UK city populations

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I had to produce this list for work. It's by no means perfect but, as I couldn't find anything of this type on the internet already, I thought I might put it up here in case anyone needs it. The list of places was compiled from a national office of statistics population density map, a list of places with city status and a list of places that have recently applied for city status. The figures are taken from various sources.

town population
Birmingham 1,025,000
Leeds 715404
Glasgow 640,000
Sheffield 513,000
Liverpool 441,477
manchester 439549
edinburgh 430,000
Bristol 391,500
Croydon 330,585
Cardiff 305,340
Coventry 300,848
Belfast 300,000
Doncaster 286,000
Stockport 114,000
Leicester 279,923
Bolton 270,000
Nottingham 260,000
Newcastle upon Tyne 259,000
Stoke-on-Trent 254,000
Brighton and Hove 247,817
Kingston upon Hull 243,589
Plymouth 241,500
Durham 236,781
Wolverhampton. 236,573
Reading, 235,000
Swansea 230,000
Milton Keynes, 230000
Derby 222,000
Southampton 221,100
Aberdeen 209,270
Warrington, 190000
Northampton, 190000
Portsmouth 186,700
Luton 186,000
York 181,000
Swindon, 170,850
Bournemouth 163,444
Chelmsford, 155,000
Peterborough 150,000
Blackpool, 150,000
Sunderland 146,077
Middlesborough 145,000
dundee 144,000
Blackburn, 137,470
Newport 137,000
Lancaster 133,914
Guildford, 129,701
Preston, 129,633
Cambridge 124,444
Oxford 121,000
Norwich 120,000
Telford, 119,000
Exeter 113,300
Gloucester 110,000
Carlisle 100,000
Bradford 96,000
Londonderry 95,371
Worcester 93,000
Shrewsbury 87,000
Lincoln 85,595
Bath 83,992
Ipswich, 80,000
Maidstone, 72,000
Bedford 70000
St Albans 63,000
Inverness 51000
Salisbury 39,000
Stirling 38,000
Canterbury 36,000
Winchester 35,000
Dover, 32,135
Chichester 26,000
Armagh 16,000
Chester 14,713
Colchester, 14,551
Bangor 11173

Apologies for the poor tabulation.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:20 (twenty-one years ago)

or for the complete lack of tabulation

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Glastonbury Festival vs Bedford FITE

― Stevem On X (blueski), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

hurrah, has london finally seceded then? ;)

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Carlisle vs Glastonbury, surely, if not Gloucester...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I was pretty sure london would be in the top 76.

interesting, to read, though! thanks.

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I have not included london as it was not neccessary for the work thing. FYI, it should appear at the top of the list.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

; )

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:29 (twenty-one years ago)

No, I'm serious. It should really go at the top.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

these figures confuse council area with the actual population size of the town/ city

e.g Hull has a much larger population than the actual town of Doncaster !

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

you need to check that Bradford population figure !

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:33 (twenty-one years ago)

i would like someone to scan in Teh Grauniad's big 'what ethnicities live where in London' maps from Friday

― Stevem On X (blueski), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Martian, this is now the OFFICIAL ILE LIST of town sizes, we shall BROOK NO DISSENT.

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought Glasgow was closer to a million... Is this because places like Bearsden are no longer Glasgow?

Also, Edinburgh's almost the same size as Madchester? How odd.

Interesting nonetheless.

― KeithW (kmw), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, I am aware that it is less than ideal. In certain cases, I have had to pick between various, widely differing, figures for the same place by guessing.

xpost.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:35 (twenty-one years ago)

i demand a recount !

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:35 (twenty-one years ago)

come on, stevem, who really cares about london?

I think glasgow is even less, than on the list, actually. more like 575, 000. it is projected to fall, further, too.

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:39 (twenty-one years ago)

i am sure Bradford has been referred to as the 8th largest city in the UK

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I reckon I have done quite well considering I only spent a couple of hours on it. To do it properly and to properly pin down how you are defining the areas that are included in each city is a big job. There may be a connection between that and the fact that information like this is hard to find on the net.

x-post

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Bradford - 486,000

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

from - http://www.haznet.org.uk/hazs/hazmap/h_brad.asp

That may be a little on the high side now.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

from the herald, december 24th 2004:

In the Halifax study into populations across Britain, Glasgow came sixth, with a fall of 6% to 577,100. Edinburgh had a 2.3% rise to 448,400.

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Dundee by 7.1% to 143,100.

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

you were 900 out, there.

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I shall retrieve my jacket.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw something in one of the newspapers over the weekend that was comparing places' populations with the number of Michelin starred restaurants they had. It surprised me by giving a population for Edinburgh that was much higher than Glasgow's. I know Glasgow is shrinking and Edinburgh expanding (and of course Glasgow is part of a much larger urban sprawl so will always feel bigger) but I still thought that was surprising. Of course it could just be bad journalism.

― frankiemachine, Monday, 24 January 2005 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

So, is Reading still the largest Town?

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.citymayors.com/gratis/uk_topcities.html

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm surprised that Cambridge has a bigger population than Oxford. I always thought Cambridge was tiny. Or may it's just too many years here.

― jellybean (jellybean), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, I wish I had found that on friday.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

RJG's link list measures the population within the council boundaries of a particular area.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

theres a lot of confusion about correct figures. the one for bradford highlights that, 96000 is ridiculously low, but the 2nd figure of 480000 is too high, as it incorporates the whole council area (ie keighley etc)

― charltonlido (gareth), Monday, 24 January 2005 15:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm surprised that Cambridge has a bigger population than Oxford. I always thought Cambridge was tiny. Or may it's just too many years here.

Cambridge gets smaller every time you leave the house. Fact.

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Monday, 24 January 2005 15:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe people are moving from Glasgow to Edinburgh... Wonders will never cease!

― KeithW (kmw), Monday, 24 January 2005 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

There is no-one from Glasgow in Edinburgh.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 15:30 (twenty-one years ago)

... Except me

― KeithW (kmw), Monday, 24 January 2005 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Lots and lots of lovely statistics

― Madchen (Madchen), Monday, 24 January 2005 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I tried that site but I kept getting loads of weird stats. I'm not too sure how they define the areas that they are presenting.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

It seems to be mostly by local authority, based on the 2001 census. Here's England & Wales in a handy Excel spreadsheet

And here's the estimated population for Scotland by 'administrative area' for 2003

― Madchen (Madchen), Monday, 24 January 2005 16:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I can see your point about area definitions being a little shady.

― Madchen (Madchen), Monday, 24 January 2005 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

The whole thing was just a bit of a pain to be honest. done now tho.

― hmmm (hmmm), Monday, 24 January 2005 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I think there's another load of statistics by 'Urban Area' rather than local authority boundaries, so it's the whole continuosly built up area. By this measure you get Manchester (plus Salford, Oldham, Bolton etc.) coming out at over 2 million, and Bradford would probably get counted with Leeds.

― The Horse of Babylon (the pirate king), Monday, 24 January 2005 16:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Bit of a shock when you realise the whole of Milton Keynes was killed in the tsunamis.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Leeds is now bigger than Glasgow! Oh woe! Woe!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 13:03 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a weird one because for example the figures for Nottingham cover such a tiny area, i.e. places like Carlton and Arnold, which are only 2 or 3 miles from the city center, don't count towards the figure. Hence Sheffield looks twice as populous, the bastards.

― Steve.n. (sjkirk), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

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