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An aire urbaine comprises a city, its independent suburbs, as well as its satellite towns and cities separated by some agricultural land. Metropolitan areas in the US also include satellite towns and the agricultural land in between. This reflects the modern phenomenon of long commutes where people may live in towns separated from the core of the urbanized metropolis by some agricultural land, but still work in the core of the metropolis. In that perspective, a metropolitan area is no more conceived as strictly speaking the urbanized area centered on a city, but rather as a hub of towns and suburbs around a central urban core where people interact and commute.
The official definition of an aire urbaine is given by the INSEE (the national statistics office of France) as: an agglomeration of communes (municipalities) situated on an unbroken and enclave-free tract of land, made up of 1- an urban core (pôle urbain), i.e. the communes of the contiguously urbanized area around the city center, and 2- the communes in the peri-urban ring (outside of the urban core) in which at least 40% of the resident population in employment works in the communes of the urban core or in the other communes of the peri-urban ring. A pôle urbain is a unité urbaine (see first paragraph) in which there exists at least 5,000 jobs and which does not belong to the peri-urban ring of another pôle urbain.
Here is a list of the fifteen largest aires urbaines of France based on population at the 1999 census:
| Aire urbaine | Population (March 1999) | Yearly percent change (1990-1999) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
01- Paris | 11,174,743 | +0.32 % | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
02- Lyon | 1,648,216 | +0.68 % | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
03- Marseilles | 1,516,340 | +0.46 % | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 04- Lille (figures do not include the part of Lille's metropolitan area which lies on Belgian territory) 1,143,125
| +0.32 %
|
| 05- Toulouse 964,797
| +1.54 %
|
| 06- Nice 933,080
| +0.51 %
|
| 07- Bordeaux 925,253
| +0.67 %
|
| 08- Nantes 711,120
| +1.10 %
| 09- Strasbourg | (figures do not include the part of Strasbourg's metropolitan area which lies on German territory) 612,104
| +0.81 %
|
| 10- Toulon 564,823
| +0.69 %
|
| 552,682
| – 0.17 %
|
| 12- RennesRennes ( Breton: Roazhon is a commune of northwestern France. With a population of 212,494 ( 1999 census), it is the tenth most populous city in France. Population of the metropolitan area ( French: aire urbaine at the 1999 census was 521,188, ranking twe 521,188
| +1.32 %
|
| 13- RouenRouen (population 110,000) is a city situated on the Seine river in Normandy, northern France. Population of the metropolitan area (in French: aire urbaine at the 1999 census was 518,316. Administration Rouen is the prefecture ( capital) of the Seine-Mari 518,316
| +0.29 %
|
| 14- GrenobleGrenoble Grasanobol in occitan language, (population 160,000) is a city in south-east France, situated at the foot of the Alps, at the confluence of the Drac into the Isere. It is the prefecture (capital) of the Isere departement''. Population of the metr 514,559
| +0.65 %
|
| 15- MontpellierMontpellier ( Occitan Montpelhier is a city in the south of France. It is the prefecture (administrative capital) of the Herault departement''. Its population in 1999 was 225,392, while the surrounding metropolitan area (in French: aire urbaine had a popu 459,916
| +1.89 %
| |
See also: List of the largest urban areas of Western Europe by populationThis is a list of all the urban areas of Western Europe which had more than 750,000 inhabitants in 2004. Western Europe is defined here as all the European countries that were west of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Turkey is not included, having mo