European Urban Population Trends: Unpacking a Decade of Population Shifts (2011-2021)

The European urban landscape has undergone significant changes over the past decade. Leveraging Eurostat's detailed 1km grid population data, we've mapped out these shifts, revealing a complex mosaic of growth, decline, and density variations across major cities.
To ensure a fair comparison across diverse urban areas, we focused our analysis on a 15km radius from each city center. This approach allows us to assess population trends within a consistent geographical area, providing valuable insights into how cities are evolving in terms of both core and peripheral growth. But still the cities built on flat plains exhibiting different population distributions compared to those nestled in hilly landscapes or constrained by coastlines.

Growth Leaders: London experienced a remarkable 8.7% population increase, adding over 415k residents within a 15km radius of its city centre. Berlin wasn't far behind, with an 11.9% surge exceeding 328k new inhabitants. Warsaw also saw notable expansion, growing by 10.1% and welcoming over 181k new residents.

Steady Expansion: Madrid and Rome experienced moderate growth, with population increases of 2.7% and 3.6%, respectively.

Declining Centres, Expanding Edges: Interestingly, while some cities like Berlin saw growth concentrated in their core areas, others like Paris and Warsaw experienced declining populations in the city centre, significant growth in outer areas.

Density Disparities: The data also reveals striking differences in population density. Notably, 140 grids across Europe boast over 30k residents each, with almost two-thirds of these located in Spain.