This is a list of urban areas in the European Union with over 500,000 inhabitants as of 2022. The data comes from
Demographia
Wendell Cox is an American urban policy analyst and proponent of the use of the private car over rail projects. He is the principal and sole owner of Wendell Cox Consultancy/Demographia, based in the St. Louis metropolitan region and editor of thr ...
and the
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) is part of the United Nations Secretariat and is responsible for the follow-up to major United Nations Summits and Conferences, as well as services to the United Nations Econ ...
.
[Demographia: World Urban Areas]
. Retrieved 21 September 2022.[''Annual Population of Urban Agglomerations with 300,000 Inhabitants or More in 2014, by Country, 1950-2030 (thousands)]
World Urbanization Prospects, the 2014 revision
', , Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) is part of the United Nations Secretariat and is responsible for the follow-up to major United Nations Summits and Conferences, as well as services to the United Nations Econ ...
. Retrieved 6 September 2015. Note: List based on estimates for 2015, from 2014. Demographia provides figures for
urban area
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 ...
s (including
conurbation
A conurbation is a region comprising a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most ca ...
s),
[ while the UN DESA figures are for ]agglomerations
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, ...
only.[ For comparison, Function Urban Area (FUA) population figures 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 ...
are also provided,[Population on 1 January by age groups and sex - functional urban areas](_blank)
Retrieved 21 September 2022. however, these measure the wider 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 ...
s.
Important notes
* This is a list of urban areas, ''not'' a list of 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 ...
s. Urban areas are contiguous built-up areas where houses are typically not more than 200 m apart, not including river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
s, park
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
s, road
A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation.
There are many types of ...
s, industrial fields, etc. A metropolitan area is an urban area plus any satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
cities around it and any agricultural land in between. For instance Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
is sometimes listed with 12 million inhabitants, Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
is frequently listed with 2.2 million inhabitants, Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
with 2 million or more, etc., indicating the wider metropolitan area of those places. 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, whereas urban areas can be computed by any institution or person with the study of maps, satellite imagery and other geographical data in order to determine the outer limits of a continuous built-up area with one or more neighbouring cities. 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.
* This is a list of urban areas, ''not'' a list of administrative cities. For example, the list of conurbations contains 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, see .
* 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, have reserved green belt
A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which ...
s in the outskirts which impacts the size of urban areas but not the "perceived city" as these green belts have now become integrated in what people consider to be the functional city.
Urban areas over 500,000 inhabitants (2015–2022)
Other notable urban areas
Top 20 and top 30 urban areas by population
See also
*
*List of European cities by population within city limits
The largest cities in Europe according to the population within their city boundary have populations over 1 million inhabitants. Cities are sorted by official population. Capital cities are in bold. The list deals exclusively with the areas within ...
*List of urban areas in Europe
This list ranks urban areas in Europe by their population according to two different sources. The list includes urban areas that have a population of over 1 million.
Figures in the first and second column come from the UN's World Urbanization Pro ...
*List of metropolitan areas in Europe
This list ranks metropolitan areas in Europe by their population according to three different sources; it includes metropolitan areas that have a population of over 1 million.
Sources
List includes metropolitan areas according only studies of ...
* List of larger urban zones (metropolitan area)
*List of urban areas by population
The United Nations uses three definitions for what constitutes a city, as not all cities in all jurisdictions are classified using the same criteria. Cities may be defined as the cities proper, the extent of their urban area, or their metropo ...
*Blue Banana
The Blue Banana (also known as the European Megalopolis or the Liverpool–Milan Axis) is a discontinuous corridor of urbanization spreading over Western and Central Europe, with a population of around 111 million. The conceptualisation of the ...
*Golden Banana
The Golden Banana (also called: Sun Belt) is an area of higher population density lying between Cartagena in the west and Genoa in the east along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, defined by the "Europe 2000" report from the European Commissio ...
References
http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf
External links
United Nations list of urban agglomerations in the European Union
(as tabulated by INSEE).
Population of urban areas provided by UK National Statistics
for UK urban areas
e-Geopolis
research group, university of Paris-Diderot, France - About world urbanization
{{World's largest cities
Urban areas, largest
Demographics of the European Union
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
European Union, urban areas, largest
Eur
The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens ...