In recent weeks, this question has been very contentious on American social media, with 3 cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York) nearly always making the list, but the fourth being hotly debated over, between cities like San Francisco, Miami, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta. So, if you had to choose, what would the big 4 cities in your country be? This is also not decided purely on population, but also culture, economy, and general influence/clout.
47 comments
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, Utrecht.
Those are by quite a margin the biggest cities in the Netherlands.
So, if we ignore cities in metro areas of other cities, the Big Four would be:
1- Lisbon
2- Porto
3- Braga
4- Coimbra
Coimbra and Funchal are pretty close to eachother in terms of population, but Coimbra is still bigger. Coimbra also has historically always been considered a big city.
If you want to include cities in metro areas of other cities, the list would be:
1- Lisbon
2- Porto
3- Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto Metro Area)
4- Amadora (Lisbon Metro Area)
We have a “big 3” more than big four in terms of importance/size
Paris, Marseille, Lyon.
The fourth one would be Toulouse, right after Lyon (but with a much smaller agglomeration).
But you need to know that even if all those 3 cities have a TONE of culture, for stuff like expositions, concert, politic etc… it’s very centralized in Paris.
Like America we have big 3 which is Istanbul, Ankara(capital), and Izmir , while the others are not really big metropolis since those top 3 are over 5 million and forth one is barely over 2 million etc…
For the UK it’s a bit tricky. You could go with size or economic impact and have something like: London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester.
However, given that the UK is four countries joined together, instead I’d probably go for the capitals of each, due to their political and cultural impact: London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.
København(Copenhagen), Aarhus, Odense, Aalborg. Not only are they among the most populated but also most cultural.
Go to Copenhagen the heart of Denmark and see the majority of our history.
Go to Aarhus experience a night of fun, a few hundred different attraction, watch a show in one of our greatest theaters.
Odense, wanna see where Hans Christian Andersen lived? or perhaps visit the beautiful docks, the second biggest shopping Mall(and most beautiful if I say so myself), a place of grace and joy.
Aalborg city of the youth, this is where people take their education, get lifelong friendships and get a proper introduction to life.
Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek. Basically, the four largest cities, with each of them being the center of their respective region of the country.
Norway: Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger
Germany: Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne
I think you could argue for Drammen in Norway and Frankfurt in Germany, but those are most widely accepted.
For Germany this would probably be Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. They’re the ones with over 1 million inhabitants.
Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia for sure, 4th between Seville, Malaga, Zaragoza and Bilbao, depending on what you rate
In the UK, it’ll probably be London, Manchester, Birmingham and then probably Edinburgh. No one would argue that London, Manchester and Birmingham are on the list (but some may argue that Birmingham goes ‘above’ Manchester). Some may think Edinburgh should be switched by Glasgow so idk.
Edit: ppl convinced me to remove Birmingham and have it be London Manchester Edinburgh Glasgow
Rome, Milan, Naples and Turin
cities in general in Italy always have been pretty populated, considering that we had a recent unification so the population was pretty much well spread all over the peninsula.
Rome for example had only 200k people 150 years ago and reached 1milion inhabitants again only during the fascist period.
Dublin, Cork, Limerick & Galway.
Only other official city in the republic is Waterford.
A lot of people think Galway is bigger than Limerick, but it’s actually significantly smaller.
If you do it on an all-island basis:
Dublin, Belfast, Cork & Limerick by population.
( followed by Galway & Derry)
Ljubljana (300k) and Maribor (100k) are the big two. Kranj and Celje have swapped at 3rd and 4th place in recent years, both around 35k if I’m not wrong. Still, very small cities/towns compared to the European average. We’re a tiny country.
Berlin, Munich and Hamburg as the probably uncontested choices and then I’d personally go with Frankfurt as the fourth. Cologne would be the other obvious choice and it has more inhabitants, but I’d consider Frankfurt more influential as the financial center of the country.
Paris, Lyon, Marseille are the top 3.
Fourth spot is a battle between Toulouse, Bordeaux and Lille with each 1M people living in the city+suburb.
In my opinion, considering its current weight in the GDP, Toulouse is n°4, hosting big aerospace companies like Airbus.
However, if you consider Lille as an economic & demographic continuation of the Nord-pas-de-Calais as you can consider the Rhine-Ruhr valley, including cities like Lens, Roubaix, Douai, Calais, then this would be the 4th big four in my opinion.
half the country lives in Athens and another 10ish% in Salonika, and then Patras and Heraklion. close 5th Larissa
Funny enough, but here in Cyprus we have not the big four, but the only four: Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos.
(I intentionally didn’t include biggest cities on the occupied territories)
For the UK I’d say the four capitals.
For England I’d say London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds or Newcastle.
The last three are pretty interchangeable
We only really have one city but excluding the number one we got about five wannabe cities.
They’re usually Kópavogur, Hafnarfjörður, Akureyri, Reykjanesbær and Keflavík.
There is one other wannabe city but they shame us and we pretend they don’t exist 😅
Budapest, Debrecen, Szeged, Pécs
These are the most populous and popular cities of Hungary. Officially Miskolc is the 4th most populous city but it has worse reputation than Pécs (5th most populous), so I’d say Pécs is the 4th of our “big four” cities.
– Berlin (capital and most populous)
– Hamburg (harbour)
– München (I don’t know)
– Köln (media?) or Frankfurt am Main (finances)
In Ukraine it used to be Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Donetsk before 2014.
Then it was Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv before 2022. Not sure about Kharkiv now, since it’s basically a front line city. Uzhhorod has a chance to take its place if the war goes on
In Sweden, the three major cities are in a league of their own, with the three major metropolitan regions being:
– Greater Stockholm and the Lake Mälaren Valley region, also including the cities of Uppsala, Västerås and Eskilstuna
– Greater Gothenburg, from the Fyrstad area (Trollhättan/Uddevalla/Vänersborg) in the north, east to Borås and south to Varberg
– Greater Malmö and Scania, the Swedish part of the Öresund Region, also including Helsingborg, Lund and Kristianstad
Outside of these major city regions, the largest metropolitan region would be that of Linköping along with Norrköping and Motala in the region of Östergötland. So that would be number four if simply going by population – and the Linköping-Norrköping region does also call itself “Sweden’s fourth metropolitan region” for promotional purposes.
Still, I would actually personally give the fourth place to Umeå instead, as it is by far the largest city in the northern part of Sweden, and a center for the region through its large university and regional hospital. It’s really the only city in northern Sweden which can in any way measure up to the metropolitan areas in the south. And Umeå also calls itself the Capital of Northern Sweden.
Canada: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa. (honourable mention: Calgary).
I imagine some people would drop Ottawa for Calgary, but I’m giving it the fourth spot because it’s the national capital.
Isn’t that just a matter of census data and the question?
“Big”
* Population
* Area
* Density
* GDP
* …
Once the question is well phrased, it’s just a matter of counting. Very little to discuss about
By population it’s:
* Vienna
* Graz
* Linz
* Salzburg
EDIT: yes, I read the question, but we still need to agree on what we are asking. If different people take different criteria, there’s no point in answering in the first place.
Hungary has only one big city, but the four would be Budapest, Pécs, Szeged, Győr. Debrecen is bigger then the last three, but nobody in the country cares about it
I believe in Poland it’s a bit more complicated
Tier 1 – Warsaw
Tier 2 – Kraków, Wrocław, Tricity and Silesian Metropolitan Area (Katowice and the rest)
Tier 3 – Poznań, Łódź, Zielona Góra, maybe Szczecin
Tier 4 – the rest of the cities who are the capitals of voivodeships
Tier 5 – smaller cities with some prospering local factory or company
Tier 6 – the rest, basically Belarus
I’m pretty sure many Poles will disagree.
2 is easy. Warsaw, Cracow.
Then it gets hard. I would say Wrocław and Katowice. Wrocław is culturally important and also our 3rd biggest city when looking at population within city limits (having recently overtaken Łódź), while Katowice is the heart of the giant Silesian metropolitan area, even though it’s not as big on its own.
I think a good case could be made for:
* Łódź – massive city, even though it’s not that influential it’s experiencing a new boom after being a very industrial city
* Gdańsk – largest coastal city, unique history and architecture, part of the Tricity metropolitan area with Gdynia (the main port of the country) and Sopot (a small but popular city). It would also be a northern representative of this otherwise south-centric list (though south is where most of our population is located)
* Poznań – a fairly modern city full of young people, a student hotspot, possibly the most progressive city in Poland when looking at voting data (or that’s what I recall, correct me if I’m wrong)
* Lublin – I don’t think most people would pick it but I wanted to include an eastern city on the list. It’s gotten some recognition recently. It was the European Youth Capital of 2023 and was picked to be the European Cultural Capital in 2029
Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas. Biggest cities in the country and the only ones with international airports. Sofia, Plovdiv and Burgas also have significant metro areas. Honorable mention goes to Ruse (the 5th biggest), since it is by far the biggest and probably most important on our part of the Danube.
I find this difficult for Belgium. Obviously Brussels and Antwerp are there. But the 3rd, 4th and 5th biggest cities (Liege, Charleroi and Ghent) all have roughly the same population and are important for different reasons.
I would probably exclude Charleroi as the main reason they’re relevant nowadays is their airport. It has less tourists, no major university, and it is culturally less relevant. It also has way less history of being important, compared to Liege and Ghent who have been quite big cities for 1000 years.
We have either 1, 2, 3 or 5. It’s never 4, 6 or anything else really.
1: Vilnius
2. Kaunas
3. Klaipėda
5. Šiauliai and Panevėžys
Rīga is massive levels above the next closest city. About 9 times larger than the next one. But you could make a case for one in every region, so it would be Rīga as the central city, Daugavpils in the east, Liepāja in the west and perhaps Valmiera in the north.
London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow
I think you could make a case for Leeds over Glasgow, but I’d lean Glasgow.
Dublin, Galway, Cork and Belfast. All with distinctly different accents that you’d think they’re from opposite sides of the world
Debatable in Belgium. If we count all of Brussels-Capital as a single city, then: Brussels, Antwerp, Liege, and Ghent? But you could argue that Charleroi should be there as well.
Liege, in particular, has a fairly small city-proper population but a much larger urban area. Same for Charleroi and, to a lesser extent, Ghent.
Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and Oulu/Rovaniemi. Oulu is more of a well rounded city but Rovaniemi is huge for tourism.
Romania is almost easy: Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara, Iasi. Each represent a region, a big region with very specific cultural characteristics. Craiova and Constanta are left although Constanta is a big port and Craiova is a big 1998 BMW parking lot.
Wouldn’t say the big four (maybe just Dublin and Belfast count as “big”) but here’s the top four by populatioon
1. Dublin
2. Belfast
3. Cork
4. Limerick lol
In Serbia, it’s Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, and Kragujevac. These are essentially the four largest cities, each located in a different region. Urban population and economic importance have become so centralized that the fifth-largest city isn’t anywhere close to the Big Four.
Hard to say. Athens is definitely first, Thessaloniki is definitely second. That’s for sure. Then Patra is third, although it’s pretty close. For the fourth, no clue.
Houston and Dallas are big ass cities, but they’re as culturally irrelevant as Phoenix. Just soulless corporate wastelands surrounded by strip malls and tract housing.
It’s really hard for Italians cause the bug 4 would probably change depending on what makes them great in the first place.
Are we talking art and culture? Then Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples.
Economics? Turn, Genoa, Milan, Rome.
Food? Naples, Rome, Bologna, Palermo.
And the list goes on.
In Denmark it would definitely be Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense, and Aalborg.
In Scotland: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee.
In Italy we have:
Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin
Which are the biggest four cities in Italy and the first four that come to mind in general. I’d say we would have a problem to add the fifth one because technically Palermo is the fifth largest city, but Bologna and Firenze also come to mind.
In terms of population: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth (in that order). But in terms of tourists I think the Gold Coast gets more than Perth.
Though I’m not European so I don’t know if that answers your question.
For most countries it’s just the four largest cities, isn’t it?
In Lithuania only three really matter, Vilnius (capital), Kaunas (second largest) and Klaipėda (sea port). All others just exist. Official Lithuanian definition of a city is any settlement with over 3000 residents, so we have a shitload of cities here.