London was by far the largest urban agglomeration in the United Kingdom in 2025, with an estimated population of *** 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 Istanbul having a population of around **** million and the Russian capital Moscow having a population of over **** 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 **** million people. Paris was followed by London in terms of population size, and then by the Spanish cities of Madrid and Barcelona, at *** million and *** million people, respectively. The Italian capital, Rome, was the next largest city at *** million, followed by Berlin at *** million. London’s population growth Throughout the 1980s, the population of London fluctuated from a high of **** million people in 1981 to a low of **** million inhabitants in 1988. During the 1990s, the population of London increased once again, growing from ****million at the start of the decade to **** million by 1999. London's population has continued to grow since the turn of the century, and despite declining between 2019 and 2021, it reached *** million people in 2023 and is forecast to reach almost *** million by 2047.

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.

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 population of Greater Manchester in 2023 was approximately 2.95 million, compared with 2.9 million in 2022.

The latest population figures produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 28 June 2018 show that an estimated 534,800 people live in Bradford District – an increase of 2,300 people (0.4%) since the previous year.

Bradford District is the fifth largest metropolitan district (in terms of population) in England, after Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester although the District’s population growth is lower than other major cities.

The increase in the District’s population is largely due to “natural change”- there have been around 3,300 more births than deaths, although this has been balanced by a larger number of people leaving Bradford to live in other parts of the UK than coming to live here and a lower number of international migrants. In 2016/17 the net internal migration was -2,700 and the net international migration was 1,700.

A large proportion of Bradford’s population is dominated by the younger age groups. More than one-quarter (29%) of the District’s population is aged less than 20 and nearly seven in ten people are aged less than 50. Bradford has the highest percentage of the under 16 population in England after the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, Slough Borough Council and Luton Borough Council.

The population of Bradford is ethnically diverse. The largest proportion of the district’s population (63.9%) identifies themselves as White British. The district has the largest proportion of people of Pakistani ethnic origin (20.3%) in England.

The largest religious group in Bradford is Christian (45.9% of the population). Nearly one quarter of the population (24.7%) are Muslim. Just over one fifth of the district’s population (20.7%) stated that they had no religion.

There are 216,813 households in the Bradford district. Most households own their own home (29.3% outright and 35.7% with a mortgage). The percentage of privately rented households is 18.1%. 29.6% of households were single person households.

Information from the Annual Population Survey in December 2017 found that Bradford has 228,100 people aged 16-64 in employment. At 68% this is significantly lower than the national rate (74.9%). 91,100 (around 1 in 3 people) aged 16-64, are not in work. The claimant count rate is 2.9% which is higher than the regional and national averages.

Skill levels are improving with 26.5% of 16 to 74 year olds educated to degree level. 18% of the district’s employed residents work in retail/wholesale. The percentage of people working in manufacturing has continued to decrease from 13.4% in 2009 to 11.9% in 2016. This is still higher than the average for Great Britain (8.1%).

Census 2021 rounded population and household estimates for local authorities in England and Wales, by sex and five-year age group.

This dataset is intended for researchers, students, and policy makers for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data.

Cambridge was the fastest growing city in the United Kingdom between 2013 and 2023, with its population increasing by 17.3 percent. Exeter, Milton Keynes, and Peterborough also grew quite fast, with their populations increasing by 15.2 percent, 14.9 percent, and 14 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 2023, the gross domestic product of Greater London was approximately 569 billion British pounds, compared with 101 billion for Greater Manchester, and 85 billion in the West Midlands Metropolitan Area centered around Birmingham. UK population growth In 2023, the overall population of the United Kingdom was estimated to have reached approximately 68.3 million, compared with around 58.9 million in 2000. Since 1970, 2023 was also the year with the highest population growth rate, growing by 0.98 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 data collection uses Census returns to construct a consistent time series of population for urban centres in England and Wales 1801-1911. This allows the urban development and structure of England and Wales to be analysed, and provides a resource to other researchers seeking to make ready comparisons of other information with urban development across the nineteenth century. It has been derived from the work of three previous researchers: (1) Chris Law (1967) originally prepared it; (2) Brian Robson (1973) developed the data further and transcribed Law’s data and preserved it, and also added information on some smaller settlements for years before they became ‘urban’ under Law’s criteria; (3) Jack Langton (2000) undertook a different study for the 17th century to 1841 using the same basic methods and definitions as Law-Robson for 1801 and 1841 and corrected various errors and omissions in the Law-Robson material; he also disaggregated the Law-Robson data for the period to 1841 to reflect the fact that many places had not coalesced into large towns by this date. The database here combines these three sources. It was prepared by Bob Bennett (2011) for a study of local economies and chamber of commerce business representation.

As of 2023, the population density in London was by far the highest number of people per square km in the UK, at *****. Of the other regions and countries which constitute the United Kingdom, North West England was the next most densely populated area at *** people per square kilometer. Scotland, by contrast, is the most sparsely populated country or region in the United Kingdom, with only ** people per square kilometer. Countries, regions, and cities According to the official mid-year population estimate, the population of the United Kingdom was just almost **** million in 2022. Most of the population lived in England, where an estimated **** million people resided, followed by Scotland at **** million, Wales at **** million and finally Northern Ireland at just over *** million. Within England, the South East was the region with the highest population at almost **** million, followed by the London region at around *** 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 *** billion British pounds, almost a quarter of UK GDP overall. In terms of GDP per capita, Londoners had a GDP per head of ****** pounds, compared with an average of ****** 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 **** 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.

This dataset is a record of annual water fluoride concentrations in Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) in England from 2009 to 2020. We obtained information on the fluoride concentrations for each water supply zone through requests made under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, to water companies in England. The Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations SI 2016/614 require that water companies take a minimum of 1-8 annual samples per water supply zone, per year (dependent on population size) of water fluoride concentrations, as part of routine water quality monitoring. This dataset was created by merging the supplied information on annual fluoride concentrations in each water supply zone, with the 2011 LSOA population-weighted centroids (Office for National Statistics).

Further details on the methods used to create this dataset will be found in the Research paper accompanying this dataset

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.

This dataset identifies areas where the distribution of great crested newts (GCN) has been categorised into zones relating to GCN occurrence and the level of impact development is likely to have on this species. Red zones contain key populations of GCN, which are important on a regional, national or international scale and include designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest for GCN. Amber zones contain main population centres for GCN and comprise important connecting habitat that aids natural dispersal. Green zones contain sparsely distributed GCN and are less likely to contain important pathways of connecting habitat for this species. White zones contain no GCN. However, as most of England forms the natural range of GCN, white zones are rare and will only be used when it is certain that there are no GCN.

The UK censuses took place on 29th April 2001. They were run by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (NISRA), General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for both England and Wales. The UK comprises the countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Statistics from the UK censuses help paint a picture of the nation and how we live. They provide a detailed snapshot of the population and its characteristics, and underpin funding allocation to provide public services.

The 2001 Individual Licenced Sample of Anonymised Records for Imputation Analysis (I-SAR) is a 3% sample of individuals for all countries of the United Kingdom, with approximately 1.84 million records. The data are available for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Information is included for each individual on the main demographic, health, socio-economic and household variables. The 3% sample is an increase by comparison with 2% in 1991. Some variables have been broad-banded to reduce disclosure risk. The lowest level of geography is the Government Office Region (GOR), although Inner and Outer London are separately identified. This represents a significant reduction by comparison with the 1991 where large Local Authorities (population 120,000 and over) were separately identified.

This dataset contains 173 variables, including 84 imputation flag variables. The standard version, containing 89 I-SAR variables, is available under SN 7205.

A series of flow based classifications of commuting for England and Wales based on MSOA origin-destination data from the 2011 Census. It consists of 9 super-groups and 40 sub-groups. The evidence can be used to target funding for an 'into-work-scheme' to help the most disconnected community. The toolkit allows the policymaker to explore levels of commuting and compare the level of connectivity of each neighbourhood to major employment centres. The underlying rationale for the research is that the toolkit will help deliver efficiencies in public and private sector investment. This is crucial at a time when the government is promoting the need for smarter economic growth but doing so in a challenging context in which public sector resources are scarce and the private sector is risk averse.Numerous research studies use commuting data, collected through the Census of Population, to understand social, economic and environmental challenges in the UK. This commuting data has been used to understand patterns; answer questions regarding the relationship between housing and labour markets; and to see if travel behaviour is becoming more or less sustainable over time. However, there is lots of untapped potential for such data to be used to evaluate transport policy and investment decisions so resources are more effectively and efficiently targeted to places of need. In applied public policy a major shortcoming has been a lack of use of this data to support investment in transport which has major implications for economic growth. If transport investments are inefficiently targeted, this restricts the capacity of places to grow economies to their full potential. This wastes their resources by over investing in transport capacity in areas where it is not needed. Equally, it has long been argued that efficient investment in transport is crucial if labour market exclusion, particularly the case of deprived communities, is to be tackled. The aim of the research is to inform community transportation policy and investment and the socio-spatial dimensions of travel to work flows over time (2001-2011). Our research develops a toolkit to help decision-makers better target investment in transport capacity and infrastructure. The toolkit includes a series of new classifications of commuting flows from the 2001 and 2011 Censuses. It will include a classification of newly developed official Workplace Zones for England to complement official residential population-based classifications alongside various population, deprivation, investment and infrastructure data. The toolkit will bring these classifications and datasets together online through various mapping and analysis tools to understand the dynamics of commuting between different types of residential and workplace locations over time and combine these datasets and analyses with locally-specific transport investment data. The methodology developed will be applied to England as a whole but we will use the Manchester as a test-case for our analysis and for development of the toolkit. The use of open source approaches to build the toolkit means that other locations will have the framework to develop their own toolkit. The flow and area-based (Workplace Zones) classifications for England will complement official ONS residential-based output area classification and existing indices of deprivation. This will be mapped in relation to key transport investments made in Manchester, using local administrative data and overlay these with the results of commuting analysis to support decision-making regarding future targeted public transport infrastructure investment. The toolkit will be interactive so users can pose policy questions to explore commuting relationships between different places. The strength of this approach is that it will enable policy and decision-makers to test various scenarios for future transport investment depending on problems they have posed. In a hypothetical situation, a policymaker in might ask the question of whether a specific deprived community in their city is more or less connected into a major employment centre than another equally deprived community. The data was collected from the 2011 Census Interaction Data Service via the online portal (see Related Resources) 3GB pre-processing – 515,000 flows.

By 2047 the population of London is expected to reach 9.97 million people, an increase of almost 699,500 when compared with 2025. While there has been quite a steep rise in its population in recent years, London’s population growth was relatively stagnant throughout the 1980s and even decreased slightly towards the end of that decade. After peaking at 8.89 million in 2019, the population of London has fallen slightly, to 8.8 million by 2021. UK population forecast Like London, the population of the United Kingdom is forecast to continue to grow well into the middle of the century. By 2046, the population of the UK is estimated to be over 76.3 million people, an increase of over 20 million people when compared with the population figures for 1976. Additionally, the average age of the population is predicted to increase from 39.5 years in 2020 to 44.5 years by the mid-2040s, and continue to increase towards the end of the century. London looms large In the UK, London is by far the largest urban agglomeration in the country, dwarfing the UK's next largest cities of Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds. London also has a dominant economic position in the UK, with the city accounting for around a quarter of the total GDP in the country. The UK capital also has a far higher GDP per head than the rest of the county, at over ****** pounds in 2023, compared with the UK average of ****** pounds.

In 2023, the population of the United Kingdom was around **** million, with approximately **** million women and **** million men. Since 1953, the male population of the UK has grown by around *** million, while the female population has increased by approximately *** million. Throughout this provided time period, the female population of the UK has consistently outnumbered the male population. UK population one of the largest in Europe As of 2022, the population of the United Kingdom was the largest it has ever been, and with growth expected to continue, the forecasted population of the United Kingdom is expected to reach over ** million by the 2030s. Despite the relatively small size of its territory, the UK has one of the largest populations among European countries, slightly larger than France but smaller than Russia and Germany. As of 2022, the population density of the UK was approximately *** people per square kilometer, with London by far the most densely populated area, and Scotland the most sparsely populated. Dominance of London As seen in the data regarding population density, the population of the United Kingdom is not evenly distributed across the country. Within England, London has a population of almost **** million, making it significantly bigger than the next largest cities of Birmingham and Manchester. As of 2022, Scotland's largest city, Glasgow had a population of around *** million, with the largest cities in Northern Ireland, and Wales being Belfast and Cardiff, which had populations of ******* and ******* respectively.

The population of London was approximately *** million in 2023, an increase of over *** 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 *** million by 2042. London boroughs As of 2022, the London borough with the highest population was Croydon, at approximately *******, followed by Barnet at *******. 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 ******. Residents of the City of London, however, have the highest average median weekly earnings among all of London's boroughs, at ***** pounds per week, compared with just *** pounds per week in Redbridge, the lowest average weekly earnings among London boroughs. While the overall unemployment rate for London was *** percent in early 2023, this ranged from *** percent in Brent, to just *** 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 ***** billion British pounds, just over ** percent of the UK's overall GDP. In the same year, GDP per person in London was ****** pounds compared with the UK average of ****** pounds. Additionally, productivity in London is far higher than the UK average. As measured by output per hour worked, London was **** percent more productive than the rest of the UK.

This statistic shows the ten largest cities in the United Kingdom in 2021. In 2021, around 8.78 million people lived in London, making it the largest city in the United Kingdom.