The chart above shows the population of each urban area with a population over 800,000 while the chart below shows all urban areas with a population between 500,000 and 800,000. The urban areas have been normalized so as to avoid any inconsistencies with how cities and their metropolitan areas are defined by their governments. Each urban area has similar characteristics making this the definitive method with which to compare cities across various countries. Russia has the largest urban area by far.
Findings
- The difference between the urban area with the greatest population, Moscow, and the urban area with the least, Karlsruhe, is 16,625,000 people.
- Moscow has 34.25 times the population that Karlsruhe does.
- The median population of urban areas with a minimum population of 500,000 in Europe is 815,000 people and the mean 1,435,397.35 people.
Caveats
- Data is from 2020.
- The methodology for how these urban areas have been defined can be found in the source link below. As of this writing this is the most reliable way to compare urban areas throughout the world.
- Some of these urban areas span several states, and the state that is being used here is the one where the core of the urban area is located. For instance, Milan's urban area spans both Italy and Switzerland, but since the core of the urban area is in Italy it would be listed as an Italian urban area and not a Swiss one.
- All figures are rounded to the nearest whole.
Details
Only 31 of the 51 European states have urban areas with at least 500,000 people. Of these, Russia has 40; Germany has 16; the United Kingdom has 14; France, Italy, and Spain each have 11; Ukraine has eight; Poland has seven; Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland each have three; Belarus, Greece, Portugal, and Sweden each have two; and Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, North Macedonia, Norway, Romania, and Serbia each have one.
Of the 151 urban areas with a population over 500,000, 58 have a population of over 1 million. Six have a population of more than 5 million, and three have a population of more than 10 million.
Hungary has the largest mean population in its urban areas over 500,000 people with a mean of 2,395,000 people distributed among its one urban area. Greece has the second largest mean population in its urban areas over 500,000 people with a mean of 2,085,000 people distributed among its two urban areas.
The Aland Islands, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Iceland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and the Vatican City do not have any urban areas with a population over 500,000 inhabitants.
Sources
Demographia. 2021. "Demographia World Urban Areas: 16th Annual Edition." Accessed March 9, 2021. http://demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf.