Bilbao metropolitan area

Bilbao Metropolitan Area
Bilbo Handia
or Área metropolitana de Bilbao
Urban area
Bilbao, the largest city in the metropolitan area
Bilbao, the largest city in the metropolitan area
Bilbao metropolitan area in Biscay
Bilbao metropolitan area in Biscay
Country Spain
Region Biscay
Largest city Bilbao (345,821)
Area
 • Metro
500 km2 (200 sq mi)
Population
 • Metro
950,155
 • Metro density1,900/km2 (4,900/sq mi)
GDP
 • Metro€32.891 billion
Gran Bilbao real color image taken by NASA's Landsat satellite.

The Bilbao Metropolitan Area (in Basque: Bilbo Handia, in Spanish: Área metropolitana de Bilbao) is the metropolitan area or continuous urban area based around the city of Bilbao, in the Basque Country, Spain. It comprises the city of Bilbao, the 25 municipalities that make the comarca of Greater Bilbao plus ten other surrounding municipalities, all of them in the province of Biscay.

It is the fifth most populated metropolitan area in Spain[3] Almost 80% of the population of Biscay and 43% of the population of the Basque Country is concentrated in the Greater Bilbao area or the wider metropolitan area. The metropolitan area's municipalities, are defined by the Basque Country's Territorial Directives[4][5] Other six satellite cities exist within the province of Biscay and the community of Cantabria, where commute between the cities and the metropolitan area in common.[6]

  1. ^ "Population on 1 January by age, sex and NUTS 2 region", www.ec.europa.eu
  2. ^ "Gross domestic product (GDP) at current market prices by metropolitan regions". ec.europa.eu.
  3. ^ AUDES project, 2007 statistics Archived 2011-08-22 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Metropolitan Bilbao
  5. ^ Environment and Urbanism area Archived 2010-05-23 at the Wayback Machine of the Basque Government
  6. ^ CONFERENCE DES REGIONS PERIPHERIQUES MARITIMES D’EUROPE, study of the European Union[permanent dead link]