Major Towns and Cities
London is, by far, the largest urban area in England and one of the largest and busiest cities in the world. Other cities, mainly in central and northern England, are of substantial size and influence. The list of England's largest cities or urban areas is open to debate because, although the normal meaning of city is "a continuously built-up urban area", this can be hard to define, particularly because administrative areas in England often do not correspond with the limits of urban development, and many towns and cities have, over the centuries, grown to form complex urban agglomerations. For the official definition of a UK (and therefore English) city, see City status in the United Kingdom.
According to the ONS urban area populations for continuous built-up areas, these are the 15 largest conurbations (population figures from the 2001 census):
Rank | Urban Area | Population
(2001 Census) |
Localities | Major localities |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Greater London Urban Area | 8,278,251 | 67 | Croydon, Barnet, Ealing, Bromley |
2 | West Midlands Urban Area | 2,284,093 | 22 | Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall |
3 | Greater Manchester Urban Area | 2,240,230 | 57 | Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Stockport, Oldham |
4 | West Yorkshire Urban Area | 1,499,465 | 26 | Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Wakefield |
5 | Tyneside | 879,996 | 25 | Newcastle upon Tyne, North Shields, South Shields, Gateshead, Jarrow |
6 | Liverpool Urban Area | 816,216 | 8 | Liverpool, St Helens, Bootle, Huyton-with-Roby |
7 | Nottingham Urban Area | 666,358 | 15 | Nottingham, Beeston and Stapleford, Carlton, Long Eaton |
8 | Sheffield Urban Area | 640,720 | 7 | Sheffield, Rotherham, Chapeltown, Mosborough/Highlane |
9 | Bristol Urban Area | 551,066 | 7 | Bristol, Kingswood, Mangotsfield, Stoke Gifford |
10 | Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton | 461,181 | 10 | Brighton, Worthing, Hove, Littlehampton, Shoreham, Lancing |
11 | Portsmouth Urban Area | 442,252 | 7 | Portsmouth, Gosport, Waterlooville, Fareham |
12 | Leicester Urban Area | 441,213 | 12 | Leicester, Wigston, Oadby, Birstall |
13 | Bournemouth Urban Area | 383,713 | 5 | Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, New Milton |
14 | Reading/Wokingham Urban Area | 369,804 | 5 | Reading, Bracknell, Wokingham, Crowthorne |
15 | Teesside | 365,323 | 7 | Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar, Billingham |
The largest cities in England are as follows (in alphabetical order):
- Birmingham
- Bradford
- Bristol
- Coventry
- Derby
- Kingston upon Hull
- Leeds
- Leicester
- Liverpool
- London
- Manchester
- Middlesbrough
- Newcastle upon Tyne
- Norwich
- Nottingham
- Oxford
- Peterborough
- Plymouth
- Portsmouth
- Sheffield
- Southampton
- Stoke-on-Trent
- Wolverhampton
Read more about this topic: Geography Of England
Famous quotes containing the words towns and cities, major, towns and/or cities:
“Let those talk of poverty and hard times who will in the towns and cities; cannot the emigrant who can pay his fare to New York or Boston pay five dollars more to get here ... and be as rich as he pleases, where land virtually costs nothing, and houses only the labor of building, and he may begin life as Adam did? If he will still remember the distinction of poor and rich, let him bespeak him a narrower house forthwith.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“True spoiling is nothing to do with what a child owns or with amount of attention he gets. he can have the major part of your income, living space and attention and not be spoiled, or he can have very little and be spoiled. It is not what he gets that is at issue. It is how and why he gets it. Spoiling is to do with the family balance of power.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)
“Glorious, stirring sight! The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here todayin next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumpedalways somebody elses horizon! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!”
—Kenneth Grahame (18591932)
“This is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is a war of the people, of all the people, and it must be fought not only on the battlefield but in the cities and the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home and in the heart of every man, woman and child who loves freedom.”
—Arthur Wimperis (18741953)