Functional urban area

Eurostat's urban population statistics

Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, has created the concept of Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) in an effort to harmonise definitions of urbanisation in the European Union. These definitions were agreed between Eurostat and the National Statistics Offices of the different countries of the European Union at the occasion of the European Commission's urban audit of 2004. LUZs have been criticised for their insufficient harmonisation of data, which are still collected by national governments within local administrative units, making it sometimes difficult to compare LUZs from different countries.

Eurostat's urban definitions

The below list shows the population sizes by two spatial definitions: Larger Urban Zone and City. Eurostat typically defines the City Level by using political boundaries in order to make this definition directly relevant to policy makers and politicians. In many countries these boundaries are clearly established and well-known. As a result, for most cities the boundary used in the Urban Audit corresponds to the general perception of that city. However, for some cities such as for instance Paris it was necessary to develop another definition (see below). The Larger Urban Zone represents a harmonised definition of the metropolitan area. Eurostat's objective was to have an area from a significant share of the resident commute into the city, a concept known as the “functional urban region”. To ensure a good data availability, Eurostat works with administrative boundaries that approximate the functional urban region.

Ranking methodology

The list below contains the cities in the European Union that participated in the second round of the Urban Audit programme. For those cities selected, the population for Eurostat's spatial definitions of City and Larger Urban Zone is shown. This approach avoids the list containing Larger Urban Zones that are commonly not regarded as true cities, eg Randstad. The cities are ranked by the size of the population of the Larger Urban Zone. Other lists can be created by using different selection criteria and by ranking using a different criterion. Whatever the selection or ranking methodology, the figures in the Eurostat database are an attempt at a compromise between harmonised data for all of the European Union, and with availability of statistical data, making comparisons more accurate. The data used is from the 2004 Urban Audit II, which uses information collected for 2001.

European Union cities by LUZ and City Level population, in millions

Rank	City name	Country	Larger Urban Zone	City Level Definition
1	London	United Kingdom	11.62	7.17 (2.77)
2	Paris	France	10.95	6.16 (2.13)
3	Madrid	Spain	5.37	2.96
4	Ruhr Area	Germany	5.36	---
5	Berlin	Germany	4.94	3.39
6	Barcelona	Spain	4.80	1.51
7	Milan	Italy	3.90	1.26
8	Athens	Greece	3.89	0.79
9	Rome	Italy	3.70	2.55
10	Hamburg	Germany	3.08	1.73
11	Naples	Italy	3.06	1.00
12	Katowice - Żory	Poland	2.75	0.34, 0.07
13	Warsaw	Poland	2.63	1.61
14	Manchester	United Kingdom	2.51	0.42
15	Frankfurt	Germany	2.49	0.64
16	Budapest	Hungary	2.45	1.78
17	Munich	Germany	2.45	1.23
18	Lisboa	Portugal	2.36	0.56
19	Leeds - Bradford	United Kingdom	2.36	0.72, 0.47
20	Birmingham	United Kingdom	2.34	0.98
21	Valencia	Spain	2.23	0.75
22	Turin	Italy	2.17	0.87
23	Bucharest	Romania	2.14	1.94
24	Vienna	Austria	2.12	1.55
25	Prague	Czech Republic	1.94	1.17
26	Cologne	Germany	1.85	0.97
27	Stockholm	Sweden	1.82	0.75
28	Copenhagen	Denmark	1.81	0.50
29	Brussels	Belgium	1.75	0.97
30	Glasgow	United Kingdom	1.75	0.58
31	Seville	Spain	1.75	0.70
32	Lyon	France	1.65	1.17
33	Bari	Italy	1.56	0.32
34	Dublin	Ireland	1.54	0.50
35	Düsseldorf	Germany	1.52	0.57
36	Liverpool	United Kingdom	1.36	0.44
37	Rotterdam	Netherlands	1.35	0.60
38	Amsterdam	Netherlands	1.32	0.73
39	Málaga	Spain	1.30	0.53
40	Bielefeld	Germany	1.29	0.32
41	Hanover	Germany	1.28	0.52
42	Nuremberg	Germany	1.27	0.49
43	Sheffield	United Kingdom	1.26	0.51
44	Sofia	Bulgaria	1.26	1.09
45	Kraków	Poland	1.26	0.74
46	Palermo	Italy	1.24	0.69
47	Helsinki	Finland	1.21	0.56
48	Murcia	Spain	1.19	0.37
49	Łódź	Poland	1.18	0.79
50	Ostrava	Czech Republic	1.16	0.32
51	Florence	Italy	1.16	0.36
52	Lille	France	1.14	1.09
53	Bremen	Germany	1.12	0.54
54	Utrecht	Netherlands	1.12	0.26
55	Santiago de Compostela	Spain	1.11	0.09
56	Gdańsk	Poland	1.10	0.46
57	Porto	Portugal	1.09	0.26
58	Thessaloniki	Greece	1.08	0.39
59	Oviedo	Spain	1.08	0.20
60	Catania	Italy	1.05	0.31
61	Wrocław	Poland	1.03	0.63
62	Riga	Latvia	1.02	0.76
63	Poznań	Poland	1.01	0.57

Urban Audit

Eurostat's Urban Audit is about much more than demographics. In order for it to be useful as a policy tool to the European Commission and other authorities it contains data for over 250 indicators across the following domains:

• Demography
• Social Aspects
• Economic Aspects
• Civic Involvement
• Training and Education
• Environment
• Travel and Transport
• Information Society
• Culture and Recreation

See also

• Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits
• Largest European metropolitan areas
• Largest urban areas of the European Union
• List of urban areas by population