List of metropolitan areas in Europe

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Moscow, the capital of Russia, has the most populous metropolitan area in Europe. Panoramic view of Moscow3.jpg
Moscow, the capital of Russia, has the most populous metropolitan area in Europe.
Europe and some parts of Africa and Asia by night. Lights reveal the urbanized areas of Europe. It also shows the Blue Banana megalopolis from north-west England to northern Italy, and the Golden Banana urbanized area between Genoa and Valencia. Europa-bei-nacht 1-1024x768.jpg
Europe and some parts of Africa and Asia by night. Lights reveal the urbanized areas of Europe. It also shows the Blue Banana megalopolis from north-west England to northern Italy, and the Golden Banana urbanized area between Genoa and Valencia.
Blue, Golden, Green Bananas Blue Golden Green Bananas in Europe.svg
Blue, Golden, Green Bananas

This list ranks metropolitan areas in Europe by their population according to three different sources; it includes metropolitan areas that have a population of over 1 million.

Contents

Sources

List includes metropolitan areas according only to the studies of ESPON, Eurostat, and OECD. For this reason some metropolitan areas, like the Italian Genoa Metropolitan Area (with a population of 1,510,781 as of 2010 [1] ) or the Ukrainian Kryvyi Rih metropolitan area (with a population of 1,170,953 as of 2019 [2] ), are not included in this list, with data by other statistic survey institutes.

Population figures correspond to the populations of Functional urban areas (FUA). The concept of a functional urban area defines a metropolitan area as a core urban area defined morphologically on the basis of population density, plus the surrounding labour pool defined on the basis of commuting. Figures in the first two population columns use a harmonised definition of a Functional urban area developed jointly in 2011, with delimitation basing on the DEGURBA method. [3] [4]

Further information on how the areas are defined can be found in the source documents. These figures should be seen as an interpretation, not as conclusive fact.

Metropolitan areas

  Areas within the European Union

Polycentric metropolitan areas in the European Union

RankAreaStatePopulation [7]
1 Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region Flag of Germany.svg  Germany 12,190,000
2 Randstad Flag of the Netherlands.svg  Netherlands 6,787,000
3 Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area Flag of Poland.svg  Poland/ Flag of the Czech Republic.svg  Czech Republic 5,294,000
4 Flemish Diamond Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium 5,103,000
5 Vienna-Bratislava metropolitan region Flag of Austria.svg  Austria/ Flag of Slovakia.svg  Slovakia 4,600,000

See also

Regional and country-specific lists

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Continental placement may vary depending on geographic convention being followed.
  2. 1 2 Combined total population of Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area.
  3. ↑ 65% of the population lives on the European part
  4. ↑ Lists Nottingham (919,484) and Derby (486,831) as two separate metropolitan areas.
  5. ↑ Lists Portsmouth (542,040) and Southampton (687,971) as two separate metropolitan areas.
  6. 1 2 3 Polycentric metropolitan area
  7. ↑ Lists Düsseldorf (1,087,466), Wuppertal (872,475), and Mönchengladbach (597,287) as three separate metropolitan areas.
  8. ↑ Lists Düsseldorf (1,482,443), Wuppertal (387,599), and Mönchengladbach (409,060) as three separate metropolitan areas.
  9. ↑ Lists Cologne (2,234,016) and Bonn (800,465) as two separate metropolitan areas.

References

  1. ↑ "Urbanismi, Cluster urbani e aree metropolitane – volume primo, Italia" (PDF) (in Italian). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  2. ↑ "Чисельність наявного населення України на 1 січня 2019" (PDF).(in Ukrainian)
  3. ↑ Lewis Dijkstra, Hugo Poelman (2012-03-01). Cities in Europe - The new OECD-EC definition (PDF) (Report). p. 2. Retrieved 2024-06-08. Until recently, there was no harmonised definition of 'a city' for European and other countries member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This undermined the comparability, and thus also the credibility, of cross-country analysis of cities. To resolve this problem, the OECD and the European Commission developed a new definition of a city and its commuting zone in 2011. […] Each city is part of its own commuting zone or a polycentric commuting zone covering multiple cities. These commuting zones are significant, especially for larger cities. The cities and commuting zones together (called Larger Urban Zones) account for 60 % of the EU population.
  4. ↑ "Territorial typologies manual - cities, commuting zones and functional urban areas". Eurostat. Within the Urban Audit, (...) functional urban areas were previously referred to as 'larger urban zones'.
  5. ↑ "OECD: FUAs and Cities". OECD . Retrieved 10 October 2024.
  6. ↑ "Database". ec.europa.eu. Eurostat . Retrieved 3 November 2025. Population on 1 January by age groups and sex - functional urban areas (urb_lpop1)
  7. ↑ European Spatial Planning Observation Network, Study on Urban Functions (Project 1.4.3) Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine , Final Report, Chapter 3, (ESPON, 2007) page 241-243
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