List of Urban Areas in The United Kingdom - 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, Ebbw Vale, 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.

Smaller examples of conurbations also exist on a more local level. For example, Flitwick runs into Ampthill, Anston runs into Dinnington and Ystradgynlais runs into Ystalyfera.

In Merseyside there is a split between Liverpool Urban Area and the Birkenhead Urban Area. These two localities are often thought to be a single region, Greater Merseyside, as only the distance of the River Mersey separates them. Together, they have a population of 1,135,891. Newcastle/Gateshead, for example, does claim both sides of the River Tyne, however does not include the nearby city of Sunderland. However, the Mersey at its shortest crossing separates the two sides by a kilometer and it is not possible to cross on foot, Newcastle/Gateshead meanwhile are separated by only 150 metres and have several foot crossings. Additionally, the Liverpool Urban Area is not consistent with the Liverpool City Region, which includes the nearby localities of Widnes and Runcorn in Halton. The Urban Region does not.