List of urban areas in the European Union

This is a list of urban areas in the European Union with over 500,000 inhabitants as of 2014. The data comes from Demographia and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.[1][2][3] Demographia provides figures for urban areas (including conurbations),[2] while the UN DESA figures are for agglomerations only.[3] For comparison, Function Urban Area (FUA) population figures by Eurostat are also provided, however, these measure the wider metropolitan areas.

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 m apart, not including rivers, parks, roads, industrial fields, etc. A metropolitan area is an urban area plus any satellite cities around it and any agricultural land in between. For instance Paris is sometimes listed with 12 million inhabitants, Stuttgart is frequently listed with 2.2 million inhabitants, Munich 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 List of cities in 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, have reserved green belts 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 (2015–2020)
Rank Urban area Image State Population (urban areas; Demographia)[2] ESPON Population (Functional Urban Area)[4] Population (agglomerations; UN WUP)[3] FUA population (metropolitan areas; Eurostat)[1] Density
(per km2; Demographia)		 Annual growth
rate (%;
Demographia)
1 Paris France 11,020,000 11,175,000 10,843,285 12,800,000 3,800 0.83
2 Ruhr (multiple cities) Germany 6,125,000 5,376,000 N/A 11,300,000 2,800 0.01
3 Madrid Spain 6,026,000 5,263,000 6,729,254 7,100,000 4,600 0.27
4 Milan Italy 4,907,000 7,636,000 3,098,974 n/a 2,800 −0.16
5 Barcelona Spain 4,588,000 4,082,000 5,658,319 5,900,000 4,300 0.12
6 Berlin Germany 3,972,000 4,016,000 3,863,194 n/a 2,900 0.01
7 Naples Italy 3,574,000 3,714,000 2,201,789 n/a 3,600 0.01
8 Athens Greece 3,325,000 3,761,000 3,051,899 n/a 5,000 0.29
9 Rome Italy 3,189,000 5,190,000 3,717,956 n/a 3,400 0.89
10 Rotterdam–The Hague
Netherlands 2,770,000 1,904,000 N/A n/a 2,700 0.39
11 Lisbon Portugal 2,656,000 2,591,000 2,884,297 n/a 2,800 0.39
12 Budapest Hungary 2,395,000 2,523,000 1,713,903 3,100,000 1,900 −0.19
13 Cologne-Bonn Germany 2,085,000 3,070,000 N/A n/a 2,300 0.50
14 Brussels Belgium 1,990,000 2,639,000 2,044,993 n/a 2,600 0.02[5]
15 Hamburg Germany 1,976,000 2,983,000 1,830,673 n/a 2,700 0.43[5]
16 Warsaw Poland 1,935,000 2,785,000 1,722,310 3,000,000 3,200 0.67
17 Munich Germany 1,928,000 2,665,000 1,437,900 n/a 4,200 0.72[5]
18 Frankfurt Germany 1,904,000 2,764,000 n/a n/a 3,000 0.50
19 Bucharest Romania 1,870,000 2,064,000 1,867,724 n/a 6,500 0.10[5]
20 Vienna Austria 1,809,000 2,584,000 1,752,845 n/a 3,900 1.04[5]
21 Katowice (Katowice urban area) Poland 1,726,000 3,029,000 N/A n/a 3,300 0.11
22 Turin Italy 1,445,000 1,601,000 1,764,868 n/a 4,100 −0.16[5]
23 Stockholm Sweden 1,436,000 2,171,000 1,485,680 n/a 4,300 0.58[5]
24 Lyon France 1,413,000 1,669,000 1,608,712 n/a 1,300 0.50[5]
25 Valencia Spain 1,393,000 1,398,000 n/a 5,700 0.29[5]
26 Marseille France 1,330,000 1,530,000 1,605,046 n/a 3,100 0.46[5]
27 Porto Portugal 1,323,000 1,245,000 1,299,437 n/a 1,900
28 Copenhagen Denmark 1,321,000 2,350,000 1,268,052 1,900,000 2,700 0.04[5]
29 Dublin Ireland 1,306,000 1,477,000 1,169,371 n/a 2,500 1.14[5]
30 Stuttgart Germany 1,301,000 2,289,000 n/a 2,900
31 Helsinki Finland 1,282,000 1,285,000 1,179,916 1,495,271 2,400 0.81[5]
32 Lille France, Belgium 1,270,000 1,379,000 1,027,178 n/a 2,200 0.50[5]
33 Prague Czechia 1,158,000 1,669,000 2,156,809 2,620,000 4,600 −0.07[5]
34 Amsterdam Netherlands 1,140,000 2,497,000 1,090,772 n/a 3,200 0.41[5]
35 Seville Spain 1,039,000 1,180,000 n/a 5,600
36 Antwerp Belgium 1,013,000 1,406,000 n/a 1,500 0.05[5]
37 Nice France 955,000 1,082,000 n/a 1,300 0.52[5]
38 Toulouse France 944,000 832,000 n/a 1,100 0.72[5]
39 Sofia Bulgaria 934,000 1,174,000 1,226,155 1,543,377 5,700 0.78[5]
40 Bergamo Italy 880,000 662,000 n/a 3,300
41 Gdańsk (Tricity) Poland 855,000 993,000 n/a 5,000
42 Thessaloniki Greece 845,000 1,052,000 n/a 4,300 0.39[5]
43 Florence Italy 835,000 645,000 n/a 3,700
44 Bordeaux France 823,000 918,000 1,244,264 700 0.60[5]
45 Bilbao Spain 765,000 947,000 n/a 5,800
46 Kraków Poland 765,000 1,236,000 1,725,894 n/a 3,500
47 Dresden Germany 765,000 882,000 n/a 2,200
48 Zaragoza Spain 735,000 639,000 n/a 5,700
49 Palermo Italy 725,000 861,000 n/a 6,000 0.12[5]
50 Catania Italy 725,000 707,000 n/a 2,900
51 Málaga Spain 720,000 944,000 n/a 3,600
52 Utrecht Netherlands 715,000 692,000 n/a 3,900
53 Hanover Germany 710,000 997,000 n/a 2,500
54 Zagreb Croatia 700,000 1,107,115 n/a 4,400
55 Łódź Poland 670,000 1,165,000 n/a 5,000
56 Las Palmas Spain 670,000 640,000 n/a 6,800
57 Nuremberg Germany 665,000 1,443,000 n/a 3,000
58 Bremen Germany 645,000 1,077,000 n/a 2,400
59 Wrocław Poland 625,000 861,000 n/a 4,800
60
 Leipzig Germany 625,000 842,000 1,037,782 2,000
61 Mannheim Germany 625,000 683,000 1,184,343 3,500
62 Padua Italy 620,000 549,000 n/a 3,200
63 Gothenburg Sweden 615,000 759,000 n/a 2,700
64 Genoa Italy 610,000 694,000 1,500,000 n/a 7,900
65 Riga Latvia 605,000 1,195,000 n/a 2,900
66 Toulon France 580,000 518,000 n/a 700
67 Liège Belgium 565,000 750,000 n/a 1,900
68 Saarbrücken Germany 565,000 1,102,000 n/a 2,200
69 Nantes France 562,000 708,000 n/a 1,100
70 Palma, Majorca Spain 560,000 433,000
71 Aachen Germany 545,000 672,000 n/a 1,500
72 Santa Cruz de Tenerife Spain 540,000 399,000
73 Bologna Italy 530,000 690,000
74 Grenoble France 530,000 555,000 n/a 985
75 Poznań Poland 525,000 919,000 n/a 2,700
76 Murcia Spain 525,000 504,000
77 Vilnius Lithuania 515,000 680,000 649,000 n/a 2,500
78 Douai-Lens France 510,000 550,000 n/a 1,100
79 Karlsruhe Germany 500,000 842,000

Other notable urban areas
Urban area Image State ESPON Population (Functional Urban Area)[4] FUA population (metropolitan areas; Eurostat)[1]
Oviedo–Gijón–Avilés Spain 844,000
Alicante-Elche-Elda Spain 793,000
Granada Spain 440,000
Vigo metropolitan area Spain 413,000
Cartagena Spain 409,000
Cádiz Spain 400,000
San Sebastián metropolitan area Spain 403,000* (403,000)
A Coruña Spain 376,000 (408,00)
Valladolid Spain 369,000 (395,984)
Tarragona–Reus Spain 325,000 (423,360)
Malmö Sweden 658,050
Tampere Finland 440,372
Aarhus Denmark 845,971
Charleroi Belgium 489,264
Odense Denmark 485,672
Ostrava Czech Republic 709,768
Braunschweig Germany 997,089
Brno Czech Republic 735,652
Bari Italy 744,564
Eindhoven Netherlands 761,702
Rouen France 694,558
Montpellier France 709,347
Heidelberg Germany 707,346
Lublin Poland 668,346
Rennes France 684,304
Augsburg Germany 675,285
Kiel Germany 649,807[6]
Ghent Belgium 399,741
Catania Italy 656,989

Top 20 and top 30 urban areas by population
Location of the top 20 urban areas by population in the European Union.
Location of the top 30 urban areas by population in the European Union.

See also

References
  1. Eurostat: Cities (Urban Audit) Database. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
  2. Demographia: World Urban Areas. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  3. Annual Population of Urban Agglomerations with 300,000 Inhabitants or More in 2014, by Country, 1950-2030 (thousands), World Urbanization Prospects, the 2014 revision Archived 18 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Retrieved 6 September 2015. Note: List based on estimates for 2015, from 2014.
  4. "ESPON Project 1.4.3 Study on Urban Functions" (PDF). 24 September 2015. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  5. United Nations: World Urbanization Prospects Archived 10 March 2007 at Archive.today
  6. "Eurostat".

http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf

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