List of smallest cities in the United Kingdom
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The table displays the 31 smallest of the cities in the United Kingdom across three measures. Most of these appear in all three of the following categories:
- Area (body):[a] This default sort ranks the physically smallest 23 local government areas (parish/community, district, county) and if missing, a built-up locality that has city status
- Area (locale): 24 cities with the smallest same-name built-up area (many cities have much countryside and multiple settlements within their boundaries)
- Census population: 24 cities around 100,000 residents and fewer since the 2001 census
City boundaries
Built-up area
Lichfield, Hereford and Salisbury, in addition to being some of the smallest cities in England, are among the most populous civil parishes.
The least populous cities on all of British territory are Jamestown in St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (pop. 629) and Hamilton in Bermuda (pop. 854).
List
| City | County/ |
Area (body/locale)[a] | Body[a] | Area (locale)[b] | Locale/ body % |
Census population | Country | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | sq mi (km2) | Rank | sq mi (km2) | Rank (2011) |
2021 | 2011 | 2001 | |||||
| City of London | City of London | 1 | 1.12 (2.90) | County | 3 | — | — | 2 | 8,583 | 7,375 | 7,185[1] | England |
| Wells | Somerset | 2 | 2.11 (5.46) | Parish | 4 | 1.35 (3.50) | 63.99% | 3 | 11,145 | 10,536 | 10,406[2] | England |
| St Asaph | Denbighshire | 3 | 2.49 (6.45) | Community | 2 | 0.50 (1.29) | 20.19% | — | 3,485 | 3,355[c] | 3,491[c] | Wales |
| Bangor | Gwynedd | 4 | 2.79 (7.23) | Community | 5 | 1.65 (4.27) | 59.20% | 5 | 15,060 | 16,358[3] | 13,725[4] | Wales |
| Ripon | North Yorkshire | 5 | 3.83 (9.92) | Parish | 7 | 1.97 (5.10) | 51.36% | 6 | 16,590 | 16,702[5] | 15,922[6] | England |
| Armagh | County Armagh | 6 | — | None | 11 | 3.97 (10.28) | — | 4 | 14,749 | 14,590 | Northern Ireland | |
| Chichester | West Sussex | 7 | 4.12 (10.67) | Parish | 9 | 3.32 (8.60) | 80.77% | 9 | 29,407 | 26,795 | 23,731[7] | England |
| Truro | Cornwall | 8 | 4.15 (10.75) | Parish | 8 | 2.83 (7.33) | 68.25% | 7 | 21,046 | 18,766 | 17,431[8] | England |
| Lichfield | Staffordshire | 9 | 5.41 (14.01) | Parish | 10 | 3.35 (8.68) | 61.84% | 11 | 32,580 | 32,219 | 27,900[9] | England |
| Newry | County Armagh/Down | 10 | — | None | 16 | 5.43 (14.06) | — | 10 | TBC | 26,967 | 27,433[c] | Northern Ireland |
| Perth | Perth & Kinross | 11 | — | None | 19 | 6.71 (17.38) | — | — | TBC | 46,970[c][10] | 43,450[c] | Scotland |
| Salisbury | Wiltshire | 12 | 7.14 (18.49) | Parish | 12 | 4.36 (11.29) | 61.04% | 12 | 41,552 | 40,302 | 39,726 |
England |
| Lisburn | County Antrim |
13 | — | None | 20 | 7.53 (19.50) | — | 13 | TBC | 45,370[13] | 71,465[c] | Northern Ireland |
| Bangor | County Down | 14 | — | None | 21 | 7.55 (19.55) | — | — | 61,011[c] | 58,388[c] | Northern Ireland | |
| Hereford | Herefordshire | 15 | 7.85 (20.33) | Parish | 17 | 6.58 (17.04) | 83.82% | 15 | 53,113 | 58,896[14] | 50,154[15] | England |
| Stirling | Stirling | 16 | — | None | 23 | 7.91 (20.49) | — | 14 | TBC | 45,750 | 45,115[c] | Scotland |
| City of Westminster | Greater London | 17 | 8.29 (21.47) | District | 24 | — | — | — | 204,236 | 219,396 | 181,286 | England |
| Inverness | Highland | 18 | — | None | — | 10.28 (26.63) | — | 16 | TBC | 61,235 |
71,000 | Scotland |
| Carlisle | Cumbria | 19 | 10.38 (26.88)[d] | Trustee | 22 | 7.76 (20.10) | 74.75% | 23 | 74,428 | 107,524 | 100,739 | England |
| Dunfermline | Fife | 20 | — | None | — | 10.85 (28.10) | — | — | 68,426[18][c] | 39,320[19][c] | Scotland | |
| Worcester | Worcestershire | 21 | 12.85 (33.28) | District | — | 9.52 (24.66) | 74.12% | 22 | 103,872 | 98,768 | 93,353[20] | England |
| Derry | County |
22 | — | None | — | 13.10 (33.93) | — | 18 | TBC | 85,016 | 83,652 | Northern Ireland |
| Lincoln | Lincolnshire | 23 | 13.78 (35.69) | District | — | 12.61 (32.66) | 91.48% | 20 | 103,813 | 93,541 | 85,595[21] | England |
| St Davids | Pembrokeshire | — | 17.88 (46.31) | Community | 1 | 0.23 (0.596) | 1.29% | 1 | 1,751 | 1,841 | 1,797[22] | Wales |
| Ely | Cambridgeshire | — | 22.86 (59.21) | Parish | 6 | 1.84 (4.77) | 8.04% | 8 | 20,574 | 20,256 | 15,102[23] | England |
| City of Bath | Somerset | — | 28.68 (74.28)[e] | Trustee | — | 11.07 (28.67) | — | 19 | 97,066 | 88,859 | 83,992[24] | England |
| City of Canterbury | Kent | — | 119.25 (308.86) | District | 15 | 5.09 (13.18) | 4.27% | — | 157,432 | 151,145 | 135,278 | England |
| City of Durham | County Durham | — | 186.68 (483.50)[f] | Trustee | 14 | 4.96 (12.85) | — | 21 | 101,372 | 94,375 | 87,709[30] | England |
| Wrexham | Wrexham | — | 194.51 (503.78) | District | 18 | 6.70 (17.35) | 3.45% | — | 135,117[c] | 134,884[c] | 128,476[c] | Wales |
| City of Winchester | Hampshire | — | 255.20 (660.96) | District | 13 | 4.76 (12.33) | 1.86% | 24 | 127,444 | 116,595 | 107,222 | England |
| City of Chester | Cheshire | — | 448.04 (1,160.42)[g] | Trustee | — | 9.85 (25.51) | — | 17 | TBC | 79,645[31] | 77,040[32] | England |
See also
Notes
- The area (body) measurement is the size of a localised council area which is designated as a city, if there is one. Council area boundaries are well-defined, and cities are typically awarded the honour via parish or principal governing public bodies. Many in the table are parishes (England) or communities (Wales), except for the City of London (county). Several districts that hold city status are shown as the areas become larger; these are named after their only settlement or largest town in the case of multiple settlements. Cities can also be boroughs, which are an honorific title for districts. In Scotland and Northern Ireland wider council areas can hold the title on behalf of a city urban area much like a charter trust and in Northern Ireland particularly, these mainly have multiple place names in their titles, so the area (body) does not apply in these cases. Some local legal entity types such as communities in Scotland or townlands in Northern Ireland do not at present hold city status.
- The area (locale) reflects the built up area that most closely corresponds to the urban area of the named city settlement, which means for many small cities that portions of their administrative area is rural land.It is used in the statistics instead of the body size where there is no local government entity, e.g. unparished area with city charter trustees, or cities designated by their urban area (Scotland, Northern Ireland). This is a secondary method of determining physical size; relatively fewer cities are explicitly defined in this way, and their urban area can extend beyond the city boundary. London and Westminster are completely surrounded by a much larger built-up area (Greater London) and so any parkland within these is considered part of their urban landscape. Thus Wells is the smallest standalone city, as it is wholly surrounded by countryside
- Not a city at time of census
- this was reformed in April 2023, from a district measuring 401.28 sq mi (1,039.31 km2) to a smaller, mainly unparished area covering several district wards
- the city area given is the area of the former borough, in existence until 1996
- this was parished in 2018, but city charter trustees continue to exist, and so hold the charter on behalf of the city area covered by the much wider Durham city district council until 2009. The 2011 population is that of wards covering the same area. The title is not held by the parish council.[25][26][27] Size of the parish is 5.56 sq mi (14.40 km2) and its population 20,115 (2011).[28][29]
- the area given is the prior City of Chester district active until 2009. Population of wards in 2001 was 118,210.
- Statistics in italics have been added for completion of the table. These are in numerical but non-ranking order.
- English cities prefixed 'City of...' are districts so named to distinguish them from a namesake settlement area which does not have city status, with the City of London having additional county status. All of these except London have several communities and suburbs within their boundaries, with most containing large swathes of countryside, extra settlements and sometimes parishes/communities.