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 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.

Actual value and historical data chart for United Kingdom Population In Largest City

United Kingdom UK: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data was reported at 19.234 % in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 19.203 % for 2016. United Kingdom UK: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data is updated yearly, averaging 18.336 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 19.939 % in 1960 and a record low of 17.256 % in 1973. United Kingdom UK: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s UK – Table UK.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the percentage of a country's urban population living in that country's largest metropolitan area.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; Weighted Average;

Towns in England and Wales: towns list, cities list, classification and population data.

In May 2021, towns and cities with the biggest average garden size were ranked in the United Kingdom. The town of Poole ranked highest on the list, with an average garden size of *** square meters.

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).

Digital vector boundaries for Major Towns and Cities in England and Wales in 2015. The Major Towns and Cities (TCITY) statistical geography provides a precise definition of the major towns and cities in England and Wales. The geography has been developed specifically for the production and analysis of statistics, and is based on the Built-Up Areas geography that was created for the release of 2011 Census data. 112 TCITY More ONS 2011 Boundaries can be found here http://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/ All these products are supplied under the Open Government Licence and Ordnance Survey Open Data terms and conditions. Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

According to the 2021 Census, London was the most ethnically diverse region in England and Wales – 63.2% of residents identified with an ethnic minority group.

This statistic shows the percentage of green space in major cities in the United Kingdom in 2016. The major Scottish cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow have the highest percentage of green space, with **** and ** percent respectively.

This horizontal bar chart displays GDP (current US$) by capital city using the aggregation sum in the United Kingdom. The data is about countries per year.

This horizontal bar chart displays CEO approval (%) by city using the aggregation count in the United Kingdom. The data is about companies.

The population of the United Kingdom in 2024 was estimated to be approximately 69.3 million, with over 9.6 million people living in South East England. London had the next highest population, at almost 9.1 million people, followed by the North West England at 7.7 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, 3.2 million, and 1.9 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 650,000, while in Wales, it was the Cardiff Unitary Authority at around 384,000. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, has eleven local government districts, the largest of which is Belfast with a population of approxiamtely 352,000.

This file contains names and codes for Major Towns and Cities (TCITY) in England and Wales as at December 2015. (File size - 16KB). The TCITY statistical geography provides a precise definition of the major towns and cities in England and Wales. The geography has been developed specifically for the production and analysis of statistics, and is based on the Built-Up Areas geography that was created for the release of 2011 Census data. Field Names - TCITYCD, TCITYNM, FID Field Types - Text, Text, Number Field Lengths - 9, 20 FID = The FID, or Feature ID is created by the publication process when the names and codes / lookup products are published to the Open Geography portal. REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Major_Towns_and_Cities_Dec_2015_Names_and_Codes_in_England_and_Wales_2022/FeatureServer

This short article explores a variety of different data for 12 large cities in the UK compared with a selection of other European cities. It is designed to highlight the variety of data on offer through the Urban Audit IV data source and to explore some aspects of the quality of life experienced in these cities. Data for UK cities are published alongside this article. Source agency: Office for National Statistics Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: Urban Audit IV – United Kingdom cities compared with other European cities

Annual estimates of balanced UK regional gross domestic product (GDP). Current price estimates and chained volume measures for combined authorities and city regions.

As of 2024, 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 In 2024, the population of the United Kingdom reached **** million. The majority of people in the UK live in England, which had a population of **** million that year, 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 London at just over *****million. In terms of cities, London is the largest urban agglomeration in the United Kingdom, followed by Manchester, and then Birmingham, although both these cities combined would still have a smaller population than the UK capital. London calling London's huge size in relation to other UK cities is also reflected by its economic performance. In 2023, London's GDP was over ****billion British pounds, around a quarter of UK's overall GDP. 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 2023, 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 horizontal bar chart displays life expectancy at birth (year) by capital city using the aggregation average, weighted by population in the United Kingdom. The data is about countries per year.

List of major cities in the world

Data

The data is extracted from geonames, a very exhaustive list of worldwide toponyms.

This datapackage only list cities above 15,000 inhabitants. Each city is associated with its country and subcountry to reduce the number of ambiguities. Subcountry can be the name of a state (eg in United Kingdom or the United States of America) or the major administrative section (eg ''region'' in France''). See admin1 field on geonames website for further info about subcountry.

Notice that : * some cities like Vatican city or Singapore are a whole state so they don't belong to any subcountry. Therefore subcountry is N/A. * There is no guaranty that a city has a unique name in a country and subcountry (At the time of writing, there are about 60 ambiguities). But for each city, the source data primary key geonameid is provided.

Preparation

You can run the script yourself to update the data and publish them to github : see scripts README

License

All data is licensed under the Creative Common Attribution License as is the original data from geonames. This means you have to credit geonames when using the data. And while no credit is formally required a link back or credit to Lexman and the Open Knowledge Foundation is much appreciated.

All source code is licensed under the MIT licence.