This statistic shows the ten largest cities in France as of 2022. In 2022, around 2.11 million people lived in Paris, making it the largest city in France.

Paris was in 2022 the most populated city in France with over *** million inhabitants. Marseille was the second most important city in terms of inhabitants, and Lyon, the third. With ******* inhabitants, Lille was the tenth most populated city in France.

By 1800, London had grown to be the largest city in Western Europe with just under one million inhabitants. Paris was now the second largest city, with over half a million people, and Naples was the third largest city with 450 thousand people. The only other cities with over two hundred thousand inhabitants at this time were Vienna, Amsterdam and Dublin. Another noticeable development is the inclusion of many more northern cities from a wider variety of countries. The dominance of cities from France and Mediterranean countries was no longer the case, and the dispersal of European populations in 1800 was much closer to how it is today, more than two centuries later.

In 2025, Moscow was the largest city in Europe with an estimated urban agglomeration of 12.74 million people. The French capital, Paris, was the second largest city in 2025 at 11.35 million, followed by the capitals of the United Kingdom and Spain, with London at 9.84 million and Madrid at 6.81 million people. Istanbul, which would otherwise be the largest city in Europe in 2025, is excluded as it is only partially in Europe, with a sizeable part of its population living in Asia. Europe’s population is almost 750 million Since 1950, the population of Europe has increased by approximately 200 million people, increasing from 550 million to 750 million in these seventy years. Before the turn of the millennium, Europe was the second-most populated continent, before it was overtaken by Africa, which saw its population increase from 228 million in 1950 to 817 million by 2000. Asia has consistently had the largest population of the world’s continents and was estimated to have a population of 4.6 billion. Europe’s largest countries Including its territory in Asia, Russia is by far the largest country in the world, with a territory of around 17 million square kilometers, almost double that of the next largest country, Canada. Within Europe, Russia also has the continent's largest population at 145 million, followed by Germany at 83 million and the United Kingdom at almost 68 million. By contrast, Europe is also home to various micro-states such as San Marino, which has a population of just 30 thousand.

It is estimated that the largest cities in Western Europe in 1330 were Paris and Granada. At this time, Paris was the seat of power in northern France, while Granada had become the largest multicultural city in southern Spain, controlled by the Muslim, Nasrid Kingdom during Spain's Reconquista period. The next three largest cities were Venice, Genoa and Milan, all in northern Italy, renowned as important trading cities during the middle ages. In October 1347, the first wave of the Black Death had arrived in Sicily and then began spreading throughout Europe, decimating the population.

In 1500, the largest city was Paris, with an estimated 225 thousand inhabitants, almost double the population of the second-largest city, Naples. As in 1330, Venice and Milan remain the third and fourth largest cities in Western Europe, however Genoa's population almost halved from 1330 until 1500, as it was struck heavily by the bubonic plague in the mid-1300s. In lists prior to this, the largest cities were generally in Spain and Italy, however, as time progressed, the largest populations could be found more often in Italy and France. The year 1500 is around the beginning of what we now consider modern history, a time that saw the birth of many European empires and inter-continental globalization.

Paris was Western Europe's largest city in 1650, with an estimated 400 thousand inhabitants, which is almost double it's population 150 years previously. In second place is London, with 350 thousand inhabitants, however it has grown by a substantially higher rate than Paris during this time, now seven times larger than it was in the year 1500. Naples remains in the top three largest cities, growing from 125 to 300 thousand inhabitants during this time. In the previous list, the Italian cities of Milan and Venice were the only other cities with more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, however in this list they have been joined by the trading centers of Lisbon and Amsterdam, the capital cities of the emerging Portuguese and Dutch maritime empires.

The city of Paris in France had an estimated gross domestic product of 757.6 billion Euros in 2021, the most of any European city. Paris was followed by the spanish capital, Madrid, which had a GDP of 237.5 billion Euros, and the Irish capital, Dublin at 230 billion Euros. Milan, in the prosperous north of Italy, had a GDP of 228.4 billion Euros, 65 billion euros larger than the Italian capital Rome, and was the largest non-capital city in terms of GDP in Europe. The engine of Europe Among European countries, Germany had by far the largest economy, with a gross domestic product of over 4.18 trillion Euros. The United Kingdom or France have been Europe's second largest economy since the 1980s, depending on the year, with forecasts suggesting France will overtake the UK going into the 2020s. Germany however, has been the biggest European economy for some time, with five cities (Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Frankfurt) among the 15 largest European cities by GDP. Europe's largest cities In 2023, Moscow was the largest european city, with a population of nearly 12.7 million. Paris was the largest city in western Europe, with a population of over 11 million, while London was Europe's third-largest city at 9.6 million inhabitants.

The catchment area of a city is a group of municipalities, of a single enclave and enclave, which defines the extent of the influence of a cluster of population and employment on the surrounding municipalities, this influence being measured by the intensity of commuting to work. Urban area zoning follows the zoning into urban areas in 2010. An area consists of a pole and a crown. — Poles are determined mainly on the basis of density and total population criteria, using a methodology consistent with that of the municipal density grid. A threshold of jobs is added in order to prevent essentially residential municipalities with few jobs from being considered poles. Within the pole, the most populous commune is called the center commune. If a pole sends at least 15 % of its assets to work in another pole of the same level, the two poles are associated and together form the heart of a catchment area. — Municipalities that send at least 15 % of their assets to work in the pole are the crown of the area. The definition of the largest catchment areas of cities is consistent with the definition of “cities” and “functional urban areas” used by Eurostat and the OECD to analyse the functioning of cities. Zoning into catchment areas thus facilitates international comparisons and makes it possible to visualise the influence in France of major foreign cities. For example, seven areas have a town located abroad (Bâle, Charleroi, Geneva, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Monaco and Saarbrücken). The areas are classified according to the total number of inhabitants of the area in 2017. The main thresholds selected are: Paris, 700,000 inhabitants, 200,000 inhabitants and 50,000 inhabitants. Areas whose pole is located abroad are classified in the category corresponding to their total population (French and foreign). Urban catchment areas, dated 2020, were constructed with reference to commuting known in the 2016 Census. Downloadable files provide the characteristics of the city’s catchment areas (size slice, number of municipalities) and the municipal composition of the city’s catchment areas.

The catchment area of a city is a group of municipalities, of a single enclave and enclave, which defines the extent of the influence of a cluster of population and employment on the surrounding municipalities, this influence being measured by the intensity of commuting to work. Urban area zoning follows the zoning into urban areas in 2010. An area consists of a pole and a crown. — Poles are determined mainly on the basis of density and total population criteria, using a methodology consistent with that of the municipal density grid. A threshold of jobs is added in order to prevent essentially residential municipalities with few jobs from being considered poles. Within the pole, the most populous commune is called the center commune. If a pole sends at least 15 % of its assets to work in another pole of the same level, the two poles are associated and together form the heart of a catchment area. — Municipalities that send at least 15 % of their assets to work in the pole are the crown of the area. The definition of the largest catchment areas of cities is consistent with the definition of “cities” and “functional urban areas” used by Eurostat and the OECD to analyse the functioning of cities. Zoning into catchment areas thus facilitates international comparisons and makes it possible to visualise the influence in France of major foreign cities. For example, seven areas have a town located abroad (Bâle, Charleroi, Geneva, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Monaco and Saarbrücken). The areas are classified according to the total number of inhabitants of the area in 2017. The main thresholds selected are: Paris, 700,000 inhabitants, 200,000 inhabitants and 50,000 inhabitants. Areas whose pole is located abroad are classified in the category corresponding to their total population (French and foreign). Urban catchment areas, dated 2020, were constructed with reference to commuting known in the 2016 Census. Downloadable files provide the characteristics of the city’s catchment areas (size slice, number of municipalities) and the municipal composition of the city’s catchment areas.

This upload contains two Geopackage files of raw data used for urban analysis in the outskirts of Lille and Nice, France. 
The data include building footprints (layer "building"), roads (layer "road"), and administrative boundaries (layer "adm_boundaries")
extracted from version 3.3 of the French dataset BD TOPO®3 (IGN, 2023) for the municipalities of Santes, Hallennes-lez-Haubourdin,
Haubourdin, and Emmerin in northern France (Geopackage "DPC_59.gpkg") and Drap, Cantaron and La Trinité in southern France 
(Geopackage "DPC_06.gpkg").

Metadata for these layers is available here: https://geoservices.ign.fr/sites/default/files/2023-01/DC_BDTOPO_3-3.pdf

Additionally, this upload contains the results of the following algorithms available in GitHub (https://github.com/perezjoan/emc2-WP2?tab=readme-ov-file)

1. The identification of main streets using the QGIS plugin Morpheo (layers "road_morpheo" and "buffer_morpheo") 
https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/morpheo/ 

2. The identification of main streets in local contexts – connectivity locally weighted (layer "road_LocRelCon")

3. Basic morphometry of buildings (layer "building_morpho")

4. Evaluation of the number of dwellings within inhabited buildings (layer "building_dwellings")

5. Projecting population potential accessible from main streets (layer "road_pop_results")

Project website: http://emc2-dut.org/

Publications using this sample data: 
Perez, J. and Fusco, G., 2024. Potential of the 15-Minute Peripheral City: Identifying Main Streets and Population Within Walking Distance. In: O. Gervasi, B. Murgante, C. Garau, D. Taniar, A.M.A.C. Rocha and M.N. Faginas Lago, eds. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2024 Workshops. ICCSA 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14817. Cham: Springer, pp.50-60. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-65238-7_4.

Acknowledgement. This work is part of the emc2 project, which received the grant ANR-23-DUTP-0003-01 from the French National Research Agency (ANR) within the DUT Partnership.

In 2025, the Ile-de-France region, sometimes called the Paris region, was the most populous in France. It is located in the northern part of France, divided into eight departments and crossed by the Seine River. The region contains Paris, its large suburbs, and several rural areas. The total population in metropolitan France was estimated at around ** million inhabitants. In the DOM (Overseas Department), France had more than *** million citizens spread over the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion, Mayotte, and the South American territory of French Guiana. Ile-de-France: the most populous region in France According to the source, more than ** million French citizens lived in the Ile-de-France region. Ile-de-France was followed by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Occitanie region which is in the Southern part of the country. Ile-de-France is not only the most populated region in France, it is also the French region with the highest population density. In 2020, there were ******* residents per square kilometer in Ile-de-France compared to ***** for Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the second most populated region in France. More than two million people were living in the city of Paris in 2025. Thus, the metropolitan area outside the city of Paris, called the suburbs or banlieue in French, had more than ten million inhabitants. Ile-de-France concentrates the majority of the country’s economic and political activities. An urban population In 2024, the total population of France amounted to over 68 million. The population in the country has increased since the mid-2000s. As well as the other European countries, France is experiencing urbanization. In 2023, more than ** percent of the French population lived in cities. This phenomenon shapes France’s geography.

The largest Western European city in 1200 was Palermo, with 150 thousand inhabitants. This is a great decrease in the number 150 years previously, where the population was 350 thousand. The city of Cordova also decreased by almost 400 thousand in this time, possibly because of the declining Arabian control and influence in the area. Seville is the third largest city on this list, although it's overall population decreased by ten thousand since 1050. The largest cities are generally in Spain or Italy, although the second largest city on this list is Paris, with 110 thousand inhabitants. In the lists that follow, Paris remains at the top as either the largest (1500 and 1650) or second largest (1330 and 1800) city in Western Europe.

In 2023, the average price per square meter for rental apartments in France was the highest in Paris. In the French capital, the average price per square meter for rental flats reached almost 31 euros, compared to 16 euros in the second-largest French city, Marseille. Not only is Paris the most expensive city in France for renting an accommodation, it is also one of the most expensive in Europe.
Paris housing crisis The Paris region is the most populated area of France. It is also the most densely populated region of the country. In a very centralized country like France, the capital appears to be the center of the majority of economic and cultural activities, as well as the home of an important number of universities. Finding accommodation is becoming more and more difficult in a city which also attracts millions of tourists every year. The average cost of an apartment in Paris amounted to more than 10,000 euros per square meter, compared to nearly 3,900 euros per square meter in the French second-largest agglomeration: Lyon. The consequences of high prices in housing In Paris, renting a two-bedroom apartment costed more than 2,000 US dollars in 2018, making the city one of the most expensive worldwide. To cope with this price boom, residents of the Paris metropolitan area often live in one of the many suburbs of the city. Furthermore, the pollution of the French capital, as well as its traffic jams and congested public transports, often lead Parisians to change their lives and move elsewhere after a few years. In 2015, Bordeaux was named most attractive city to live in France. Paris was only ranked eighth.

L_AIRE_ATT_VILLE_2020_ZSUP_FLA_000 Attractions of cities in 2020 in Corrèze and neighbouring departments. Objects located on the outskirts of neighbouring departments may not be complete if they overflow on the neighbouring deparetment. Sources: INSEE + GeoFLA IGN https://www.insee.fr/fr/information/4803954 The catchment area of a city is a group of municipalities, of a single enclave and enclave, which defines the extent of the influence of a cluster of population and employment on the surrounding municipalities, this influence being measured by the intensity of commuting to work. Urban area zoning follows the zoning into urban areas in 2010. An area consists of a pole and a crown. * Poles are determined mainly on the basis of density and total population criteria, using a methodology consistent with that of the municipal density grid. A threshold of jobs is added in order to prevent essentially residential municipalities with few jobs from being considered poles. Within the pole, the most populous commune is called the center commune. If a pole sends at least 15 % of its assets to work in another pole of the same level, the two poles are associated and together form the heart of a catchment area. * Municipalities that send at least 15 % of their assets work in the pole are the crown of the area. The definition of the largest catchment areas of cities is consistent with the definition of “cities” and “functional urban areas” used by Eurostat and the OECD to analyse the functioning of cities. Zoning into catchment areas thus facilitates international comparisons and makes it possible to visualise the influence in France of major foreign cities. For example, seven areas have a town located abroad (Bâle, Charleroi, Geneva, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Monaco and Saarbrücken). The areas are classified according to the total number of inhabitants of the area in 2017. The main thresholds selected are: Paris, 700,000 inhabitants, 200,000 inhabitants and 50,000 inhabitants. Areas whose pole is located abroad are classified in the category corresponding to their total population (French and foreign). Urban catchment areas, dated 2020, were constructed with reference to commuting known in the 2016 Census. Downloadable files provide the characteristics of the city’s catchment areas (size slice, number of municipalities) and the municipal composition of the city’s catchment areas.

In 2019, Rennes, the prefecture of the Bretagne region, was also the largest city in the region in terms of population. It was indeed home to ******* inhabitants that year. The second most populous city in Bretagne was Brest, with nearly ******* inhabitants, followed by Quimper (****** inhabitants), and Lorient (****** inhabitants). In 2022, *** million people where living in Bretagne.

Urban population growth has been constant for several decades in France. Between 1960 and 2023, it rose from 61.88 percent to 81.78 percent. The phenomenon of urbanization was more significant in the 1960s. Indeed, over this period, the rate of the French population living in cities increased by 10 points. The evolution was more weighted over the next 50 years, rising from 71.06 percent in 1970 to 80.98 percent in 2020.An increase in urbanization was accompanied over the same period by a sharp rise in the overall French population, from 55.57 million inhabitants in 1982 to around 68 million in 2024. Paris, an urban giant in France Like in the United Kingdom, the French-style centralized system has led to a high concentration of population around economic, financial, cultural and political centers, all located in the British and French capitals. London and Paris (and its conurbation) are among the largest urban centers on the continent, with Moscow being the most populous. This centralization of power has led to a very heterogenous distribution of population density. The Paris region has a density of more than 1000 inhabitants per km², which is ten times higher than the Haut-de-France region, the second densest region in Metropolitan France.This centralization of power attracts a strong French and foreign workforce. The French capital is by far the most populated city in France. If solely the municipality of Paris is taken into account, it had more than 2 million inhabitants in 2019, which is more than twice as many as in Marseille and four times as many as in Lyon, the country's second and third most populous cities. Future challenges for French cities Access to employment is no longer the only reason to settle in a town. Other factors come into play in the life choices of city dwellers. In 2019, more than 90% of the French estimated that the presence of green areas was important to settle or not in a district. The pollution level of the city was also considered in the choice of the city. In order to address these pollution problems, municipalities must resolve transportation issues on their own territory. Previously the king of the town, the car is increasingly losing ground to public transport in urban areas. Cities like Paris are relying more on public transport. Between 2011 and 2016, RATP and SNCF have built more than 60 kilometers of tramway tracks . Moreover, the construction of additional train and metro lines in the Grand Paris project aimed at better connecting the suburbs to each other without passing through intramural Paris.Making it easier to travel by bicycle is one of the options chosen by many conurbations to relieve congestion in their cities. Since the early 2000s, self-service bicycles have been a great success in France with more than 2400 bicycles available in Toulouse or 4000 in Lyon in 2017. A source of much tension between motorists, municipalities and cyclists, the sharing of the road between 4 and 2 wheelers has, however, been widely developed. In Strasbourg, for example, the municipality had around 1.04 metres of cycle lanes per inhabitant in 2017, the highest rate in France. However, the layout of cycle paths can be perilous and a majority of cyclists in France still feel unsafe on the road.

As of January 2025, there were slightly more than two million people living in the city of Paris. Considered to be the heart of France’s economic and political life, Paris is also part of the most populous region in the country. The Ile-de-France region, which can also be called the Paris area, with almost 12.5 million inhabitants, around six times the number of citizens living in the French capital. Being a Parisian Paris is the largest city in France, and as in a very centralized country, it is where the majority of big companies and all the national administrations are located. Therefore, it attracts a lot of people coming from all across the country to work and study in the French capital. The city has a lot to offer and people from Paris can enjoy a variety of cultural events like nowhere else in France. But if worldwide, Paris is known for its architecture and museums, the city also has disadvantages for Parisians. Thus, they spend sometimes more than one hour on public transport, and air pollution has become a rampant issue in the City of Lights these past years. An exceptionally dense region Paris area is one of the most densely populated regions in Europe. In 2020, there were 1,021.6 residents per square kilometer in Ile-de-France. The region also welcomes millions of tourists every year, which has a direct impact on the housing market in a city that does not have a lot of available space.

Smart city is the next step and the logical continuation of the concept of sustainable city as it builds on digital tools to reinvent the way the think of urban development. Designed as a response to the ever-growing urbanization and looming threat of climate change, they provide digital tools and practices with the help of data gathered through a network of connected devices via wireless technology and the cloud. Marseilles at the top

The Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis topped the ranking of the most advanced smart city in France in 2019 with a total of ** points, most notably thanks to the number of contracts and the diversity and maturity of those projects. The Grand Paris Metropolis and the Lyon Metropolis came in second and third place with ** and ** points, respectively. It is no surprise that Marseilles is also the French city with the highest number of ** antennas.

A multi-faceted innovation

This new way of thinking urban development revolves around several industries such as energy management, telecommunications (**), smart mobility (smart cars, smart parking) and extends to peripheral sectors such as transport management, road safety as well as infrastructures with concepts such as smart homes.

As of mid-2023, Paris recorded a public electric vehicle charging infrastructure index score of ** percent, indicative of how high the city's ratio of public chargers per 1,000 inhabitants was. The capital was the only French city to record an index score above ** percent. Strasbourg, which was second in the ranking, had a score of ** percent.