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.

A PDF map that shows the counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at 1 April 2023. (File Size - 583 KB)

MiniScale is a free digital map of Great Britain in a single data file that clearly shows towns and cities, motorways, major roads, railways and airports.

Benefits and key features

Show customers your locations around the country on maps in printed brochures and your website. Print an annotated wall map for the office wall to show your sales territories. Avoid endless panning in GIS software by zooming out from detail to MiniScale's quick-loading national overview, choosing your next city to focus on and zooming in again to street level.

Urban population (% of total population) in United Kingdom was reported at 84.88 % in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. United Kingdom - Urban population (% of total) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.

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.

A PDF map that shows the local authority districts, counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at April 2023. The map has been created to show the United Kingdom from country level down to local authority district level. (File Size - 1,909 KB)

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.

In 2016, it was estimated that Birmingham had the largest Muslim population of any local authority in England and Wales at approximately 280 thousand people. Newham and Tower Hamlets, both boroughs of London, had the second and third-largest Muslim populations at 135 and 128 thousand respectively.

A tabulated list of 330 main cities, towns and villages of Northern Ireland appearing on the 1:250,000 map. Irish grid references are incorporated in the table to allow the spatial location of the settlements to be plotted.

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.

In the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, the world globalized. New technology and more accessible transportation, such as trains, allowed people, ideas, and goods to travel faster and more easily around the world. Time standardization was greatly needed in a world becoming increasingly interconnected.For example, in the United States, the railroad system faced big problems by the late 1800s. Each town and city went by their own time, which was usually regulated by a clock in the town center. Many towns used natural time markers, so whenever they saw the sun highest in the sky, was “high noon.” This caused confusion and some collisions among trains, as different communities were not following the same local time.To prevent further damage, Canadian railway engineer Sir Sandford Fleming devised a globally standardized time system. He proposed to regulate time by dividing the earth into 24 one-hour time zones utilizing longitude lines, each 15 degrees apart. Longitude lines mark the distance east or west of the prime meridian. Fleming’s recommendations led to an international conference held in 1884 to select a common prime meridian, otherwise known as zero degrees longitude, on which to base time zones. Previously, different countries had different prime meridians. However, at the conference, the committee decided that the world should identify an official meridian, and they chose the Greenwich meridian. Although much has changed since the conference in 1884, Fleming’s design has stayed intact, with variations based on political and geographic decisions. For example, China, a very large country, only uses one time zone, while many places in the Middle East use half-hour time zones. This map layer shows the 24 time zones commonly used in the Greenwich Mean Time model. The hours added or subtracted from the time in Greenwich are marked on the map. For example, if it is 1:00 p.m. in London, England, United Kingdom, it is 6:30 pm in New Delhi, Delhi, India (+5.50), and 5:00 a.m. in Los Angeles, California, United States (-8.00). Use this layer to see how time is regulated around the world.

This dataset is part of the Geographical repository maintained by Opendatasoft. This dataset contains data for parishes/communities in the United Kingdom (England/Wales)The smallest type of administrative area in England is the civil parish (commonly called parish); the equivalent unit in Wales is the community.English parishes are a very old form of spatial unit which originally represented areas of both civil and ecclesiastical administration. They used to be significant local government areas but now have very limited functions. Modern parish councils (which may choose to call themselves a town council) can provide facilities such as village halls, war memorials, cemeteries, leisure facilities and playgrounds. They have duties such as maintenance of public footpaths and may also spend money on cultural projects, community transport initiatives and crime-prevention equipment. In addition they must be notified of all planning applications and consulted on the making of certain by-laws. However, not all parishes have a council – if there are fewer than 200 parishioners, or if the parishioners do not want one, decisions can instead be taken at parish meetings. The geography is further complicated by the fact that several smaller parishes may come together to elect a joint council. Parishes are confined within local authority district boundaries but are not contiguous with electoral wards. In some smaller urban areas, successor parishes have been created, but this is not universal. Non-civil parish areas (NCP) refer to the area in a local authority not comprised of parishes, i.e. unparished areas.The Welsh equivalents of parishes are communities, which fit into and change with UAs. Their councils have similar powers to English parish councils and may also choose to call themselves town councils. Unlike parishes in England, communities cover the whole of Wales, and this gives them greater potential as a statistical unit. There are 877 communities in Wales, over 730 of which currently have a council. Prior to 1974 Wales also had parishes, but these were technically abolished when communities were introduced, despite the new communities initially being aligned to the old parish boundaries.Processors and tools are using this data.EnhancementsAdd ISO 3166-3 codes.Simplify geometries to provide better performance across the services.Add administrative hierarchy.

A list of all main text appearing on OSNI 1:50 000 scale Discoverer Map Series. Includes names of cities, towns, villages, water features, mountains, hills and forests of Northern Ireland. Irish Grid references are incorporated.

This is the ONS Postcode Directory (ONSPD) for the United Kingdom as at February 2023 in Comma Separated Variable (CSV) and ASCII text (TXT) formats. This file contains the multi CSVs so that postcode areas can be opened in MS Excel. To download the zip file click the Download button. The ONSPD relates both current and terminated postcodes in the United Kingdom to a range of current statutory administrative, electoral, health and other area geographies. It also links postcodes to pre-2002 health areas, 1991 Census enumeration districts for England and Wales, 2001 Census Output Areas (OA) and Super Output Areas (SOA) for England and Wales, 2001 Census OAs and SOAs for Northern Ireland and 2001 Census OAs and Data Zones (DZ) for Scotland. It now contains 2021 Census OAs and SOAs for England and Wales. It helps support the production of area based statistics from postcoded data. The ONSPD is produced by ONS Geography, who provide geographic support to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and geographic services used by other organisations. The ONSPD is issued quarterly. (File size - 234 MB)NOTE: The 2022 ONSPDs included an incorrect update of the ITL field with two LA changes in Northamptonshire. This error has been corrected from the February 2023 ONSPD.NOTE: There was an issue with the originally published file where some change orders yet to be included in OS Boundary-LineÔ (including The Cumbria (Structural Changes) Order 2022, The North Yorkshire (Structural Changes) Order 2022 and The Somerset (Structural Changes) Order 2022) were mistakenly implemented for terminated postcodes. Version 2 corrects this, so that ward codes E05014171–E05014393 are not yet included. Please note that this product contains Royal Mail, Gridlink, LPS (Northern Ireland), Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

This is a restricted dataset and this download is available to NIMA users only.

OSNI 250k contains a tabulated list of 330 main cities, towns and villages of Northern Ireland appearing on the 1:250,000 map. Irish grid references are incorporated in the table to allow the spatial location of the settlements to be plotted. The data has been captured by extracting all textual levels for the main cities, towns and villages of Northern Ireland appearing on the 1:250,000 map. OSNI 50k Gazetteer contains a list of all main text appearing on OSNI 1:50 000 scale Discoverer Map Series. Includes names of cities, towns, villages, water features, mountains, hills and forests of Northern Ireland. Irish Grid references are incorporated.

Users outside of the Spatial NI Portal please use Resource Locator 2.

The Aldborough Roman Town Layered Plan is a layered pdf containing data from the Aldborough Roman Town Project. It provides full maps of all known archaeological information for the site, which was the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum. It should be used in conjunction with the Aldborough Gazetteer. The data have been collected and collated by Rose Ferraby and Martin Millett. It links to the monograph published by the Society of Antiquaries.

The layers include: OS data, geology, topography, fieldwalking, past excavations, gazetteer references to past excavations, magnetometry survey results and interpretation, and interpretation of Ground Penetrating Radar surveys.

The pdf contains layers which the viewer can switch on and off, zoom in and out, thus giving a detailed view of the data.

The gazetteer is a full list of all the archaeological interventions known of at Aldborough Roman Town, compiled by Rose Ferraby and Martin Millett. The Gazetteer locations and numbers can be viewed in a layer on the Layered Plan. It can therefore be used in conjunction with the Layered Plan, to find out more information including: Date of intervention; Archaeologist(s); Nature of Work; Discoveries; Bibliographic References; Map references; Information on location of data.

London had the highest unemployment rate among regions of the United Kingdom in the first quarter of 2025 at ****percent, while for the UK as a whole, the unemployment rate was ****percent. Three other regions also had an unemployment rate higher than the national average, while Northern Ireland had the lowest unemployment rate in this time period, at ****percent. Labor market recovery after COVID-19 After reaching historically low levels of unemployment in 2019, there was a noticeable spike in the UK unemployment rate in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. After peaking at ****percent in late 2020, the unemployment rate declined throughout 2021 and 2022. High levels of job vacancies, resignations, and staff shortages in 2022, were all indicative of a very tight labor market that year, but all these measures have started to point in the direction of a slightly looser labor market. UK's regional economic divide While the North of England has some of the country’s largest cities, the sheer size and economic power of London is much larger than the UK's other urban agglomerations. Partly, due to the size of London, the United Kingdom is one of Europe’s most centralized counties, and there is a clear divide between the economic prospects of north and south England. In 2022, for example, the gross domestic product per head in London was ****** British pounds, far higher than the UK average of *******pounds, and significantly larger than North East England, the region with the lowest GDP per head at *******pounds.

There were 20,944 incidences of racist hate crime reported by the London Metropolitan Police in the 2023/24 reporting year, by far the most of any police force area in England and Wales. In the same time period, there were 7,466 racist incidents reported in the West Midlands.