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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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Urban areas over 750,000 inhabitants

Katowice (Upper Silesian Metropolis)

Bucharest

Frankfurt

Sofia

Rank	Urban Area	State	Population (2008 est.)	Density (per km²)	Annual growth rate (%)
1	Paris	France	10,480,000	3,400	0.83
2	London	United Kingdom	8,580,000	5,100	0.07
3	Ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet)	Germany	7,280,000	2,750	0.01
4	Madrid	Spain	5,370,000	5,200	0.27
5	Milan	Italy	4,335,000	1,750	-0.16
6	Barcelona	Spain	4,185,000	4,850	0.12
7	Athens	Greece	4,013,000	5,400	0.29
8	Berlin	Germany	3,700,000	3,750	0.00
9	Naples	Italy	3,020,000	3,850	-0.13
10	Rome	Italy	2,715,000	3,200	-0.16
11	Katowice	Poland	2,500,000	4,400	0.11
12	Lisbon	Portugal	2,375,000	2,550	0.39
13	Frankfurt	Germany	2,295,000	3,350	0.50
14	West Midlands	United Kingdom	2,290,000	3,800	-0.03
15	Greater Manchester	United Kingdom	2,240,000	4,000	-0.03
16	Rotterdam-The Hague	Netherlands	2,095,000	2,450	0.39
17	Budapest	Hungary	2,055,000	2,350	-0.19
18	Cologne/Bonn	Germany	2,045,000	2,100	0.50
19	Warsaw	Poland	2,030,000	3,700	0.67
20	Bucharest	Romania	2,000,000 (2003)	7,000	0.10^[1]
21	Hamburg	Germany	1,925,000 (2001)	2,700	0.43^[1]
22	Munich	Germany	1,675,000 (2001)	3,600	0.72^[1]
23	Brussels	Belgium	1,625,000 (2005)	2,150	0.02^[1]
24	Vienna	Austria	1,550,000 (2001)	3,400	1.04^[1]
25	Copenhagen	Denmark	1,525,000 (2003)	2,350	0.04^[1]
26	Leeds-Bradford	United Kingdom	1,499,000 (2001)	4,050	0.24^[1]
27	Stockholm	Sweden	1,400,000 (2000)	2,700	0.58^[1]
28	Marseille--Aix-en-Provence	France	1,350,000 (1999)	1,100	0.46^[1]
29	Turin	Italy	1,350,000 (2000)	2,750	-0.16^[1]
30	Lyon	France	1,349,000 (1999)	1,400	0.50^[1]
31	Stuttgart	Germany	1,250,000 (2001)	3,000
32	Dublin	Ireland	1,230,000 (2006)	2,800	1.14^[1]
33	Prague	Czech Republic	1,200,000 (2003)	4,200	-0.07^[1]
34	Greater Glasgow	United Kingdom	1,200,000 (2001)	3,250	0.07^[1]
35	Valencia	Spain	1,175,000 (2001)	4,300	0.29^[1]
36	Amsterdam	Netherlands	1,100,000 (2005)	2,650	0.41^[1]
37	Helsinki	Finland	1,100,000 (2000)	2,250	0.81^[1]
38	Lille--Kortrijk	France, Belgium	1,050,000 (1999)	2,200	0.50^[1]
39	Sofia	Bulgaria	1,050,000 (2001)	5,050	0.78^[1]
40	Porto	Portugal	1,035,000 (2001)	2,650	1.05^[1]
41	Nuremberg	Germany	1,020,000 (2001)	3,050
42	Łódź	Poland	950,000 (2002)	5,250	-0.67^[1]
43	Antwerp	Belgium	915,000 (2003)	1,400	0.05^[1]
44	Nice	France	889,000 (1999)	1,250	0.52^[1]
45	Tyneside	United Kingdom	880,000 (2001)	4,150	0.16^[1]
46	Liverpool Urban Area	United Kingdom	816,000 (2001)	4,400	0.11^[1]
47	Thessaloniki	Greece	800,000 (2001)	4,100	0.39^[1]
48	Gdańsk	Poland	775,000 (2002)	5,000
49	Toulouse	France	761,000 (1999)	950	0.72^[1]
50	Bordeaux	France	754,000 (1999)	700	0.60^[1]
51	Florence	Italy	750,000 (2001)	2,750
52	Palermo	Italy	750,000 (2001)	5,150	0.12^[1]
53	Riga	Latvia	750,000 (2005)	2,900
54	Bilbao	Spain	750,000 (2001)	5,800
55	Seville	Spain	750,000 (2001)	5,550