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 2021 the most populated city in France with over ************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.

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.

Since 1968, the population density in the city of Marseille, located in the south of France, has fluctuated and generally decreased. Indeed, there were about 3,628 inhabitants per square kilometer in 2021, compared with 3,694.7 in 1968. The year in which the population density was highest was 1975, and the year in which it was lowest was 1999.Marseille is the second largest city in France in terms of population, following Paris.

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.

Based on figures from the Ministry of the Interior, there were 27,131 municipal police officers in France in 2022. The French municipality with the highest number was Paris, France's capital city, followed by Marseille, located in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, and France's second-largest city, and by Nice. These cities are located in the two departments with the largest number of municipal police officers.

Since 1968, the number of inhabitants of the city of Marseille, located in the south of France, has fluctuated and generally decreased. Indeed, there were about 16,000 fewer inhabitants in 2021 than in 1968. The year in which the population was highest was 1975, and the year in which it was lowest was 1999.Marseille is the second largest city in France in terms of population, following Paris.

The rate of live births in the City of Marseille, located in the South of France, has fluctuated and generally slightly increased in the last 50 years. Indeed, there were about 14.5 live births per 1,000 population between 1968 and 1975, compared to 12.5 between 1975 and 1982. Since then, the birth rate has almost continuously increased, reaching 14.7 in 2021.Marseille is the second largest city in France in terms of population, following Paris.

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 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 220,488 inhabitants that year. The second most populous city in Bretagne was Brest, with nearly 140,000 inhabitants, followed by Quimper (63,283 inhabitants), and Lorient (57,246 inhabitants). In 2022, 3.4 million people where living in Bretagne.

All cities with a population > 1000 or seats of adm div (ca 80.000)Sources and ContributionsSources : GeoNames is aggregating over hundred different data sources. Ambassadors : GeoNames Ambassadors help in many countries. Wiki : A wiki allows to view the data and quickly fix error and add missing places. Donations and Sponsoring : Costs for running GeoNames are covered by donations and sponsoring.Enrichment:add country name

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 2024 Summer Olympics,[a] officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad[b] and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event that occurred from 24 July to 11 August 2024 in France, with the opening ceremony having taken place on 26 July. Paris was the host city, with events (mainly football) held in 16 additional cities spread across metropolitan France, including the sailing centre in the second-largest city of France, Marseille on the Mediterranean

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.

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 65 million inhabitants. In the DOM (Overseas Department), France had more than two million citizens spread over the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion, Mayotte, and the South American territory of French Guiana. Ile-de-France: 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.

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.

As of mid-2023, Paris recorded a public electric vehicle charging infrastructure index score of 63 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 50 percent. Strasbourg, which was second in the ranking, had a score of 44 percent.

In 2024, Russia had the largest population among European countries at ***** million people. The next largest countries in terms of their population size were Turkey at **** million, Germany at **** million, the United Kingdom at **** million, and France at **** million. Europe is also home to some of the world’s smallest countries, such as the microstates of Liechtenstein and San Marino, with populations of ****** and ****** respectively. Europe’s largest economies Germany was Europe’s largest economy in 2023, with a Gross Domestic Product of around *** trillion Euros, while the UK and France are the second and third largest economies, at *** trillion and *** trillion euros respectively. Prior to the mid-2000s, Europe’s fourth-largest economy, Italy, had an economy that was of a similar sized to France and the UK, before diverging growth patterns saw the UK and France become far larger economies than Italy. Moscow and Istanbul the megacities of Europe Two cities on the eastern borders of Europe were Europe’s largest in 2023. The Turkish city of Istanbul, with a population of 15.8 million, and the Russian capital, Moscow, with a population of 12.7 million. Istanbul is arguably the world’s most famous transcontinental city with territory in both Europe and Asia and has been an important center for commerce and culture for over 2,000 years. Paris was the third largest European city with a population of ** million, with London being the fourth largest at *** million.