Urban unit

25 largest French urban areas

In France, an urban unit (fr: "unité urbaine") is a statistical area defined by INSEE, the French national statistics office, for the measurement of contiguously built-up areas. According to the INSEE definition , an "unité urbaine" is a commune alone or a grouping of communes which: a) form a single unbroken spread of urban development, with no distance between habitations greater than 200 m and b) have altogether a population greater than 2,000 inhabitants. Communes not belonging to an unité urbaine are considered rural.

The French unité urbaine is a statistical area in accordance with United Nations recommendations for the measurement of contiguously built-up areas. Other comparable units in other countries are the United States "Urbanized Area" and the "urban area" definition shared by the United Kingdom and Canada.

French unité urbaines with over 200,000 inhabitants

	Unité urbaine	Inhabitants (2006)	Area in km² (1999)	Communes (1999)
1	Paris	10,142,983	2,723.03	396
2	Marseille-Aix-en-Provence	1,418,482	1,289.59	38
3	Lyon	1,417,461	954.19	102
4	Lille (excluding Belgian part)	1,016,205	450.26	62
5	Nice	940,018	721.08	50
6	Toulouse	850,876	808.14	72
7	Bordeaux	803,155	1,057.03	51
8	Nantes	568,743	475.62	20
9	Toulon	543,065	713.15	26
10	Douai-Lens	512,463	489.14	68
11	Strasbourg (excluding German part)	440,264	222.43	20
12	Grenoble	427,659	324.78	34
13	Rouen	388,798	267.64	31
14	Valenciennes (excluding Belgian part)	355,660	506.51	61
15	Nancy	331,278	314.24	37
16	Metz	322,948	362.50	47
17	Montpellier	318,223	154.39	11
18	Tours	306,973	420.60	23
19	Saint-Étienne	286,399	231.22	17
20	Rennes	282,550	184.83	10
21	Avignon	273,360	507.91	22
22	Orléans	269,284	289.52	19
23	Clermont-Ferrand	260,658	180.77	17
24	Béthune	259,294	389.59	60
25	Le Havre	238,777	153.17	14
26	Mulhouse	238,637	215.03	19
27	Dijon	238,088	166.03	15
28	Angers	227,771	226.92	12
29	Reims	212,022	94.30	6
30	Brest	206,393	219.70	8

See also

• urban area
• aire urbaine a related concept

References

1. ^ INSEE. Definitions and Methods. "Definition: Urban unit". Retrieved October 17, 2014.