Largest European cities and metropolitan areas

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This is a list of the largest metropolitan areas of Europe. The population figures for both the metropolitan area and central city are given.

In some cases, the list of Largest urban areas of the European Union would give figures that better reflect common understanding of the different cities' sizes as the metropolitan areas include also non-urban and suburban areas and administrative borders for cities often cut across most urban areas. The list of Larger Urban Zones (LUZ) in the European Union can also be consulted for an attempt by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office, to provide harmonized data for EU metropolitan areas. The list below includes cities which are not part of the European Union and therefore do not benefit from the harmonized definition used by Eurostat and the different National Statistics Offices of the European Union.

The list also includes multicentric conurbations that are not based on single central city. In addition, the numbers below are only rough projections based on historical growth rates. As in the rest of the world, metropolitan areas in Europe are much debated, and different sources will provide different statistics (including Wikipedia's own worldwide list of metropolitan areas by population). These figures should be seen as an interpretation, not as conclusive fact. In most cases, they are towards the top of the range of figures quoted for each metropolitan area. Some of these areas are very much regions rather than single settlements. Unless otherwise indicated, metropolitan area figures are estimates for 2008-01-01 from World Gazetteer.

Rank	Metropolitan area name	Country	Population of metropolitan area	Population of municipality
1	Moscow	Russia	14,744,150	10,425,075 (2006)
2	Istanbul	Turkey	13,179,865	8,803,468 (2000)
3	London	United Kingdom	13,063,441	7,517,700 (2005)
4	Paris	France	11,818,503	2,153,600 (2005)
5	Rhine-Ruhr	Germany	11,817,132^[1]	Cologne (983,347); Essen (585,430); Dusseldorf (574,514)
6	Randstad	Netherlands	6,579,720^[1]	Amsterdam (743,070); Rotterdam (588,697); The Hague (475,627); Utrecht (288,732)
7	Madrid	Spain	6,270,551	3,128,600 (2006)
8	Greater Manchester/Liverpool	United Kingdom	5,019,446^[1]	Liverpool (460,500); Manchester (442,800); Stockport (281,600); Oldham (217,393); Salford (216,103); Rochdale (206,400); Trafford (213,200)
9	Barcelona	Spain	4,959,864	1,605,602 (2006)
10	Saint Petersburg	Russia	4,820,815	4,580,620 (2006)
11	Milan	Italy	4,308,403	1,308,735 (2006)
12	Berlin	Germany	4,040,690	3,395,189 (2005)
13	Rome	Italy	3,858,111	2,547,677 (2006)
14	Athens	Greece	3,829,018	745,514 (2001)
15	Naples	Italy	3,817,076	984,242 (2006)
16	West Midlands	United Kingdom	3,704,574	Birmingham (994,900); Coventry (306,900); Wolverhampton (251,462)
17	Hamburg Metropolitan Region	Germany	3,266,896	1,743,627 (2006)
18	Frankfurt Rhine Main Area	Germany	3,133,739	667,468 (2007)
19	Kiev	Ukraine	2,989,638	2,660,401 (2005)
20	Lisbon	Portugal	2,634,878	564,657 (2001)
21	Budapest	Hungary	2,578,731	1,697,343 (2005)
22	Upper Silesian Metropolitan Area	Poland	2,552,515^[1]	Katowice (313,461); Sosnowiec (223,284); Gliwice (197,874); Zabrze (189,656); Bytom (185,793); (June 2007)^[2]
23	Copenhagen-Malmö	Denmark/ Sweden	2,387,192^[1]	Copenhagen 503,699 (2007); Malmö 279,915 (2007)
24	Stuttgart Region	Germany	2,334,683	592,569 (2005)
25	Munich	Germany	2,312,477	1,259,677 (2005)
26	Warsaw	Poland	2,251,474	1,704,717 (June 2007)^[2]
27	Alma (Aachen, Liège, Maastricht)	Netherlands Belgium Germany	2,215,374	Aachen (258,208); Liege (187,086); Maastricht (120,175)
28	Bucharest	Romania	2,192,372	1,921,751 (2002)
29	Brussels	Belgium	2,175,008	144,784 (2006)
30	Vienna	Austria	2,113,619	1,651,365 (2006)
31	West Yorkshire	United Kingdom	1,966,583	Leeds (448,000); Bradford (477,770); Wakefield (320,600)
32	Lille-Kortrijk	France/ Belgium	1,902,966	Lille (225,100)
33	Lyon	France	1,798,395	466,400 (2005)
34	Nizhniy Novgorod	Russia	1,794,960	1,283,553 (2006)
35	Belgrade	Serbia	1,766,534	1,120,092^[3] (2002)
36	Minsk	Belarus	1,753,547^[4]	1,765,800 (2005)
37	Stockholm^[5]	Sweden	1,737,995	792,593 (2007)
38	Turin	Italy	1,690,119	900,608 (2006)
39	Greater Glasgow	United Kingdom	1,633,187	632,000 (August 2007)^[6]
40	Donetsk	Ukraine	1,631,210	999,975 (2005)
41	Marseille	France	1,623,720	820,900 (2005)
42	Kharkiv	Ukraine	1,597,408	1,464,740 (2005)
43	Rhine Neckar Area	Germany	1,519,893	Mannheim (307,900); Ludwigshafen (163,560); Heidelberg (142,993)
44	Douai-Lens-Bethune-Valenciennes	France	1,513,023^[1]	Douai (43,200)
45	Tyne and Wear	United Kingdom	1,467,758	Sunderland (280,807); Newcastle (276,400)
46	Volgograd	Russia	1,449,400	991,643 (2006)
47	Bielefeld	Germany	1,443,109	326,925 (2005)
48	Samara	Russia	1,427,391	1,143,346 (2006)
49	Dnipropetrovsk	Ukraine	1,406,784	1,056,497 (2005)
50	Prague	Czech Republic	1,406,142	1,181,610 (2006)
51	Halle-Leipzig	Germany	1,388,578^[1]	Halle (237,198); Leipzig (502,651)
52	Valencia	Spain	1,374,294	805,304 (2006)
53	Rostov-on-Don	Russia	1,363,218	1,054,865 (2006)
54	Seville	Spain	1,336,625	704,414 (2006)
55	Porto^[7]	Portugal	1,299,713	227,790
56	South Yorkshire	United Kingdom	1,267,139	Sheffield (446,300); Doncaster (289,600); Rotherham (253,200)
57	Helsinki	Finland	1,262,805	560,905 (2005)
58	Sofia	Bulgaria	1,205,048	1,138,950 (2004)
59	Nürnberg	Germany	1,204,542	499,237 (2005)
60	Bremen	Germany	1,184,407	546,852 (2005)
61	Chemnitz-Zwickau	Germany	1,178,838^[1]	Chemnitz (246,587); Zwickau (97,382)
62	Antwerp	Belgium	1,147,776	461,496 (2006)
63	Bilbao	Spain	1,143,876	354,145 (2006)
64	Portsmouth-Southampton	United Kingdom	1,139,866	Portsmouth (196,400); Southampton (228,600)
65	Toulouse	France	1,133,105	435,000 (2005)
66	Odessa	Ukraine	1,125,816	1,007,131 (2005)
67	Hannover	Germany	1,112,463	515,729 (2005)
68	Saarbrucken-Forbach	Germany France	1,102,945	Saarbrucken (178,914)
69	Kazan	Russia	1,093,748^[4]	1,112,673 (2006)
70	Saratov	Russia	1,079,220	850,086 (2006)
71	Dresden	Germany	1,075,299	495,181 (2005)
72	Dublin	Republic of Ireland	1,058,265	506,211 (2006)
73	Nottingham	United Kingdom	1,025,970	286,400 (2006)
74	Zürich	Switzerland	1,025,499	347,517 (2006)
75	Bordeaux	France	1,009,051	229,500 (2005)
76	Ufa	Russia	1,006,121^[4]	1,029,616 (2006)
77	Palermo	Italy	1,000,820	670,820 (2006)

[edit] References and notes

NB To access the relevant Eurostat reports, once the reference has been followed, click at 'Indicators for larger urban zones'. In the new window that opens, click the 'TIME' button and set the time period (1999_2003). Then click the 'CITIES' button and choose the cities for which you want to access the data. Then click the 'NEXT' button, click 'OK' at the Javascript alert box, and then click 'DOWNLOAD'.

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Multicentric urban area
^ ^a ^b "Population by sex, voivodships (NUTS 2), powiats (LAU 1) and gminas (LAU 2) in 2007, as of June 30" (2007-10-22). Population. Size and structure by territorial division: 45–104. Warsaw: Central Statistical Office. ISSN 1734-6118.
^ Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (2002). Национална или етничка припадност - подаци по насељима (PDF), Књиге резултата Пописа 2002. (in Serbian), Belgrade: Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 14. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.
^ ^a ^b ^c Metropolitan area definition is the same as the city proper
^ Defined by Statistics Sweden to be equivalent to Stockholm County (covering an area of 6,519 km²) [1]. The same definition is used by Eurostat for the Larger Urban Zone. The United Nations urban agglomeration population figure (2005) is 1,708,000.
^ 2007 Population Estimates. Retrieved on 2008-01-16.
^ The United Nations agglomeration figure (defined as the statistical entity known as the area metropolitana) for 2005 is 1,309,000 [2]. The Eurostat Larger Urban Zone figure (which includes the city of Porto and the areas of Vila Nova de Gaia, Matosinhos, Maia, Gondomar and Valongo) for 2001 is 1,089,118 [3].