Urban unit

In France, an urban unit (fr: "unité urbaine") is a statistical area defined by INSEE, the French national statistics office, for the measurement of contiguously built-up areas. According to the INSEE definition , an "unité urbaine" is a commune alone or a grouping of communes which: a) form a single unbroken spread of urban development, with no distance between habitations greater than 200 m and b) have altogether a population greater than 2,000 inhabitants. Communes not belonging to an unité urbaine are considered rural.

25 largest French urban areas in 2010

The French unité urbaine is a statistical area in accordance with United Nations recommendations for the measurement of contiguously built-up areas. Other comparable units in other countries are the United States "Urbanized Area" and the "urban area" definition shared by the United Kingdom and Canada.

French unité urbaines with over 200,000 inhabitants

	Unité urbaine	Inhabitants (2015)[1]	Area in km² (2010)[2]	Communes (2010)[3]
1	Paris	10,706,072	2,844.8	409
2	Lyon	1,639,558	1,180.4	127
3	Marseille-Aix-en-Provence	1,585,498	1,731.9	49
4	Lille (excluding Belgian part)	1,039,397	442.5	59
5	Toulouse	948,433	811.6	73
6	Nice	943,354	743.6	51
7	Bordeaux	904,359	1,172.6	64
8	Nantes	633,690	537.7	24
9	Toulon	569,793	763.7	27
10	Grenoble	512,591	523.1	53
11	Douai-Lens	504,537	485.2	67
12	Rouen	467,133	461.1	50
13	Strasbourg (excluding German part)	461,101	240.2	23
14	Avignon	456,042	1,368.9	59
15	Montpellier	428,909	310.0	22
16	Saint-Étienne	373,130	418.7	33
17	Béthune	355,543	752.4	93
18	Tours	353,042	663.7	36
19	Valenciennes (excluding Belgian part)	335,992	440.0	56
20	Rennes	330,871	284.4	10
21	Nancy	285,659	245.9	28
22	Metz	285,268	306.9	41
23	Orléans	278,131	289.5	19
24	Clermont-Ferrand	265,892	180.8	17
25	Pointe-à-Pitre-Les Abymes	256,263	729.7	11
26	Mulhouse	246,511	239.1	20
27	Dijon	243,244	166.0	15
28	Le Havre	237,578	194.9	18
29	Bayonne (excluding Spanish part)	236,730	459.2	27
30	Angers	225,978	201.4	10
31	Reims	212,949	94.30	7
32	Le Mans	210,018	294.3	18
33	Perpignan	200,971	217.5	15
34	Brest	200,530	199.4	7

See also

• List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants
• urban area (France)
• aire urbaine, a related concept for urban and metropolitan areas

References

1. "Comparateur de territoire" [Urban units]. Insee (in French). Retrieved 17 May 2019.
2. "Comparateur de territoire" [Urban units]. Insee (in French). Retrieved 17 May 2019.
3. "Base des unités urbaines" [Urban units]. Insee (in French). Retrieved 17 May 2019.

1. ^ INSEE. Definitions and Methods. "Definition: Urban unit". Retrieved October 17, 2014.