of urban development and the extent of its commuter activity. It was replaced by the c ...

'' (AU), which was defined differently than the AAV, but the AU has now been discontinued and replaced with the AAV in order to facilitate international comparisons with Eurostat's FUAs. The functional area is a grouping of

communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, relig ...

comprising a 'population and employment centre' (''pôle de population et d'emploi'' in French), which Eurostat calls "city" or "greater city" (depending on the FUA), defined according to population and employment criteria, and an outlying 'commuting zone' (''couronne'' in French), which Eurostats calls "commuting zone" in English, like INSEE, but ''zone de navettage'' in French (unlike INSEE which calls it ''couronne''), in which at least 15% of the working population work in the population and employment centre.

List of functional areas (AAV)

The following is a list of the thirty five largest functional areas (AAV) in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, based on their population at the 2019 census. Population at the 2008 and 1990 censuses is indicated for comparison.

Notes

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Populated places in France Demographics of France Subdivisions of France INSEE concepts

Definition

List of functional areas (AAV)

See also

Notes

References