AIRE URBAINE

The 'aire urbaine' (not to be confused with English "urban area") is an INSEE (the national statistics office of France) statistical region comprising a ''couronne périurbaine'' commuter belt around a contiguous ''pôle urbain'' (urban area) urban core.
The ''aire urbaine'' is a demographical unit the result of a quite literal methodology: drawn upon France's nation-wide map of interlocking ''commune'' municipalities, the ''aire urbaine'' has for its centre a ''pôle urbain'' (similar to a ''unité urbaine'' ("urban unit") - see note below) core of communes containing an interconnecting and unbroken urban growth; this centre forms a "pole of attraction" for a ''couronne périurbaine'' ("periurban ring" or commuter belt) communes having at least 40% of their resident populations commuting with the ''pôle urbain'', or with other communes having the same relation to the ''pôle urbain''. The result is a precise demographic map of a) a centre of urban growth and b) its socio-economic reach into the surrounding area.
Note: There is a slight difference between a ''unité urbaine'' and a ''pôle urbain'' : the basic ''unité urbaine'' is a contiguous urban growth containing at least 5,000 jobs, and the ''pôle urbain'' is the same as a centre of demographic growth; that is to say it is an urban area that it is not contained within the ''couronne périurbaine'' (commuter belt) of any other ''pôle urbain''.
Here is a list of the fifteen largest ''aires urbaines'' of France based on population at the 1999 census:

Aire urbaine	Population (March 1999)	Yearly percent change (1990-1999)
01- Paris	11,174,743	+0.32%
02- Lyon	1,648,216	+0.68%
03- Marseille	1,516,340	+0.46%
04- Lille (figures do not include the part of Lille's metropolitan area which lies on Belgian territory)	1,143,125	+0.32%
05- Toulouse	964,797	+1.54%
06- Nice	933,080	+0.51%
07- Bordeaux	925,253	+0.67%
08- Nantes	711,120	+1.10%
09- Strasbourg (figures do not include the part of Strasbourg's metropolitan area which lies on German territory, see Eurodistrict)	612,104	+0.81%
10- Toulon	564,823	+0.69%
11- Douai-Lens	552,682	– 0.17%
12- Rennes	521,188	+1.32%
13- Rouen	518,316	+0.29%
14- Grenoble	514,559	+0.65%
15- Montpellier	459,916	+1.89%

Contents

See also

External links

See also

★ Social situation in the French suburbs

★ Demographics of France

★ List of the largest urban areas of the European Union by population

★ Unité urbaine a related concept

External links

★ Audio book (mp3) of the introduction and first chapter of Éric Maurin's book : Le ghetto français, enquête sur le séparatisme social