Greater Glasgow

For the NHS Health Board, see NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Greater Glasgow
Satellite image showing the Greater Glasgow Area
Area265 km2 (102 sq mi) [1]
Population1,028,220 (2020)[2]
LanguageEnglish, Scots, Gaelic[3]
OS grid referenceNS590655
• Edinburgh42 mi (68 km)
• London403 mi (649 km)
CountryScotland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townGLASGOW
Postcode districtG1–G84
Post townPAISLEY
Postcode districtPA1–PA19
Post townMOTHERWELL
Postcode districtML1–ML8
Dialling code0141, 01236, 01355, 01360, 01389, 01505, 01698, 01475
List of places
UK
Scotland

Greater Glasgow is an urban settlement in Scotland consisting of all localities which are physically attached to the city of Glasgow, forming with it a single contiguous urban area (or conurbation). It does not relate to municipal government boundaries, and its territorial extent is defined by National Records of Scotland, which determines settlements in Scotland for census and statistical purposes. Greater Glasgow had a population of 1,199,629 at the time of the 2001 UK Census[4] making it the largest urban area in Scotland and the fifth-largest in the United Kingdom.[5] However, the population estimate for the Greater Glasgow 'settlement' (a chain of continuously populated postcodes) in mid-2016 was 985,290[6]—the reduced figure explained by the removal of the Motherwell & Wishaw (124,790), Coatbridge & Airdrie (91,020), and Hamilton (83,730) settlement areas east of the city due to small gaps between the populated postcodes. The 'new towns' of Cumbernauld (which had a 2016 settlement population of 50,920) and East Kilbride (75,120) were never included in these figures despite their close ties to Glasgow due to having a clear geographical separation from the city. In the 2020 figures (with almost the same boundaries as 2016, the main difference being the re-addition of Barrhead), the Greater Glasgow population had risen to just over 1 million.[2]

A more extensive Greater Glasgow concept covers a much larger area and may include Ayrshire down to Ayr as well as the whole of Lanarkshire down to Lanark, Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, and Inverclyde. At present, the Glasgow City Region consists of the Glasgow City Council, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, East Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, and Inverclyde Local Authorities, with a combined population of over 1.7 million. This city-region is described as a metropolitan area by its own strategic planning authority and is similar to the Glasgow metropolitan area identified by the European Union.

The City of Glasgow grew substantially in population during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, becoming in 1912 the eighth city in Europe to reach the one million mark after Rome, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. The official population stayed over a million for fifty years.[7] Since the 1960s, successive boundary changes and large-scale relocation to suburban districts and new towns have reduced the population of the City of Glasgow council area to 593,245 at the time of the 2011 UK Census.

  1. ^ a b United Kingdom: Countries and Major Urban Areas, CityPopulation.de
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference NRS20 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Layout 1" (PDF). Glasgow.gov.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 October 2012. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  4. ^ "Key Statistics for Settlements and Localities Scotland". General Register Office for Scotland. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 8 September 2008.
  5. ^ The UK’s major urban areas Archived 2010-01-07 at the Wayback Machine Office for National Statistics, 2005
  6. ^ "NRS – Background Information Settlements and Localities" (PDF). National Records of Scotland. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  7. ^ [1] Archived 27 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine