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. This list is an attempt to present a consistent list of population figures for urban areas in the European Union. Figures here have been compiled by 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 (discounting rivers, parks, roads, industrial fields, etc.). A metropolitan area is an urban area plus the satellite cities around the urban area and the agricultural land in between. For instance London is sometimes listed with 14 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, please 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 and London 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 (2015-2017)

Rank	Urban area	Image	State	Population (urban areas; Demographia)[2]	Population (agglomerations; UN WUP)[3]	FUA population (metropolitan areas; Eurostat)[1]	Density (per km2; Demographia)	Annual growth rate (%; Demographia)
1	Paris		France	10,950,000	10,843,285	11,800,000	3,800	0.83
2	London		United Kingdom	10,470,000	10,313,307	12,200,000	5,900	0.07
3	Ruhr		Germany	6,670,000	N/A	11,300,000	2,800	0.01
4	Madrid		Spain	6,310,000	6,229,254	6,600,000	4,600	0.27
5	Milan		Italy	5,280,000	3,098,974	n/a	2,800	−0.16
6	Barcelona		Spain	4,790,000	5,258,319	n/a	4,300	0.12
7	Berlin		Germany	4,105,000	6,563,194	n/a	2,900	0.01
8	Rome		Italy	3,950,000	3,717,956	n/a	3,400	0.89
9	Naples		Italy	3,700,000	2,201,789	n/a	3,600	0.01
10	Athens		Greece	3,475,000	3,051,899	n/a	5,000	0.29
11	Lisbon		Portugal	2,700,000	2,884,297	n/a	2,800	0.39
12	Manchester		United Kingdom	2,685,000	2,645,598	n/a	4,200	−0.03
13	Rotterdam–The Hague		Netherlands	2,670,000	N/A	n/a	2,700	0.39
14	Birmingham (West Midlands)		United Kingdom	2,550,000	2,514,596	n/a	4,200	−0.03
15	Budapest		Hungary	2,500,000	1,713,903	n/a	1,900	−0.19
16	Warsaw		Poland	2,280,000	1,722,310	n/a	3,200	0.67
17	Katowice (Katowice urban area)		Poland	2,175,000	n/a	2,573,159	3,300	0.11
18	Cologne-Bonn		Germany	2,165,000	N/A	n/a	2,300	0.50
19	Brussels		Belgium	2,120,000	2,044,993	n/a	2,600	0.02[4]
20	Bucharest		Romania	2,115,000	1,867,724	n/a	6,500	0.10[4]
21	Hamburg		Germany	2,105,000	1,830,673	n/a	2,700	0.43[4]
22	Munich		Germany	2,025,000	1,437,900	n/a	4,200	0.72[4]
23	Leeds-Bradford		United Kingdom	1,955,000	1,912,493	n/a	3,900	0.24[4]
24	Frankfurt		Germany	1,950,000	n/a	n/a	3,000	0.50
25	Vienna		Austria	1,785,000	1,752,845	n/a	3,900	1.04[4]
26	Amsterdam		Netherlands	1,650,000	1,090,772	n/a	3,200	0.41[4]
27	Lyon		France	1,650,000	1,608,712	n/a	1,300	0.50[4]
28	Marseille		France	1,620,000	1,605,046	n/a	3,100	0.46[4]
29	Valencia		Spain	1,585,000		n/a	5,700	0.29[4]
30	Stockholm		Sweden	1,565,000	1,485,680	n/a	4,300	0.58[4]
31	Turin		Italy	1,530,000	1,764,868	n/a	4,100	−0.16[4]
32	Porto		Portugal	1,485,000	1,299,437	n/a	1,900
33	Stuttgart		Germany	1,395,000		n/a	2,900
34	Prague		Czech Republic	1,390,000	1,313,557	n/a	4,600	−0.07[4]
35	Sofia		Bulgaria	1,325,000	1,226,155	1,543,377	5,700	0.78[4]
36	Copenhagen		Denmark	1,290,000	1,268,052	1,900,000	2,700	0.04[4]
37	Glasgow		United Kingdom	1,235,000	1,222,955	n/a	3,300	0.07[4]
38	Helsinki		Finland	1,230,000	1,179,916	n/a	2,400	0.81[4]
39	Dublin		Ireland	1,158,000	1,169,371	n/a	2,500	1.14[4]
40	Sevilla		Spain	1,110,000		n/a	5,600
41	Lille		France,  Belgium	1,065,000	1,027,178	n/a	2,200	0.50[4]
42	Antwerpen		Belgium	1,015,000		n/a	1,500	0.05[4]
43	Nice		France	975,000		n/a	1,300	0.52[4]
44	Toulouse		France	965,000		n/a	1,100	0.72[4]
45	Bordeaux		France	960,000		n/a	700	0.60[4]
46	Nantes		France	900,000		n/a	1,100
47	South Hampshire		United Kingdom	895,000		n/a
48	Liverpool		United Kingdom	880,000		n/a	4,400	0.11[4]
49	Bergamo		Italy	860,000		n/a	3,300
50	Gdańsk (Tricity)		Poland	855,000		n/a	5,000
51	Florence		Italy	835,000		n/a	3,700
52	Thessaloniki		Greece	825,000		n/a	4,300	0.39[4]
53	Newcastle upon Tyne (Tyneside)		United Kingdom	800,000		n/a	4,200	0.16[4]
54	Bilbao		Spain	780,000		n/a	5,800
55	Nottingham		United Kingdom	765,000		n/a	4,200
56	Kraków		Poland	760,000		n/a	3,500
57	Dresden		Germany	740,000		n/a	2,200
58	Zaragoza		Spain	735,000		n/a	5,700
59	Catania		Italy	730,000		n/a	2,900
60	Palermo		Italy	730,000		n/a	6,000	0.12[4]
61	Málaga		Spain	725,000		n/a	3,600
62	Hannover		Germany	715,000		n/a	2,500
63	Sheffield		United Kingdom	715,000		n/a	4,000
64	Zagreb		Croatia	705,000		n/a	4,400
65	Łódź		Poland	690,000		n/a	5,000	−0.67[4]
66	Utrecht		Netherlands	690,000		n/a	3,900
67	Las Palmas		Spain	675,000		n/a	6,800
68	Nuremberg		Germany	675,000		n/a	3,000
69	Bristol		United Kingdom	660,000		n/a	3,900
70	Bremen		Germany	635,000		n/a	2,400
71	Wrocław		Poland	620,000		n/a	4,800
72	Genova		Italy	615,000	1,500,000	n/a	7,900
73	Belfast		United Kingdom	615,000		n/a	3,500
74	Padua		Italy	610,000		n/a	3,200
75	Leipzig		Germany	605,000		n/a	2,000
76	Riga		Latvia	605,000		n/a	2,900
77	Gothenburg		Sweden	590,000		n/a	2,700
78	Toulon		France	585,000		n/a	700
79	Mannheim		Germany	565,000		n/a	3,500
80	Liège		Belgium	560,000		n/a	1,900
81	Palma, Majorca		Spain	550,000
82	Vilnius		Lithuania	550,000	649,000	n/a	2,500
83	Santa Cruz de Tenerife		Spain	545,000
84	Aachen		Germany	545,000		n/a	1,500
85	Leicester		United Kingdom	545,000		n/a
86	Poznań		Poland	535,000		n/a	2,700
87	Bologna		Italy	530,000		n/a	3,400
88	Murcia		Spain	515,000
89	Grenoble		France	515,000		n/a	985
90	Saarbrücken		Germany	510,000		n/a	2,200
91	Douai-Lens		France	510,000		n/a	1,100
92	Edinburgh		United Kingdom	500,000

Top 20 urban areas by population

Paris (1)

London (2)

Ruhr (3)

Madrid (4)

Milan (5)

Barcelona (6)

Berlin (7)

Rome (8)

Naples (9)

Athens (10)

Lisbon (11)

Manchester (12)

Rotterdam - The Hague (13)

Birmingham (14)

Budapest (15)

Warsaw (16)

Katowice (17)

Cologne-Bonn (18)

Brussels (19)

Bucharest (20)

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

See also

• List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits
• List of larger urban zones (metropolitan area)
• List of urban areas in Europe
• List of urban areas by population
• Blue Banana

References

1. 1 2 Eurostat: Statistics on European cities. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
2. 1 2 3 Demographia: World Urban Areas. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
3. 1 2 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, 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. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 United Nations: World Urbanization Prospects Archived 2007-03-10 at Archive.is

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