List of Largest United Kingdom Settlements By Population - Commentary

Commentary

There is a spectrum that can be drawn between the conurbations that have a clear 'head' (such as Bristol and Leicester) to those that do not, known as multi-centred conurbations (such as Bournemouth/Poole and Teesside), via ones that are more borderline (West Midlands). In the case of the West Midlands, for example, the largest city, Birmingham did expand massively and is now considered to include areas that were formerly independent towns, such as Sutton Coldfield and Aston. However, here it stopped, with the Black Country and Wolverhampton retaining strong identities.

There are also various places where whilst not actually running into each other, the amount of development in a large area is substantial. Heavily built up areas of this type include :

• South Hampshire, consisting of the Portsmouth and Southampton areas mentioned above, was considered for metropolitan county status in the 1970s.
• West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire, which are all heavily built up but not entirely devoid of countryside (both are metropolitan counties).
• The area consisting of Greater Manchester, Merseyside and parts of Cheshire (mainly Halton (borough) and Warrington) is heavily built up and considered by some to be a conurbation
• The London Commuter Belt consisting of Greater London and large densely populated parts of the home counties is heavily built up and is considered one of the world's largest cities.
• Cardiff/Newport, consisting of the cities of Cardiff and Newport, Cwmbran, much of the eastern South Wales Valleys with towns such as Risca, Pontypool and Caerphilly and part of the Vale of Glamorgan including Penarth and Barry.
• The Nottingham-Derby Metropolitan area which mainly consists of three large conurbations, the Nottingham Urban Area, the Derby Urban Area and the Mansfield Urban Area.

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