Urban unit

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25 largest French urban areas in 2010

In France, an urban unit (fr: "unité urbaine") is a statistical area defined by INSEE, the French national statistics office, for the measurement of contiguously built-up areas. According to the INSEE definition [1], an "unité urbaine" is a commune alone or a grouping of communes which: a) form a single unbroken spread of urban development, with no distance between habitations greater than 200 m and b) have all together a population greater than 2,000 inhabitants.[1] Communes not belonging to an unité urbaine are considered rural.

The French unité urbaine is a statistical area in accordance with United Nations recommendations for the measurement of contiguously built-up areas. Other comparable units in other countries are the United States "Urbanized Area" and the "urban area" definition shared by Canada and the United Kingdom. The French aire d'attraction d'une ville is equivalent to the functional urban area as defined by Eurostat, and represents a population and employment centre (urban cluster) and its commuting zone. The zoning into unités urbaines and aires d'attraction des villes was last revised in 2020.

French urban units with over 200,000 inhabitants[edit]

This list shows the unités urbaines as of the 2020 revision.

Urban unit Inhabitants
(2019)[2]
Area in km2
(2021)[3][4][5][6]
Communes
(2022)[7]
1 Paris 10,858,852 2,853.5 411
2 Lyon 1,685,494 1,141.4 124
3 Marseille-Aix-en-Provence 1,614,501 1,758.2 50
4 Lille (excluding Belgian part) 1,051,609 446.7 60
5 Toulouse 1,035,280 957.5 81
6 Bordeaux 986,879 1,287.3 73
7 Nice 952,329 743.6 51
8 Nantes 664,335 498.6 22
9 Toulon 586,475 763.7 27
10 Douai-Lens 504,092 485.2 67
11 Strasbourg (excluding German part) 478,280 240.2 23
12 Rouen 471,893 461.1 50
13 Avignon 458,828 1,364.4 59
14 Montpellier 458,189 310.0 22
15 Grenoble 452,864 358.1 38
16 Saint-Étienne 374,318 414.0 32
17 Rennes 364,133 327.7 16
18 Tours 361,956 684.9 38
19 Béthune 355,596 760.3 94
20 Valenciennes (excluding Belgian part) 334,571 440.0 56
21 Metz 288,143 308.8 42
22 Nancy 286,818 245.9 28
23 Orléans 283,961 289.5 19
24 Clermont-Ferrand 274,141 180.8 17
25 Bayonne (excluding Spanish part) 257,137 513.7 30
26 Pointe-à-Pitre-Les Abymes 249,815 729.7 11
27 Mulhouse 247,044 239.1 20
28 Dijon 246,987 169.6 15
29 Angers 245,093 243.3 12
30 Le Havre 233,414 194.9 18
31 Le Mans 220,948 338.1 20
32 Reims 215,275 106.8 9
33 Caen 206,973 173.6 24
34 Brest 203,095 199.4 7
35 Perpignan 203,025 217.5 15
36 Pau 200,667 530.9 55

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Definition: Urban unit". INSEE. 9 December 2020.
  2. ^ "France par unité urbaine - Population municipale 2019 >> Tableau". statistiques-locales.insee.fr. INSEE. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  3. ^ "Comparateur de territoire (1-11)". INSEE. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  4. ^ "Comparateur de territoire (12-22)". INSEE. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  5. ^ "Comparateur de territoire (23-33)". INSEE. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  6. ^ "Comparateur de territoire (34-36)". INSEE. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  7. ^ "Base des unités urbaines 2020 au 1er janvier 2022". Insee (in French). Retrieved 17 June 2022.