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Remember the population density of Britain from a previous item comparing the US population with European countries? While the UK as a whole is only slightly more densely populated than GermanyGermany, EnglandEngland with more than 400 people per square kilometer is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. And as you might expect, some areas of LondonLondon far exceed this figure with more than 13,000 people per square kilometer.

conurbationsconurbationsLet’s look at conurbationsconurbations, which are similar to American megalopolisesmegalopolises; they include cities but aren’t cities themselves. Although just where conurbations begin and end isn’t clearly defined, everyone agrees that the vast majority of the population of Britain lives in heavily urbanized areas, which we can see represented as black dots on the map.

Fig. 1.8

Population urban density UK

In the northwest lies the urbanized area around ScotlandScotland’s largest city, GlasgowGlasgow. Continuing south on the east coast we have NewcastleNewcastle, which isn’t on any of the top ten lists of cities according to population but which we heard about as one of the ports on the northeast coast of EnglandEngland. In the middle part of England, in the region called the [32]MidlandsMidlands appropriately enough, we have the dark spots indicating the large metropolitan areas which grew during the industrialized 19^th and 20^th centuries and which now form a belt across England (here given alphabetically): BirminghamBirmingham, BradfordBradford, LeedsLeeds, LiverpoolLiverpool, ManchesterManchester, SheffieldSheffield. You can also see in the southwest indentation the BristolBristol urban area and in the southeast the largest spot, Greater LondonLondon, where roughly 20 % of the entire population of England (about 15 % of the entire UK) lives. London with more than 8.5 million inhabitants is also the largest city in the European UnionEuropean Union and is roughly the same size as the largest American city New YorkNew York, give or take a few hundred thousand.