Urban areas of France in 2010, broken down by communes: Red: urban communes also urban poles of an urban area Orange: other urban communes in a single urban area Yellow: urban communes linked to at least two urban areas White: rural communes |
An aire urbaine (literal and official translation: "urban area") [1] is an INSEE (France's national statistics bureau) statistical concept describing a core of urban development and the extent of its commuter activity. It was replaced by the concept "functional area" (French : aire d'attraction des villes), which uses the same definition as Eurostat's functional urban areas, in 2020. [2] [3]
The aire urbaine is built from France's nationwide interlocking administrative commune municipalities: when a commune has over 2000 inhabitants and contains a centre of dense construction (buildings spaced no more than 200 metres apart), it is combined with other adjoining communes fulfilling the same criteria to become a single unité urbaine ("urban unit" [4] ); if an urban unit offers over 10,000 jobs and its economical development is enough to draw more than 40% of the population of a nearby municipalities (and other municipalities drawn to these in the same way) as commuters, it becomes a pôle urbain ("urban cluster" [5] ) and the "commuter municipalities" become its couronne ("rim" [6] ), but this only on the condition that the urban unit itself is not part of another urban cluster's rim. The aire urbaine is an urban cluster and its rim combined, or a statistical area describing a central urban core and its economic influence on surrounding municipalities.
As of 2010, depending on their population and function, aires urbaines adopt the following secondary appellations:
In France, multiple words exist to define various kinds of urban area.
One of the first words used was the word agglomération, which was first used to deal with a group of people. The word was used, for instance, in a law from 5 April 1884 (loi du 5 avril 1884), in which Article 98 gives the mayor police power (pouvoirs de police), meaning authority over the city, but only within the agglomération. That law was used as a legal precedent in 1907 to forbid a mayor from setting a speed limit on the road next to a farm, considering that at that time, a group of houses inside a farm might be an agglomération, but the road next to it was not inside the agglomération. [9] [10]
Later, in the 1920s, the concept of agglomération was used in the code de la route (Highway code) to define specific law within or outside of such a zone.
In 1968, the French word agglomération was introduced in the French version of the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic in the place where the English word built-up area was used in the English version of the same treaty. In this treaty, the word is only defined as a concept signalled by an entry sign and an exit sign, while still allowing members of the treaty to have different definitions.
Nowadays, words with an English origin or meaning tend to be introduced into the French language as loanwords, in order to describe new concepts, words or meanings, or to replace old words. Such words include: aire urbaine (urban area); métropole (metropolis); agglomération (agglomeration); communauté urbaine (urban community); Grand + the name of a city (Grand Paris, Grand Toulouse).
As a member of the European Union and the OECD, for statistical purposes, France may need to consider the regions inside or outside of the limits of an urban area.
The following is a list of the twenty largest aires urbaines (metropolitan areas) in France, based on their population at the 2016 census. Population at the 2011 and 2006 census is indicated for comparison.
In both time intervals presented in the table below (2006 to 2011 and 2011 to 2016), the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in France were Bordeaux, Montpellier, Toulouse, Nantes, Rennes and Lyon with an average annual growth rate equal or greater than 1%.
Rank (2016) | Rank (2011) | Rank (2006) | Aire urbaine (metropolitan area) | Population (2016) [11] | Population (2011) | Population (2006) | Yearly change (2011-2016) | Yearly change (2006-2011) | Land area (km2) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | 1 | Paris | 12,568,755 | 12,292,895 | 11,956,493 | +0.44% | +0.56% | 17,174 |
2 | 2 | 2 | Lyon | 2,310,850 | 2,188,759 | 2,085,107 | +1.09% | +0.98% | 6,019 |
3 | 3 | 3 | Marseille - Aix-en-Provence | 1,756,296 | 1,720,941 | 1,692,459 | +0.41% | +0.33% | 3,174 |
4 | 4 | 4 | Toulouse | 1,345,343 | 1,250,251 | 1,169,865 | +1.48% | +1.34% | 5,381 |
5 | 6 | 6 | Bordeaux | 1,232,550 | 1,140,668 | 1,086,106 | +1.56% | +0.99% | 5,613 |
6 | 5 | 5 | Lille (French part) | 1,187,820 | 1,159,547 | 1,152,507 | +0.48% | +0.12% | 926 |
7 | 7 | 7 | Nice | 1,006,402 | 1,003,947 | 995,968 | +0.05% | +0.16% | 2,585 |
8 | 8 | 8 | Nantes | 961,521 | 884,275 | 841,404 | +1.69% | +1.00% | 3,302 |
9 | 9 | 9 | Strasbourg (French part) | 785,839 | 764,013 | 749,766 | +0.56% | +0.38% | 2,198 |
10 | 10 | 12 | Rennes | 727,357 | 679,866 | 637,673 | +1.36% | +1.29% | 3,747 |
11 | 11 | 10 | Grenoble | 687,985 | 675,122 | 659,459 | +0.38% | +0.47% | 2,621 |
12 | 12 | 11 | Rouen | 665,249 | 655,013 | 643,499 | +0.31% | +0.36% | 2,367 |
13 | 13 | 13 | Toulon | 626,504 | 606,987 | 598,514 | +0.63% | +0.28% | 1,196 |
14 | 14 | 15 | Montpellier | 607,896 | 561,326 | 529,401 | +1.61% | +1.18% | 1,673 |
15 | 15 | 14 | Douai - Lens | 539,064 | 542,946 | 545,636 | -0.14% | −0.10% | 679 |
16 | 16 | 17 | Avignon | 529,190 | 515,123 | 501,866 | +0.54% | +0.52% | 2,083 |
17 | 17 | 16 | Saint-Étienne | 519,834 | 508,548 | 508,284 | +0.44% | +0.01% | 1,689 |
18 | 18 | 18 | Tours | 494,453 | 480,378 | 469,244 | +0.58% | +0.47% | 3,184 |
19 | 19 | 19 | Clermont-Ferrand | 482,472 | 467,178 | 454,553 | +0.65% | +0.55% | 2,420 |
20 | 20 | 20 | Nancy | 435,356 | 434,565 | 432,481 | +0.04% | +0.10% | 2,367 |
A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which are sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metropolitan area usually comprises multiple principal cities, jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships, boroughs, cities, towns, exurbs, suburbs, counties, districts and even states and nations in areas like the eurodistricts. As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions.
Drancy is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris in the Seine-Saint-Denis department in northern France. It is located 10.8 km (6.7 mi) from the center of Paris.
Pantin is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France, France. It is located 6.4 km (4.0 mi) from the centre of Paris. In 2019 its population was estimated to be 59,846. Pantin is located on the edge of the city of Paris and is mainly formed by a plain crossed by national roadway 2 and 3, the Paris–Strasbourg railway line and the canal de l'Ourcq.
Bobigny is a commune, or town, in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France, France. It is located 9.1 km (5.7 mi) from the centre of Paris. Bobigny is the prefecture of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, as well as the seat of the Arrondissement of Bobigny. It is the 11th most populous commune in Seine-Saint-Denis (2019).
Le Bourget is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 10.6 km from the center of Paris.
La Courneuve is a commune in Seine-Saint-Denis, France. It is located 8.3 km (5.2 mi) from the center of Paris.
Le Kremlin-Bicêtre is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is 4.5 km (2.8 mi) from the center of Paris. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe.
In France, an urban unit is a statistical area defined by INSEE, the French national statistics office, for the measurement of contiguously built-up areas. According to the INSEE definition , an "unité urbaine" is a commune alone or a grouping of communes which: a) form a single unbroken spread of urban development, with no distance between habitations greater than 200 m and b) have all together a population greater than 2,000 inhabitants. Communes not belonging to an unité urbaine are considered rural.
The Paris metropolitan area is a statistical area that describes the reach of commuter movement to and from Paris, France and its surrounding suburbs.
Saint-Galmier is a city in eastern France. It is a commune in Loire department, and belongs to the arrondissement of Montbrison. Saint-Galmier covers an area of 19.5 square kilometers. As of January 2021, it had a population of 5,842.
Nice metropolitan area as defined by INSEE in 2021 is the functional urban area or commuting zone of the city of Nice, southeastern France. It covers 100 communes, has 1,103,527 inhabitants (2021) and an area of 2,073 km2. It partly overlaps with the urban unit of Nice, which covers some cities, e.g. Antibes, Grasse and Cannes, that are part of the functional area Cannes-Antibes.
Saint-Martin-de-Bavel is a commune in the Ain department in eastern France.
Mauves is a commune in the Ardèche department in southern France. It is about 10 km north of Valence and 75 km south of Lyon.
Chambon is a commune in the Cher department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France.
Marcilly-sur-Tille is a commune in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France.
Talasani is a rural commune and village on the eastern seaboard of Corsica, in the Haute-Corse department of France. The area has a very low population density and mainly comprises forests and farmland. As a coastal municipality, Talasani enforces strict urban planning provisions in order to preserve the ecological balance of the coast.
Bonneuil-en-France is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France.
Grenoble metropolitan area as defined by INSEE in 2020 is the functional urban area of the city of Grenoble, southeastern France. It covers 204 communes, all in the Isère department. It has 714,799 inhabitants (2018) in an area of 2,876 km2 (1,110 sq mi), which is 39% of the Isère department. Grenoble and 15 other communes form the pôle urbain or urban cluster, the other 188 communes form the couronne or commuter belt. The most populous communes in the functional area are Grenoble, Échirolles, Fontaine, Meylan, Le Pont-de-Claix, Saint-Égrève, Saint-Martin-d'Hères, Sassenage, Seyssinet-Pariset and Voiron, all except Voiron part of the pôle urbain. It is the 11th-most populous functional urban area in France.
Cherbourg-en-Cotentin is a port city in the department of Manche, Normandy, northwestern France, established on 1 January 2016. The commune takes its name from Cherbourg, the main town of the commune, and from the Cotentin Peninsula. Cherbourg is an important commercial, ferry and military port on the English Channel.
An aire d'attraction d'une ville is a statistical area used by France's national statistics office INSEE since 2020, officially translated as functional area in English by INSEE, which consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and the surrounding exurbs, towns and intervening rural areas that are socioeconomically tied to the central urban agglomeration, as measured by commuting patterns. INSEE's functional area (AAV) is therefore akin to what is most often called metropolitan area in English.