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
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—Jonathan Reynolds, screenwriter. Leo (Richard Mulligan)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)