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

This list was created in order to help solve the problem of widely diverging numbers that are found online, or even on Wikipedia, for the population of European cities. Numbers here have been compiled using a uniform definition and the limits of urban areas have been harmonized as of 2000, so they can be compared with each other. The list was designed in 2000, and figures for 2005 that are presented here have been calculated using the 1990-2000 population growth rate for each city. It is possible that a few urban areas may have experienced a very different growth pattern since 2000, in which case the figures given here would differ slightly from reality, but this should play only at the margin.

Contents

1 Important notes 2 Urban areas of the European Union above 750,000 inhabitants 2.1 Note 3 EFTA countries 4 Five fastest growing urban areas of the European Union 5 Five fastest declining urban areas of the European Union 6 Sources 7 See also

Important notes

• This is a list of urban areas, this is not a list of metropolitan areas. Urban areas are contiguous built-up areas where houses are not more than 200 meters 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.
• The majority of European statistical offices do not have a definition for metropolitan areas, they only define urban areas, therefore it is not possible to give figures for metropolitan areas. Figures for European metropolitan areas that can be found online, such as London 13 million inhabitants, Randstad 7 million, etc., are only rough estimates, and should be taken with a lot of care. France is one of the few countries in Europe that actually define metropolitan areas, and calculate their population. See aire urbaine for a definition and a list of French metropolitan areas.
• Figures here are accurate, unlike rough estimates of European metropolitan areas than can be found online. However, figures here cannot be compared with figures of American metropolitan areas. The Census Bureau in the United States computes metropolitan areas, which are larger than urban areas. The Census Bureau does not compute urban areas, so that it is practically impossible to compare the size of American and European cities, except in the case of a few European coutries such as France where the statistical office computes metropolitan areas.
• Please do not be surprised if you are used to higher figures for the cities listed below. London is frequently listed with 13 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 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, but the majority of European statistical offices do not define or compute metropolitan areas.
• Figures for urban areas in the United Kingdom use a 50 meters definition, not 200 meters.

Urban areas of the European Union above 750,000 inhabitants

Rank	Urban Area	Population (2005)	Annual change (1990s)
1	Paris, France	10 136 000	0.21%	(0.49% in the 2000s)
2	London, United Kingdom	8 505 000	0.68%
3	Ruhr area-Essen-Dortmund-Duisburg, Germany	5 214 000	– 0.14%
4	Madrid, Spain	4 868 000	0.32%
5	Barcelona, Spain	4 043 000	0.00%
6	Berlin, Germany	3 764 000	0.12%
7	Milan, Italy	3 695 000	– 0.35%
8	Rotterdam-The Hague, Netherlands	3 345 000	0.50%
9	Athens, Greece	3 247 000	0.37%
10	Naples, Italy	2 887 000	0.00%
11	Rome, Italy	2 605 000	– 0.85%
12	Katowice-Upper Silesia, Poland	2 481 000	– 0.95%
13	Cologne-Bonn, Germany	2 475 000	0.63%
14	South Ruhr-Düsseldorf-Wuppertal, Germany	2 382 000	0.14%
15	Lisbon, Portugal	2 377 000	0.27%
16	Hamburg, Germany	2 293 000	0.54%
17	Birmingham, United Kingdom	2 275 000	– 0.10%
18	Manchester, United Kingdom	2 237 000	– 0.09%
19	Budapest, Hungary	2 228 000	– 0.60%
20	Warsaw, Poland	2 069 000	0.01%
21	Brussels, Belgium	1 975 000	0.52%
22	Vienna, Austria	1 893 000	0.25%
23	Munich, Germany	1 656 000	0.20%
24	Leeds, United Kingdom	1 520 000	0.35%
25	Frankfurt, Germany	1 489 000	0.29%
26	Lyon, France	1 465 000	0.46%
27	Copenhagen, Denmark	1 417 000	0.39%
28	Marseilles, France	1 374 000	0.29%
29	Lille-Kortrijk, France & Belgium	1 368 000 ¹	0.19%
30	Valencia, Spain	1 362 000	0.10%
31	Porto, Portugal	1 303 000	0.71%
32	Stockholm, Sweden	1 273 000	1.08%
33	Turin, Italy	1 267 000	– 0.95%
34	Stuttgart, Germany	1 239 000	0.30%
35	Amsterdam, Netherlands	1 196 000	0.64%
36	Bielefeld, Germany	1 184 000	0.65%
37	Prague, Czech Republic	1 161 000	– 0.36%
38	Glasgow, United Kingdom	1 156 000	– 0.26%
39	Liverpool-Birkenhead, United Kingdom	1 119 000	– 0.34%
40	Antwerp, Belgium	1 094 000	0.27%
41	Seville, Spain	1 072 000	0.56%
42	Helsinki, Finland	1 071 000	1.46%
43	Newcastle-Sunderland, United Kingdom	1 056 000	– 0.16%
44	Dublin, Ireland	1 016 000	0.53%
45	Lodz, Poland	972 000	– 0.59%
46	Bilbao, Spain	919 000	– 0.35%
47	Nice, France	912 000	0.42%
48	Mannheim, Germany	907 000	0.29%
49	Riga, Latvia	893 000	– 1.36%
50	Florence, Italy	874 000	– 0.54%
51	Toulouse, France	863 000	1.47%	(2.11% in the 2000s)
52	Bremen, Germany	861 000	0.27%
53	Gdansk-Gdynia, Poland	849 000	0.16%
54	Thessaloniki, Greece	828 000	0.67%
55	Bordeaux, France	811 000	0.63%
56	Cracow, Poland	794 000	0.37%
57	Hannover, Germany	768 000	0.25%
58	Nuremberg, Germany	765 000	0.24%
59	Genoa, Italy	756 000	– 1.01%

Note

1. 75% of these on French soil, 25% on Belgian soil

EFTA countries

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

Rank	Urban Area	Population	Annual change (1990s)
1	Zürich, Switzerland	1 011 000	0.19%
2	Oslo, Norway	810 000	1.09%

Five fastest growing urban areas of the European Union

Rank	Urban Area	Annual change (1990s)
1	Toulouse, France	1.47%	(2.11% in the 2000s)
2	Helsinki, Finland	1.46%
3	Stockholm, Sweden	1.08%
4	Porto, Portugal	0.71%
5	London, United Kingdom	0.68%

Five fastest declining urban areas of the European Union

Rank	Urban Area	Annual change (1990s)
1	Riga, Latvia	– 1.36%
2	Genoa, Italy	– 1.01%
3	Katowice, Poland	– 0.95%
3	Turin, Italy	– 0.95%
5	Rome, Italy	– 0.85%

Sources

• Geopolis research group at the University of Avignon, France for the majority of urban areas in the list
• Population of urban areas provided by UK National Statistics for UK urban areas
• Bank of Regional Data of the Polish Central Statistical Office for Polish urban areas
• Latest 2004 population estimates of French cities by INSEE for revised figures for Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, and Bordeaux (the growth pattern in these urban areas during 1999-2004 is significantly higher than during 1990-1999)
• Czech Statistical Office for Czech urban areas
• Citypopulation.de for Latvian urban areas
• Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finish, and Greek statistical offices for urban areas of these countries

See also

• Largest Cities of the European Union by population
• Largest European metropolitan areas