London was by far the largest urban agglomeration in the United Kingdom in 2023, with an estimated population of 9.65 million people, more than three times as large as Manchester, the UK’s second-biggest urban agglomeration. The agglomerations of Birmingham and Leeds / Bradford had the third and fourth-largest populations respectively, while the biggest city in Scotland, Glasgow, was the fifth largest. Largest cities in Europe Two cities in Europe had larger urban areas than London, with the Russian capital Moscow having a population of almost 12.7 million. The city of Paris, located just over 200 miles away from London, was the second-largest city in Europe, with a population of more than 11.2 million people. Paris was followed by London in terms of population-size, and then by the Spanish cities of Madrid and Barcelona, at 6.75 million and 5.68 million people respectively. Russia's second-biggest city; St. Petersburg had a population of 5.56 million, followed by Rome at 4.3 million, and Berlin at 3.5 million. London’s population growth Throughout the 1980s, the population of London fluctuated from a high of 6.81 million people in 1981 to a low of 6.73 million inhabitants in 1988. During the 1990s, the population of London increased once again, growing from 6.8 million at the start of the decade to 7.15 million by 1999. London's population has continued to grow since the turn of the century, reaching a peak of 8.96 million people in 2019, and is forecast to reach 9.8 million by 2043.

As of 2023, the population density in London was by far the highest number of people per square km in the UK, at 5,690. Of the other regions and countries which constitute the United Kingdom, North West England was the next most densely populated area at 533 people per square kilometer. Scotland, by contrast, is the most sparsely populated country or region in the United Kingdom, with only 70 people per square kilometer. UK population over 67 million According to the official mid-year population estimate, the population of the United Kingdom was just almost 67.6 million in 2022. Most of the population lived in England, where an estimated 57.1 million people resided, followed by Scotland at 5.44 million, Wales at 3.13 million and finally Northern Ireland at just over 1.9 million. Within England, the South East was the region with the highest population at almost 9.38 million, followed by the London region at around 8.8 million. In terms of urban areas, Greater London is the largest city in the United Kingdom, followed by Greater Manchester and Birmingham in the North West and West Midlands regions of England. London calling London's huge size in relation to other UK cities is also reflected by its economic performance. In 2021, London's GDP was approximately 494 billion British pounds, almost a quarter of UK GDP overall. In terms of GDP per capita, Londoners had a GDP per head of 56,431 pounds, compared with an average of 33,224 for the country as a whole. Productivity, expressed as by output per hour worked, was also far higher in London than the rest of the country. In 2021, London was around 33.2 percent more productive than the rest of the country, with South East England the only other region where productivity was higher than the national average.

National and subnational mid-year population estimates for the UK and its constituent countries by administrative area, age and sex (including components of population change, median age and population density).

The population of the United Kingdom in 2023 was estimated to be approximately 68.3 million in 2023, with almost 9.48 million people living in South East England. London had the next highest population, at over 8.9 million people, followed by the North West England at 7.6 million. With the UK's population generally concentrated in England, most English regions have larger populations than the constituent countries of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which had populations of 5.5 million, 3.16 million, and 1.92 million respectively. English counties and cities The United Kingdom is a patchwork of various regional units, within England the largest of these are the regions shown here, which show how London, along with the rest of South East England had around 18 million people living there in this year. The next significant regional units in England are the 47 metropolitan and ceremonial counties. After London, the metropolitan counties of the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, and West Yorkshire were the biggest of these counties, due to covering the large urban areas of Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds respectively. Regional divisions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland The smaller countries that comprise the United Kingdom each have different local subdivisions. Within Scotland these are called council areas whereas in Wales the main regional units are called unitary authorities. Scotland's largest Council Area by population is that of Glasgow City at over 622,000, while in Wales, it was the Cardiff Unitary Authority at around 372,000. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, has eleven local government districts, the largest of which is Belfast with a population of around 348,000.

This report was released in September 2010. However, recent demographic data is available on the datastore - you may find other datasets on the Datastore useful such as: GLA Population Projections, National Insurance Number Registrations of Overseas Nationals, Births by Birthplace of Mother, Births and Fertility Rates, Office for National Statistics (ONS) Population Estimates

FOCUSONLONDON2010:POPULATIONANDMIGRATION

London is the United Kingdom’s only city region. Its population of 7.75 million is 12.5 per cent of the UK population living on just 0.6 per cent of the land area. London’s average population density is over 4,900 persons per square kilometre, this is ten times that of the second most densely populated region.

Between 2001 and 2009 London’s population grew by over 430 thousand, more than any other region, accounting for over 16 per cent of the UK increase.

This report discusses in detail the population of London including Population Age Structure, Fertility and Mortality, Internal Migration, International Migration, Population Turnover and Churn, and Demographic Projections.

Population and Migration report is the first release of the Focus on London 2010-12 series. Reports on themes such as Income, Poverty, Labour Market, Skills, Health, and Housing are also available.

REPORT:

Read the full report in PDF format.

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PRESENTATION:

To access an interactive presentation about population changes in London click the link to see it on Prezi.com

DATA:

To access a spreadsheet with all the data from the Population and Migration report click on the image below.

Report data

MAP:

To enter an interactive map showing a number of indicators discussed in the Population and Migration report click on the image below.

Interactive Maps

FACTS:

● Top five boroughs for babies born per 10,000 population in 2008-09:

1. Newham – 244.4
2. Barking and Dagenham – 209.3
3. Hackney – 205.7
4. Waltham Forest – 202.7
5. Greenwich – 196.2

-32. Havering – 116.8

-33. City of London – 47.0

● In 2009, Barnet overtook Croydon as the most populous London borough. Prior to this Croydon had been the largest since 1966

● Population per hectare of land used for Domestic building and gardens is highest in Tower Hamlets

● In 2008-09, natural change (births minus deaths) led to 78,000 more Londoners compared with only 8,000 due to migration. read more about this or click play on the chart below to reveal how regional components of populations change have altered over time.

This graph displays the ratio between the annual average population and the land area of different regions within the United Kingdom (UK) as of 2015. The data shows that in Eastern Inner London there were on average 11,040 people per square kilometer, whereas in the Highlands and islands of Scotland there was an average of 11.6 people per square kilometer. Information regarding the population density of London and other UK cities can be found here.

United Kingdom UK: Urban Population Growth data was reported at 0.958 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1.028 % for 2016. United Kingdom UK: Urban Population Growth data is updated yearly, averaging 0.352 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.132 % in 2008 and a record low of -0.098 % in 1982. United Kingdom UK: Urban Population Growth data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Urban population refers to people living in urban areas as defined by national statistical offices. It is calculated using World Bank population estimates and urban ratios from the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects.; ; World Bank staff estimates based on the United Nations Population Division's World Urbanization Prospects: 2018 Revision.; Weighted average;

The degree of urbanization in the United Kingdom amounted to 84.64 percent in 2023. This shows almost a three percentage point increase over the past decade. The upward trend, though slow, has been consistently positive. What is urbanization? The rate of urbanization indicates the shift away from rural living as people come together in densely populated cities. The United Kingdom is much more urban than the worldwide average. This puts people in closer proximity to jobs, health care, stores, and social opportunities, leading to better economic, health, and social outcomes. For example, areas with higher urbanization have a higher average life expectancy at birth. The darker side of urbanization London is the United Kingdom’s largest city and arguably the financial capital of Europe. However, this economic success has led to increasingly high rental prices, which is an indication of the high cost of living in the city. The higher population density can also lead in an increase in crime. London has one of the highest homicide rates in England and Wales. In spite of these drawbacks, London continues to draw millions of overseas tourists every year.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the London, UK metro area from 1950 to 2025. United Nations population projections are also included through the year 2035.

In 2023, the population of the United Kingdom reached 68.3 million, compared with 67.6 million in 2022. The UK population has more than doubled since 1871 when just under 31.5 million lived in the UK and has grown by around 8.2 million since the start of the twenty-first century. For most of the twentieth century, the UK population steadily increased, with two noticeable drops in population occurring during World War One (1914-1918) and in World War Two (1939-1945). Demographic trends in postwar Britain After World War Two, Britain and many other countries in the Western world experienced a 'baby boom,' with a postwar peak of 1.02 million live births in 1947. Although the number of births fell between 1948 and 1955, they increased again between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s, with more than one million people born in 1964. Since 1964, however, the UK birth rate has fallen from 18.8 births per 1,000 people to a low of just 10.2 in 2020. As a result, the UK population has gotten significantly older, with the country's median age increasing from 37.9 years in 2001 to 40.7 years in 2022. What are the most populated areas of the UK? The vast majority of people in the UK live in England, which had a population of 57.7 million people in 2023. By comparison, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland had populations of 5.44 million, 3.13 million, and 1.9 million, respectively. Within England, South East England had the largest population, at over 9.38 million, followed by the UK's vast capital city of London, at 8.8 million. London is far larger than any other UK city in terms of urban agglomeration, with just four other cities; Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow, boasting populations that exceed one million people.

The ward profiles and ward atlas provide a range of demographic and related data for each ward in Greater London. They are designed to provide an overview of the population in these small areas by presenting a range of data on the population, diversity, households, life expectancy, housing, crime, benefits, land use, deprivation, and employment.

Indicators included here are population by age and sex, land area, projections, population density, household composition, religion, ethnicity, birth rates (general fertility rate), death rates (standardised mortality ratio), life expectancy, average house prices, properties sold, housing by council tax band, tenure, mortgage and landlord home repossession, employment and economic activity, Incapacity Benefit, Income Support and JobSeekers Allowance claimant rates, dependent children receiving child-tax credits by lone parents and out-of-work families, National Insurance Number registration rates for overseas nationals (NINo), GCSE results, pupil absence, crime rates (by type of crime), fires, ambulance call outs, road casualties, happiness and well-being, land use, access to public transport (PTALs), access to public greenspace, access to nature, air emissions / quality, car use, bicycle travel, Indices of Deprivation, and election turnout.

The **Ward Profiles **present key summary measures for the most recent year, using both Excel and InstantAtlas mapping software. This is a useful tool for displaying a large amount of data for numerous geographies, in one place.

The Ward Atlas presents a more detailed version of the data including trend data and generally includes the raw numbers as opposed to percentages or rates.

The Instant Atlas reports use HTML5 technology, which can be used in modern browsers, including on Apple machines, but will not function on older browsers.

WARD PROFILES

Compare the ward measure against the Borough, London and National average.

Excel

PDF

Instant Atlas HTML5

WARD ATLAS

Access the raw data for all London wards.

Excel

Instant Atlas HTML5

Tips:

1. - Select a new indicator from the Data box on the left. Select the theme, then indicator and then year to show the data.

2. - To view data just for one borough*, use the filter tool.

3. - The legend settings can be altered by clicking on the pencil icon next to the Wards tick box within the map legend.

4. - The wards can be ranked in order by clicking at the top of the indicator column of the data table.

Note: Additional indicator information and sources are included within the spreadsheet and Instant Atlas report.

OTHER SMALL AREA PROFILES

Other profiles available include LSOA and MSOA atlases.

Data from these profiles were used to create the Well-being scores tool.

• The London boroughs are: City of London, Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, Westminster.

These profiles were created using the most up to date information available at the time of collection (February 2014).

Cambridge was the fastest growing city in the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2022, with its population increasing by 17.9 percent. Peterborough, Milton Keynes and Exeter also grew quite fast, with their populations increasing by 15.4 percent, 15 percent, and 14.4 percent, respectively. Largest UK urban areas When looking at cities defined by their urban agglomerations, as of 2023, London had approximately 9.65 million people living there, far larger than any other city in the United Kingdom. The urban agglomeration around the city of Birmingham had a population of approximately 2.67 million, while the urban areas around Manchester and Leeds had populations of 2.79 and 1.92 million respectively. London not only dominated other UK cities in terms of its population, but in its importance to the UK economy. In 2022, the gross domestic product of Greater London was approximately 508.3 billion British pounds, compared with 90.8 billion for Greater Manchester, and 77 billion in the West Midlands Metropolitan Area centered around Birmingham. UK population growth In 2022, the overall population of the United Kingdom was estimated to have reached approximately 67.6 million, compared with around 58.9 million in 2000. Since 1970, the year with the highest population growth rate was 2016 when the population grew by around 0.86 percent, and was at its lowest in 1982 when it shrank by 0.12 percent. Although the UK's birth rate has declined considerably in recent years, immigration to the UK has been high enough to drive population growth in the UK, which has had a positive net migration rate since 1994.

This file contains the National Statistics Postcode Lookup (NSPL) for the United Kingdom as at August 2022 in Comma Separated Variable (CSV) and ASCII text (TXT) formats. To download the zip file click the Download button. The NSPL relates both current and terminated postcodes to a range of current statutory geographies via ‘best-fit’ allocation from the 2021 Census Output Areas (national parks and Workplace Zones are exempt from ‘best-fit’ and use ‘exact-fit’ allocations) for England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland has the 2011 Census Output AreasIt supports the production of area based statistics from postcoded data. The NSPL is produced by ONS Geography, who provide geographic support to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and geographic services used by other organisations. The NSPL is issued quarterly. (File size - 184 MB).

In 2023, the urban population of the United Kingdom was approximately 57.6 million, while the rural population was around 10.5 million.

The median age of the population in London was 35.9 years in 2023, the lowest median age among regions of the United Kingdom. By contrast, South West England had a median age of 43.9, the highest in the UK.

In 2023, almost nine million people lived in Greater London, making it the most populated ceremonial county in England. The West Midlands Metropolitan County, which contains the large city of Birmingham, was the second-largest county at 2.98 million inhabitants, followed by Greater Manchester and then West Yorkshire with populations of 2.95 million and 2.4 million, respectively. Kent, Essex, and Hampshire were the three next-largest counties in terms of population, each with around 1.89 million people. A patchwork of regions England is just one of the four countries that compose the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with England, Scotland and Wales making up Great Britain. England is therefore not to be confused with Great Britain or the United Kingdom as a whole. Within England, the next subdivisions are the nine regions of England, containing various smaller units such as unitary authorities, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan districts. The counties in this statistic, however, are based on the ceremonial counties of England as defined by the Lieutenancies Act of 1997. Regions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland Like England, the other countries of the United Kingdom have their own regional subdivisions, although with some different terminology. Scotland’s subdivisions are council areas, while Wales has unitary authorities, and Northern Ireland has local government districts. As of 2022, the most-populated Scottish council area was Glasgow City, with over 622,000 inhabitants. In Wales, Cardiff had the largest population among its unitary authorities, and in Northern Ireland, Belfast was the local government area with the most people living there.

A crude version of the INFORM risk-framework is applied to Enumeration Areas (which is unofficial, but is deeper than admin-3), in Southern Malawi. This is done specifically for area selection regarding the ECHO2 project in 3 TA's: Mwambo (Zomba district), Makhwira (Chikwawa district) and Ndamera (Nsanje district).

Scope

Enumeration areas are retrieved from http://www.masdap.mw/layers/geonode%3Aeas_bnd. These are used, because we want to prioritize on a deeper level than Traditional Authority (admin-3) level, and there are no other official boundaries available.

The dataset in principle data for the whole of Malawi, but contains 4 filters, which can be applied, which are the following:

• Filter_south: this filters out only the South of Malawi, for which the drough and flood analysis has been carried out (see details below).
• Filter_district: contains all EA's from the 3 pre-identified districts Zomba, Chikwawa and Nsanje.
• Filter_TA: contains all EA's from the 3 pre-identified TAs Mwambo, Makhwira and Ndamera.
• Filter_GVH: there are also 44 Group Village Heads pre-identified for the project. As these GVH's are points on a map, all EA's are selected here which have a GVH within their boundaries or very close to their boundaries.

INFORM risk-framework

The INFORM framework (http://www.inform-index.org/) is applied to assess risk per community, which is considered the main criteria for prioritization within the project.

Because of low data availability we apply a crude version for now, with only some important indicators of the framework actually used. Since we feel that these indicators (see below) still constitute together a current good assessment of risk, and we want to stimulate the use and acceptance of the INFORM-framework, we choose to use it anyway.

The INFORM risk-score consists of 3 main components: hazards, vulnerability and coping capacity.

• Hazard: For hazard we focus - in line with the ECHO2 project - on floods and droughts only. Analysis has been carried out (see more details below), to determine flood and drought risk on a scale from 0-10 with a resolution of 250meter grid cells. This has subsequently been aggregated to Enumeration Areas, by taking a population-weighted average. Thereby taking into account where people actually live within the Enumeration Areas. (Population data source: Worldpop: http://www.worldpop.org.uk/data/summary/?doi=10.5258/SOTON/WP00155)

• Vulnerability: Vulnerability is operationalized here through poverty incidence. Poverty rate (living below $1.25/day) is retrieved from Worldpop (http://www.worldpop.org.uk/data/summary/?doi=10.5258/SOTON/WP00157) and again transformed from a 1km resolution grid to Enumeration Areas through a population-weighted average.

• Lack of Coping capacity: Coping capacity is measured through traveltimes to various facilities, namely traveltime to nearest hospistal, traveltime to nearest trading centre and traveltime to nearest secondary school. Together these are all proxies of being near/far to facilities, and thereby an indicator of having higher/lower coping capacity. See https://510.global/developing-and-field-testing-a-remoteness-indicator-in-malawi/ for more information on how these traveltimes were calculated and validated.

Use

All features are stored in a CSV, but can easily be joined to the geographic shapefile to make maps on EACODE.

Flood and Drought calculations

Drought layer

The drought risk map was created by analyzing rainfall data in the past 20 years using standard precipitation index (SPI) , which is a widely used index in drought analysis. Based on SPI6 values for the period October-march, which is the main rainy season in Malawi. Each pixel is classified to drought or no drought for each year based on SPI6 values, drought year if SPI value for a pixel is less than -1. Next, relative frequency is calculated, the number of times drought has occurred in the considered 20 year period. This frequency is then converted to probability of drought occurrence in a given year. We validated our analysis by comparing NDVI values for the drought year against long term average values.

Flood layer

To identify flood moments in Malawi Landsat imagery was studied (1984-2017). Floods were clearly evidenced in 9 dates. For the clearest and most representative layers the mNDWI (modified Normalized Water Index) was calculated. The index mNDWI (McFeeters 1996; Xu 2006) for Landsat bands is calculated as follows: (b2GREEN-b7MIRSWIR/b2GREEN+b7MIRSWIR). In this variation of the index the higher values are the wettest. A threshold was applied to the mNDWI to separate flood from non-flood or water from non-water pixels. The resulting layers were aggregated and the final stretched from 0-10, where 0 are the pixels where no flood is expected while pixels with 10 are where most frequent flood has been evidenced and therefore expected. The largest flood was observed in 2015, as the scenes were cloudy the flood extent was manually interpreted from several scenes. The evidenced flood dates are: 29 Feb. 1988 low flood, 19 march 1989, 17 march 1997, Feb 1998, March 1999 low flood, 2001 since February 16 until end of April, 2007 17 February since early Feb., 2008 Feb. medium flood, 2015 January – March. The water bodies in this layer are not represented and have a value of 0 like the rest of land where flood is absent.

The population of London was approximately 8.9 million in 2023, an increase of over two million people when compared with the early 1980s. Throughout the 1980s, the population of the United Kingdom's capital grew at a relatively slow rate, before accelerating to a much faster rate in the 1990s. London is by far the largest city / urban agglomeration in the United Kingdom, more than three times larger than the next largest cities of Manchester and Birmingham. London’s forecasted population is expected to continue growing at much the same pace it has been growing since the mid-1990s and reach almost 9.8 million by 2042. London boroughs As of 2022, the London borough with the highest population was Croydon, at approximately 392,224, followed by Barnet at 389,101. Overall, London is divided into 33 different boroughs, with London's historic center, the City of London having by far the smallest population, at just 10,847. Residents of the City of London, however, have the highest average median weekly earnings among all of London's boroughs, at 1,138 pounds per week, compared with just 588 pounds per week in Redbridge, the lowest average weekly earnings among London boroughs. While the overall unemployment rate for London was 4.3 percent in early 2023, this ranged from 6.8 percent in Brent, to just 2.3 percent in Kingston upon Thames.
Economic imbalance Aside from being the UK's largest city in terms of population, London is also undoubtedly the UK's cultural, political and economic center. As of 2021, the GDP of Greater London was approximately 496.4 billion British pounds, just over 23 percent of the UK's overall GDP. In the same year, GDP per person in London was 56,431 pounds compared with the UK average of 31,947 pounds. Additionally, productivity in London is far higher than the UK average. As measured by output per hour worked, London was 33.2 percent more productive than the rest of the UK.

Between 1500 and 1800, London grew to be the largest city in Western Europe, with its population growing almost 22 times larger in this period. London would eventually overtake Constantinople as Europe's largest in the 1700s, before becoming the largest city in the world (ahead of Beijing) in the early-1800s.

The most populous cities in this period were the capitals of European empires, with Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna growing to become the largest cities, alongside the likes of Lisbon and Madrid in Iberia, and Naples or Venice in Italy. Many of northwestern Europe's largest cities in 1500 would eventually be overtaken by others not shown here, such as the port cities of Hamburg, Marseilles or Rotterdam, or more industrial cities such as Berlin, Birmingham, and Munich.