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Size Comparison of the UK’s 30 Most Populous Urban Areas

In UK census terms, an urban area refers to any contiguous stretch of “irreversibly urban” land. By ONS definition, a built-up area must be at least 20 hectares (200,000 m²) in size, and any smaller gaps under 200 m are bridged and treated as part of the same built-up zone. In practice this means towns or cities that nearly touch each other form one larger urban area. For example, settlements like London and Reading will count as a single built-up area only if the green space between them shrinks below 200 m.

Using 2011 census data, the 30 most populous built-up areas in the UK (population over 100,000) are as follows. (For brevity, the table lists only total population and land area; most areas have densities around 3,000–4,500 people per km² by this definition.)

RankUrban Area (BUA)Population (2011)Area (km²)
1Greater London9,787,4261,737.9
2Greater Manchester2,553,379630.3
3West Midlands2,440,986598.9
4West Yorkshire1,777,934487.8
5Greater Glasgow957,620368.5
6Liverpool864,122199.6
7South Hampshire855,569192.0
8Tyneside (Newcastle area)774,891180.5
9Nottingham729,977176.4
10Sheffield685,368167.5
11Bristol617,280144.4
12Belfast (N. Ireland)595,879960.0
13Leicester508,916109.4
14Edinburgh482,270125.0
15Brighton & Hove474,48589.4
16Bournemouth–Poole466,266131.0
17Cardiff447,287102.3
18Teesside (Middlesbrough)376,633108.2
19Stoke-on-Trent372,775103.9
20Coventry359,26281.3
21Sunderland335,415137.5
22Birkenhead (Wirral area)325,26488.2
23Reading318,01483.7
24Kingston upon Hull314,01882.6
25Preston313,32282.4
26Newport (S. Wales)306,84484.2
27Swansea (S. Wales)300,35287.6
28Southend-on-Sea295,31071.8
29Derby270,46864.1
30Plymouth260,20359.7

The map below, created by Reddit user jesus_stalin shows these areas in geographic context. Greater London (in the southeast) clearly dwarfs the rest, with nearly 9.8 million people over ~1,738 km². Most other areas are much smaller: Manchester’s conurbation has ~2.55 M, Birmingham (West Midlands) ~2.44 M, Leeds/Bradford (West Yorkshire) ~1.78 M, etc.

Urban areas in the United Kingdom

For perspective, London’s built-up area had about 5,630 people per km² in 2011. That is actually quite high by world-city standards. Tokyo–Yokohama (37.8 M people, 8,775 km²) averaged roughly 4,300/km². Paris’s urban area (~11.1 M, 2,854 km²) is about 3,900/km². By contrast, sprawling American metros are much less dense: New York’s 2011 built-up area (~21.4 M, 11,344 km²) works out to only 1,900/km², and Los Angeles (~15.6 M, 6,918 km²) about 2,250/km². In other words, London’s urban core is actually denser than Tokyo or Paris, and far denser than New York or LA – even though its total population is smaller than Tokyo’s.

What do you think? Drop a comment below to share your thoughts on Britain’s biggest cities and how they compare globally.

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