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Biggest Cities in the UK

Try to name the most populous cities in the United Kingdom.
As of the 2021 census. Population is the city population only, except for #1 which includes metropolitan boroughs.
Also try Biggest Urban Areas in the UK
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Featured Quiz
Last updated: February 6, 2023
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First submittedJune 26, 2016
Times taken86,484
Average score65.0%
Rating4.41
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Population
City
8,888,608
London
1,161,258
Birmingham
631,690
Glasgow
586,781
Bristol
576,561
Liverpool
560,392
Manchester
525,142
Sheffield
Population
City
515,947
Leeds
505,310
Edinburgh
487,837
Leicester
370,185
Bradford
355,703
Coventry
349,780
Cardiff
340,000
Belfast
Population
City
306,573
Nottingham
295,179
Kingston upon Hull
281,727
Newcastle
279,769
Stoke-on-Trent
269,053
Derby
266,934
Southampton
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52 Comments
sleekcollins
+30
Level 68
Aug 12, 2016
Thank you Football League.
joshduncan18
+1
Level 13
Nov 12, 2017
Living in Australia, football league helped a tonne
Gamer1162
+49
Level 59
Aug 12, 2016
Too UK-centric
rawe
+3
Level 66
Aug 14, 2016
Lol
clivey
+2
Level 68
Jun 20, 2019
BuT iT iS a qUiZ oN uK cItIeS
DonTheLamplighter
+5
Level 85
Nov 19, 2019
Get out.
Sifhraven
+2
Level 72
Jan 28, 2020
Somehow I read the comment from clivey in a muppet voice. I guess it was the emphasis on the end of the words and dragging it on to the next word (while still being staccato), (like: bu -Ti -Tiss, for but it is) must ve triggered a memory.

or maybe my brain just lacks oxygen..

JoeCrouchMMA
+1
Level 59
Aug 12, 2016
quite dated!
katiemfob
+8
Level 56
Aug 12, 2016
the census only happens once every ten years, so that's the most recent one you could use
nodmirt
+2
Level 60
Aug 12, 2016
Too UK-centric????.....its about the biggest cities in the uk....
coro
+30
Level 58
Oct 10, 2016
It's a joke, Joyce.
Roger77024
+3
Level 57
Aug 12, 2016
I disagree with inclusion of London. The county of Greater London, whose population you show, is NOT a city. The true City of London (the area around St. Paul's Cathedral & Bank of England) has a population of only about 7,000, and is not a part of the county. However, the county DOES include the City of Westminster, but that certainly does not make the top 20 list. So please revise.
Quizmaster
+18
Level ∞
Aug 13, 2016
Haha. This quiz used to not have London on it. The complaints were many and vociferous, and the quiz had one of the lowest ratings on the site.
Malbaby
+5
Level 70
Aug 14, 2016
There is always one Quizmaster!
TheToes
+4
Level 41
Apr 14, 2020
The boundary for Greater London, that was used here, was made in the 60s and London has sprawled out a load since then. After what happened to Wessex, no-one has re-drawn the line.
sjj93gg
+1
Level 52
Apr 8, 2023
Wessex? There hasn't been a political entity called that for about a 1,000 years!
sihollett
+1
Level 87
May 20, 2024
London hasn't really grown much outward post-1965 (the boundaries of which deliberately excluded parts of the urban area as they didn't want to be part of London) - the creation of the Green Belt in 1947 put an end to that.
sjj93gg
+1
Level 52
Apr 8, 2023
There is no county called Greater London
Elijah1234
+1
Level 44
May 20, 2023
there has been since 1st april 1965 when the London Government Act 1963 came into force
sihollett
+1
Level 87
Aug 3, 2023
No, from the London Government Act 1963 (that created Greater London) section 3(i)(a): "As from 1st April 1965 no part of Greater London shall form part of any administrative county".

Greater London was removed from the county system in 1965, not made as a new county.

It was, excluding the City of London, created as a county in 1997, for the purposes of the Lieutenancies Act of that year.

Duzza
+4
Level 32
Aug 12, 2016
you should add Plymouth as a 21st it had a population of 256,384 in 2011, only 22 less than Kingston!!
brandybuck96
+22
Level 83
Aug 19, 2016
Who on this Earth calls Hull "Kingston"?
schnuederlue
+8
Level 68
Aug 30, 2018
Duzza does
Sifhraven
+3
Level 72
Jan 28, 2020
I read klingon..

Edit, yep my brain clearly hasnt had enough oxygen today yet..

Regtheledge1000
+4
Level 29
Jul 30, 2020
People who call it the correct name. I still call it Hull tho ;) but Hulk is the name of the river
brandybuck96
+6
Level 83
Feb 7, 2023
the incredible hull...
TheGeographyGuy
+2
Level 34
Feb 28, 2019
Got Coventry and Brighton but forgot London. Doh.
Ew4n
+3
Level 66
Mar 25, 2019
Why does Edinburgh not require the h but Cardiff needs the double f? bugs me every time?
Quizmaster
+6
Level ∞
Apr 29, 2019
Edinburgh will require the h now.
timshorts
+4
Level 58
Feb 7, 2023
In welsh f and ff are different letters of the alphabet (but if you spell Cardiff in Welsh it doesn't have either).
muFin
+3
Level 77
Jun 19, 2019
Love Glasgow's coat of arms in the picture box! The bird that never flew, the tree that never grew, the bell that never rang and the fish that never swam.
mrnafe
+3
Level 83
Jun 19, 2019
Bristol, Brighton and Edinburgh. Lovely places, the others, not so much.
ChaosLord
+1
Level 75
Jul 12, 2019
It's a pity that this won't be updated until 2021. Would you be able to use another source for the answers?
payel123
+1
Level 37
Sep 7, 2019
Missed Sheffield Bradford and Cardiff
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Nov 11, 2019
Missed Sunderland and Leicester
Mfundo
+2
Level 35
Mar 5, 2021
I only missed Belfast, I took advantage of being a premier league fan
VaultAgentMoez3
+2
Level 34
Jan 14, 2022
I got Sunderland but forgot Glasgow and Birmingham ._.
Bryfle
+1
Level 71
Feb 7, 2023
Bristol is not bigger than Liverpool.
GeoRockstar14
+1
Level 88
Feb 12, 2023
Check out this updated series I made that includes new census data for countries like Colombia, Portugal, Sweden, Mexico, and New Zealand
twogunsalute
+2
Level 58
Apr 6, 2023
Link is broken
Berney
+1
Level 82
Apr 6, 2023
I'm curious about the figures in this quiz as many don't equate to what is given in the 2021 data in the referenced source. In fact the only ones that do are Edinburgh and Glasgow. There seem to be some real anomalies too, e.g. Manchester and Liverpool are larger cities than Bristol for instance but Bristol appears above them in this quiz (though not in the source). Living near Bristol and having been to Manchester and Liverpool on many occasions the relative sizes are easy to see.
ALA02
+1
Level 63
Apr 6, 2023
Its done based on city limits (which are completely arbitrary), not on metropolitan population
sihollett
+1
Level 87
Aug 5, 2023
Actually it's not - else Wakefield would be on it, and Leeds would be much bigger! It's built-up-areas. Which can still be a little arbitrary in where an urban area is subdivided (typically due to administrative boundaries).
PimmA08
+2
Level 33
Apr 7, 2023
It’s outdated
sarielise
+1
Level 68
Apr 11, 2023
In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricane hardly ever happen.
purplejack
+1
Level 55
Jul 6, 2023
But the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain
jojo8
+1
Level 65
Jan 13, 2024
You'll find it's Hertford, actually.
sihollett
+1
Level 87
Aug 3, 2023
The 2021 census figure for the City of Leeds is 811,953 - you are missing nearly 300,000 people, presumably because you are incorrectly excluding surrounding towns that are inside the city limits. City-proper for every city eligible for this quiz (for smaller cities this might not be the case), except London, is the local government district it's part of - those are the entities that are the keeper of the city status. You've gone with settlement population or something - not city population.

There's other errors in these figures too, but not as blatant as Leeds missing over a third of its population. Plus there's the 350k Wakefield missing.

Quizmaster
+1
Level ∞
Aug 3, 2023
All I know if that the UK government is poor, very poor indeed, at reporting population numbers in a clear way.

A previous version of this quiz included Wakefield. The howls of protest were intense.

I don't think it's possible to find numbers that will satisfy everyone. I'd recommend emailing the owner of citypopulation.de from which we draw our data. Perhaps he or she can explain the missing subtleties.

sihollett
+1
Level 87
Aug 5, 2023
Looking further, the data this quiz is using is 'built up area' data (save for London) - the description of the dataset on citypopulation.de says clearly that that's what it is using. I'd suggest changing the description to reflect that reality - it's not city population at all.

Northampton is thankfully just too small to be on this quiz to avoid having the issue that this quiz is talking about the largest settlements, rather than cities in the UK sense.

I'd be happy with whatever dataset you use, as long as you correctly say what dataset you are using. Where I'm not completely satisfied is that you've tried to fob me off and blame the sources, and then go on to say you've changed the quiz for those outraged by facts. Why not change it to match the facts! The easiest way would be to replace 'city population' with 'built-up area population' in the description!

benhesford01
+2
Level 45
Oct 6, 2023
Great quiz but needs an update! Both Sunderland and Doncaster should be on here as they have been given city status and based on the last census (2021), both have a larger population than Southampton and Derby!
purplejack
+1
Level 55
Feb 7, 2024
Doncaster or Sunderland being larger than Derby or Southampton is actually not true. I live in Derby, and whilst it's not a big city, it's population is larger than Doncaster or Sunderland. What you might be referring to is Doncaster's or Sunderland's metropolitan population, which are a different metric altogether. This is going by the built-up area or urban population, and looking at the 2021 census figures, Doncaster is 113.5k (not the metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, which is over 300k), whilst Sunderland is 168k (not the metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, which is 274k). What further complicates the issue is that when referring to metropolitan population, Derby is combined with Nottingham, like Sunderland for Newcastle or Doncaster for Sheffield, but is still its own unitary authority rather than a metropolitan borough.
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