Population and built-up density - Cities and FUAs — Urbanised area by country
This dataset provides indicators of population density and built-up area in FUAs and cities. Data sources and methodology FUA and city surfaces are calculated from FUA and city shapefiles, using GIS tools. Built-up data uses GHSL built-up surface grids (European Commission, GHSL Data Package 2023). Population...
What the numbers show
Population and built-up density - Cities and FUAs — Urbanised area is currently reported for 2 countries. The highest value is 11 Square kilometres in Armenia; the lowest is 7 Square kilometres in Luxembourg.
The median across all reporting countries is 9 Square kilometres, and the mean is 9 Square kilometres.
The gap between the highest and lowest reporting country is a factor of about 2.
Population and built-up density - Cities and FUAs — Urbanised area: full country ranking
| # | Country | Latest | Year | 10-year change | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Armenia | 11 Square kilometres | 2030 | up 10.0% | rising |
| 2 | Luxembourg | 7 Square kilometres | 2030 | unchanged | rising |
Regions and income groups
Aggregates are excluded from the country ranking above so that a region can never outrank a country.
- Los Angeles (Greater) 2,162 Square kilometres
- Sacramento 323 Square kilometres
- Tokyo 1,560 Square kilometres
- Santiago 253 Square kilometres
- New York (Greater) 1,319 Square kilometres
- Porto 67 Square kilometres
- Chicago 1,203 Square kilometres
- Nantes 37 Square kilometres
- Dallas 984 Square kilometres
- Braga 18 Square kilometres
- Coimbra 18 Square kilometres
- Miami (Greater) 832 Square kilometres
- Phoenix 816 Square kilometres
- Treviso 8 Square kilometres
- Osaka 795 Square kilometres
- Toledo 6 Square kilometres
- Houston 711 Square kilometres
- Mexico City 683 Square kilometres
- Nagoya 665 Square kilometres
- San Francisco (Greater) 642 Square kilometres
- Detroit (Greater) 608 Square kilometres
- Toronto 511 Square kilometres
- Greater Melbourne 500 Square kilometres
- Seoul 490 Square kilometres
- Seattle 486 Square kilometres
- Washington (Greater) 483 Square kilometres
- Paris 437 Square kilometres
- San Diego 421 Square kilometres
- Atlanta 416 Square kilometres
- Philadelphia (Greater) 412 Square kilometres
- Denver 409 Square kilometres
- London 400 Square kilometres
- Boston 385 Square kilometres
- Greater Sydney 366 Square kilometres
- Las Vegas 325 Square kilometres
- Minneapolis 320 Square kilometres
- Orange 311 Square kilometres
- Austin 259 Square kilometres
- Montreal 259 Square kilometres
- Portland 257 Square kilometres
About this data
This dataset provides indicators of population density and built-up area in FUAs and cities. Data sources and methodology FUA and city surfaces are calculated from FUA and city shapefiles, using GIS tools. Built-up data uses GHSL built-up surface grids (European Commission, GHSL Data Package 2023). Population counts are extracted from the Population by age and sex - FUAs and cities dataset. GHSL is used as it provides harmonised, globally consistent coverage at fine spatial resolution (100 m), enabling the production of comparable subnational indicators on built-up areas. These estimates may differ from official subnational built-up statistics due to differences in methodologies, such as top down remote-sensing based estimations versus bottom up cadastral or administrative data, along with differences in satellite imagery sources, spatial resolution, and model accuracy used to detect and classify built up areas. Defining FUAs and cities The OECD, in cooperation with the EU, has developed a harmonised definition of functional urban areas (FUAs) to capture the economic and functional reach of cities based on daily commuting patterns (OECD, 2012). FUAs consist of: A city – defined by urban centres in the degree of urbanisation, adapted to the closest local administrative units to define a city. A commuting zone – including all local areas where at least 15% of employed residents work in the city. The delineation process includes: Assigning municipalities surrounded by a single FUA to that FUA. Excluding non-contiguous municipalities. The definition identifies 1 285 FUAs and 1 402 cities in all OECD member countries except Costa Rica and three accession countries. Cite this dataset OECD Regions, cities and local areas database (Population and built-up density - Cities and FUAs), http://oe.cd/geostats Further information OECD Local Data Portal OECD Regions and Cities at a Glance For questions and/or comments, please email CitiesStat@oecd.org