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.

This horizontal bar chart displays urban population (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Europe. The data is about countries per year.

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.

This horizontal bar chart displays female population (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Europe. The data is about countries.

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.

This statistic presents the leading European Countries by their Human Capital Index (HCI) score in 2018. The Human Capital Index measures the economic value which newborns can expect to gain by the time they are adults. In this year, Finland and Ireland had the highest index score, implying that people born in these countries will have the most economically valuable skills-sets by the time they are 18 years old.

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.

This horizontal bar chart displays birth rate (per 1,000 people) by capital city using the aggregation average, weighted by population in Europe. The data is about countries.

This bar chart displays female population (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Europe. The data is about countries.

Rome is the most populous city in Italy. With 2.75 million inhabitants, the capital of the country put ahead Milan and Naples. Compared to the number of citizens in 2012, the resident population of Rome increased by over 140,000 individuals. Regional data Rome is located in the center of Italy in the Lazio region. Lazio is the second-largest region in terms of population size after Lombardy. In 2024, the region counts roughly 5.7 million inhabitants, whereas Lombardy has over ten million individuals. The third-largest region is Campania, with 5.6 million people. Naples, the major center of Campania, has around 910,000 inhabitants at the beginning of 2024. Nevertheless, this city was, back in the 19th century, one of the largest cities in Western Europe. Tourism in Rome The Eternal City is also the main tourist destination in Italy and was the eighth most-visited city in Europe. The largest groups of international visitors in Rome came from the United States of America, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Every year, more and more tourists also enjoy the best-known tourist attractions in Rome, like the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Palatine Hill, which together recorded almost ten million visitors in 2022.

The European Union is comprised of 27 member states who share the European Single Market, a common trade area which ensures the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people. As of 2024, the largest economies in the EU were Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands, with these countries making up the vast majority of the EU's almost 17 trillion Euro GDP. The relatively small island member states of Cyprus and Malta come in at the bottom of the list, with GDPs of around 23 and 33 billion Euros respectively.

This horizontal bar chart displays rural population (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Western Europe. The data is about countries per year.

Luxembourg is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. Its capital, Luxembourg City, is one of the four official capitals of the European Union (together with Brussels, Frankfurt, and Strasbourg) and the seat of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest judicial authority in the EU. Its culture, people, and languages are highly intertwined with its neighbors, making it a mixture of French and German cultures. Luxembourgish is the only national language of the Luxembourgish people, as defined by law. In addition to Luxembourgish, French and German are used in administrative and judicial matters; the three languages are jointly considered administrative languages of Luxembourg.

Source: Objaverse 1.0 / Sketchfab

The European System of Social Indicators provides a systematically selected collection of time-series data to measure and monitor individual and societal well-being and selected dimensions of general social change across European societies. Beyond the member states of the European Union, the indicator system also covers two additional European nations and – depending on data availability – the United States and Japan as two important non-European reference societies. Guided by a conceptual framework, the European System of Social Indicators has been developed around three basic concepts – quality of life, social cohesion, and sustainability. While the concept of quality of life is supposed to cover dimensions of individual well-being, the notions of social cohesion as well as sustainability are used to conceptualize major characteristics and dimensions of societal or collective well-being. The indicator system is structured into 13 life domains altogether. Time-series data are available for nine life domains, which have been fully implemented.

Time series start at the beginning of the 1980s at the earliest and mostly end by 2013. As far as data availability allows, empirical observations are presented yearly. Most of the indicator time-series are broken down by selected sociodemographic variables, such as gender, age groups, employment status, or territorial characteristics. Regional disaggregations are being provided at the NUTS-1 or similar levels as far as meaningful and data availability allows. The European System of Social Indicators is preferably based on harmonized data sources, ensuring the best possible level of comparability across countries and time. The data sources used include international aggregate official statistics, for example, provided by EUROSTAT and the OECD, as well as microdata from various official as well as science-based cross-national surveys, such as the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), Eurobarometer Surveys, the World Value Surveys, or the European Social Survey.

The European System of Social Indicators results from research activities within the former Social Indicators Research Centre at GESIS. In its initial stage, this research was part of the EuReporting-Project (Towards a European System of Social Reporting and Welfare Measurement), funded by the European Commission within its 4th European Research Framework Programme from 1998 to 2001. For more detailed information on the European System of Social Indicators, see the methodological report under „other documents“.
The Data of SIMon (German System of Social Indicators (DISI) and European System of Social Indicators (EUSI)) are available via the histat online database (https://histat.gesis.org/histat/) under the topic ´SIMon: Social Indicators Monitor´(https://histat.gesis.org/histat/de/data/themes/36) for the free download.

A) Conceptual framework

The development of the conceptual framework for the European System of Social Indicators builds on the theoretical discussion of welfare and quality of life as well as the goals of social development oriented towards them. Additionally, the tasks and fundamental objectives of European Union policy have been statistically measured and reported. Based on these two areas (theoretical debate on welfare on the one hand and EU policy objectives on the other), six perspectives and dimensions of social development in Europe were identified which form the conceptual core of the European system of social indicators and are related to the concepts of quality of life, social cohesion and sustainability.

Dimensions of quality of life: 1) The dimension of objective living conditions describes the actual living conditions of individuals (working conditions, state of health, material standard of living). 2) The dimension of subjective welfare includes perceptions, assessments, and assessments of living conditions by citizens.

Dimensions derived from the concept of social cohesion: 3) Disparities, inequalities and social exclusion relate to aspects of the distribution of wealth in society (regional disparities, equal opportunities). 4) Social relationships, bonds, and inclusion refer to the social capital of a society. The existence of informal networks, associations, and organizations as well as the functioning of social institutions are covered by the dimension of social cohesion.

Dimensions of sustainability. In this context, sustainability is primarily understood as the preservation or increase of social capital (physical capital, social capital, human capital, natural capital) for future generations. 5) Securing human capital: Measuring dimensions and indicators of this target dimension primarily concern aspects of people´s education, skills, and health. 6) Safeguarding natural capital: This dimension relates both to the current state of the environment and to processes and measures that improve or worsen the natural foundations of...

Structural equation model estimation results across European welfare state regimes.

Amsterdam is set to maintain its position as Europe's most expensive city for apartment rentals in 2025, with median costs reaching 2,500 euros per month for a furnished unit. This figure is double the rent in Prague and significantly higher than other major European capitals like Paris, Berlin, and Madrid. The stark difference in rental costs across European cities reflects broader economic trends, housing policies, and the complex interplay between supply and demand in urban centers. Factors driving rental costs across Europe The disparity in rental prices across European cities can be attributed to various factors. In countries like Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, a higher proportion of the population lives in rental housing. This trend contributes to increased demand and potentially higher living costs in these nations. Conversely, many Eastern and Southern European countries have homeownership rates exceeding 90 percent, which may help keep rental prices lower in those regions. Housing affordability and market dynamics The relationship between housing prices and rental rates varies significantly across Europe. As of 2024, countries like Turkey, Iceland, Portugal, and Hungary had the highest house price to rent ratio indices. This indicates a widening gap between property values and rental costs since 2015. The affordability of homeownership versus renting differs greatly among European nations, with some countries experiencing rapid increases in property values that outpace rental growth. These market dynamics influence rental costs and contribute to the diverse rental landscape observed across European cities.

This horizontal bar chart displays internally displaced persons, by conflict and violence (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Europe. The data is about countries.

Rome, the Italian capital city, was home to the most saturated metropolitan areas in Europe in 2019, based on the annual number of hours lost in congestion over a year. In Rome, drivers spent an average of *** hours per year held up in traffic jams. Paris ranked second among the European cities surveyed, with an average of *** hours lost.

This horizontal bar chart displays net migration (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Europe. The data is filtered where the date is 2023. The data is about countries per year.

This bar chart displays male population (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Europe. The data is filtered where the date is 2021. The data is about countries per year.