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.

It is estimated that the cities of Cordova (modern-day Córdoba) and Palermo were the largest cities in Europe in 1050, and had between fifteen and twenty times the population of most other entries in this graph, Despite this the cities of Cordova (the capital city of the Umayyad caliphate, who controlled much of the Iberian peninsula from the seventh to eleventh centuries), and Palermo (another Arab-controlled capital in Southern Europe) were still the only cities in Western Europe with a population over one hundred thousand people, closely followed by Seville. It is also noteworthy to point out that the five largest cities on this list were importing trading cities, in modern day Spain or Italy, although the largest cities become more northern and western European in later lists (1200, 1330, 1500, 1650 and 1800). In 1050, todays largest Western European cities, London and Paris, had just twenty-five and twenty thousand inhabitants respectively.

The period of European history (and much of world history) between 500 and 1500 is today known as the 'Dark Ages'. Although the term 'Dark Ages' was originally applied to the lack of literature and arts, it has since been applied to the lack or scarcity of recorded information from this time. Because of these limitations, much information about this time is still being debated today.

Throughout the early modern period, the largest city in Italy was Naples. The middle ages saw many metropolitan areas along the Mediterranean grow to become the largest in Europe, as they developed into meeting ports for merchants travelling between the three continents. Italy, throughout this time, was not a unified country, but rather a collection of smaller states that had many cultural similarities, and political control of these cities regularly shifted over the given period. Across this time, the population of each city generally grew between each century, but a series of plague outbreaks in the 1600s devastated the populations of Italy's metropolitan areas, which can be observed here. Naples At the beginning of the 1500s, the Kingdom of Naples was taken under the control of the Spanish crown, where its capital grew to become the largest city in the newly-expanding Spanish Empire. Prosperity then grew in the 16th and 17th centuries, before the city's international importance declined in the 18th century. There is also a noticeable dip in Naples' population size between 1600 and 1700, due to an outbreak of plague in 1656 that almost halved the population. Today, Naples is just the third largest city in Italy, behind Rome and Milan. Rome Over 2,000 years ago, Rome became the first city in the world to have a population of more than one million people, and in 2021, it was Italy's largest city with a population of 2.8 million; however it did go through a period of great decline in the middle ages. After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476CE, Rome's population dropped rapidly, below 100,000 inhabitants in 500CE. 1,000 years later, Rome was an important city in Europe as it was the seat of the Catholic Church, and it had a powerful banking sector, but its population was just 55,000 people as it did not have the same appeal for merchants or migrants held by the other port cities. A series of reforms by the Papacy in the late-1500s then saw significant improvements to infrastructure, housing, and sanitation, and living standards rose greatly. Over the following centuries, the Papacy consolidated its power in the center of the Italian peninsula, which brought stability to the region, and the city of Rome became a cultural center. Across this period, Rome's population grew almost three times larger, which was the highest level of growth of these cities.

The Italian city of Venice was one of the largest cities in medieval and Renaissance era Europe. It was the center of the Republic of Venice, a maritime empire in the Mediterranean, and had one of Europe's largest ports for exotic goods (particularly from Asia), or luxury goods such as glassware. Impact of plague While its population was relatively small by modern standards, it is believed that Venice was among the five most populous cities in Western Europe in the given years between 1050 and 1650. The city's population did fluctuate over time due to devastating pandemics, and it is believed that Venice was one of the main points of entry for the Black Death in Europe. Venice was one of the hardest-hit cities during the Black Death; estimates fluctuate greatly across sources, but it is believed that the city lost around 40 percent of its population during the initial outbreak in the 1340s. Decline Furthermore, Venice lost roughly a third of its population during further plague pandemics (both introduced via war) in the 1570s and 1630s. Because of this, the population was kept fairly consistent across the given years between 1600 and 1800. The 18th century also saw the decline of the Venetian Empire, as other states gained power and influence in the Mediterranean. Venice also lost its importance as the entry point of exotic goods into Europe, as other European powers had already established their own maritime empires and trade routes across the globe. Eventually, the crumbling Venetian Empire fell to Napoleon in 1796, and its overseas territories were gradually taken by or split among various other powers. While the empire fell, the city itself continued to be a center for art and culture in Europe, and it has maintained this status until today. In 2021, Venice had a population of more than 250,000 people.