This is a list of all the urban areas of the European Union which have more than 750,000 inhabitants in 2005.

This list is an attempt to present a consistent list of population figures for urban areas in the European Union. All the figures here have been compiled by Demographia.

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 metres 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.
• This is a list of urban areas, not a list of administrative cities. The list below contains for instance 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 Largest cities of 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 introduced green belts which impacts the urban area but not the "perceived city" as these green belts have now become integrated in what people consider to be the functional city. 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.
• Please do not be surprised if you are used to higher figures for the cities listed below. London is sometimes listed with 14 million inhabitants, Stuttgart is frequently listed with 2.2 million inhabitants, Munich with 2 million or more, etc. This is because figures here are only for urban areas, which are typically smaller than metropolitan areas. Urban areas can be computed by private people or institutions using maps and looking where the built-up area stops. 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.
• Several large urban areas in Europe are not listed since they are not part of an EU member state. These include Moscow (14,150,000), Saint Petersburg (4,570,000), and Istanbul (10,970,000, including suburbs in Asia).

Urban areas over 750,000 inhabitants

Rank	Urban Area	State	Population (2008 est.)	Density (per km²)	Annual growth rate (%)
1	Paris	France	10,660,000	3,400	0.83
2	London	United Kingdom	8,320,000	5,100	0.07
3	Ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet)	Germany	7,250,000	2,750	0.01
4	Madrid	Spain	4,990,000	5,200	0.27
5	Milan	Italy	4,150,000	1,750	-0.16
6	Barcelona	Spain	3,930,000	4,850	0.12
7	Athens	Greece	3,760,000	5,400	0.29
8	Berlin	Germany	3,680,000	3,750	0.00
9	Naples	Italy	2,970,000	3,850	-0.13
10	Rome	Italy	2,720,000	3,200	-0.16
11	Katowice-Gliwice-Tychy	Poland	2,620,000	3,400	1.11
12	Frankfurt	Germany	2,340,000	3,350	0.50
13	Lisbon	Portugal	2,310,000	2,550	0.39
14	Birmingham	United Kingdom	2,280,000	3,800	-0.03
15	Manchester	United Kingdom	2,240,000	4,000	-0.03
16	Rotterdam-The Hague	Netherlands	2,100,000	2,450	0.39
17	Budapest	Hungary	2,090,000	2,350	-0.19
18	Cologne-Bonn	Germany	2,030,000	2,100	0.50
19	Warsaw	Poland	2,010,000	3,700	0.07
20	Bucharest	Romania	2,000,000 (2003)	7,000	0.101
21	Hamburg	Germany	1,925,000 (2001)	2,700	0.431
22	Munich	Germany	1,675,000 (2001)	3,600	0.721
23	Brussels	Belgium	1,625,000 (2005)	2,150	0.021
24	Vienna	Austria	1,550,000 (2001)	3,400	1.041
25	Copenhagen	Denmark	1,525,000 (2003)	2,350	0.041
26	Leeds-Bradford	United Kingdom	1,499,000 (2001)	4,050	0.241
27	Stockholm	Sweden	1,400,000 (2000)	2,700	0.581
28	Marseille--Aix-en-Provence	France	1,350,000 (1999)	1,100	0.461
29	Turin	Italy	1,350,000 (2000)	2,750	-0.161
30	Lyon	France	1,349,000 (1999)	1,400	0.501
31	Stuttgart	Germany	1,250,000 (2001)	3,000
32	Dublin	Ireland	1,230,000 (2006)	2,800	1.141
33	Prague	Czech Republic	1,200,000 (2003)	4,200	-0.071
34	Glasgow	United Kingdom	1,200,000 (2001)	3,250	0.071
35	Valencia	Spain	1,175,000 (2001)	4,300	0.291
36	Amsterdam	Netherlands	1,100,000 (2005)	2,650	0.411
37	Helsinki	Finland	1,100,000 (2000)	2,250	0.811
38	Lille--Kortrijk	France,  Belgium	1,050,000 (1999)	2,200	0.501
39	Sofia	Bulgaria	1,050,000 (2001)	5,050	0.781
40	Porto	Portugal	1,035,000 (2001)	2,650	1.051
41	Nuremberg	Germany	1,020,000 (2001)	3,050
42	Lodz	Poland	950,000 (2002)	5,250	-0.671
43	Antwerp	Belgium	915,000 (2003)	1,400	0.051
44	Nice	France	889,000 (1999)	1,250	0.521
45	Newcastle upon Tyne	United Kingdom	880,000 (2001)	4,150	0.161
46	Liverpool	United Kingdom	816,000 (2001)	4,400	0.111
47	Thessaloniki	Greece	800,000 (2001)	4,100	0.391
48	Gdansk	Poland	775,000 (2002)	5,000
49	Toulouse	France	761,000 (1999)	950	0.721
50	Bordeaux	France	754,000 (1999)	700	0.601
51	Florence	Italy	750,000 (2001)	2,750
52	Palermo	Italy	750,000 (2001)	5,150	0.121
53	Riga	Latvia	750,000 (2005)	2,900
54	Bilbao	Spain	750,000 (2001)	5,800
55	Seville	Spain	750,000 (2001)	5,550

EFTA countries

Two European Free Trade Association countries have urban areas that would be included in the list if they were EU member states.

Urban Area	State	Population	Density (per km²)	Growth rate (%)
Zürich	Switzerland	830,000 (2003)	3,650	0.351
Oslo	Norway	800,000 (2004)	2,450	0.991

References

Figures without citations are from Demographia: World Urban Areas

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae} United Nations: World Urbanization Prospects

See also

• Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits
• Largest European metropolitan areas
• Larger Urban Zones in the European Union
• List of urban areas by population
• Blue Banana

External links

• Geopolis list of urban areas (as tabulated by INSEE).
• Population of urban areas provided by UK National Statistics for UK urban areas

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