With a population of 14 million, London is the largest city in the European Union and Europe. The sixth largest city in Europe is located on the territory of the densely populated island of Great Britain. Located between Europe and Asia, this city with a population of 11,000,000 people has been flourishing and growing since ancient times. Both cities are famous for their world-class infrastructure, high standards of living, thriving economies, and multiculturalism.
Istanbul is sometimes not included in the list of the most populated cities in Europe, since technically the city stretches on both sides of the Europe-Asia border. Unlike London and Paris, the third largest agglomeration in the city's range is not a capital, but despite in fact it is the largest city in Eastern Europe. Today, this city, like most cities in Eastern Europe, is modernizing very rapidly and is trying to melt the gap in economic terms with the developed urban centers of Western Europe. For example, in the UK, London is the largest city (and the third largest European city overall), with a population of around 7.5 million, but there are several other major cities, such as Nottingham, Liverpool and Birmingham, that have populations close to one million.
All of these factors act as big attractors of crowds, attracting immigrants from all over the world to these cities. This is partly because some European countries are relatively small and others have several major cities instead of one large capital. Europe is also home to many much smaller, but still historically and culturally important cities. European population growth is expected to be slow in the coming years compared to population growth on other continents.
This table provides population figures for cities with legally defined boundaries, with recognized urban status and with their own local government. It is the eighth largest agglomeration in Europe, the fifth in the European Union and the second largest in Spain. Istanbul in Turkey and Moscow in Russia are by far the largest cities on the European continent (although some may argue whether they are culturally European and none of them are part of the European Union).
