UK Cities

Population trends by selected UK cities, 1982-2021
Click on graph to expand

Over the period 1982-2021, Glasgow and Liverpool’s population reduced by 10% and 5% respectively. However, over the last 10 years up to 2020 there was population growth in all the selected UK cities, most notably in Manchester, Nottingham and Edinburgh. In 2021, there were population reductions in more than half of the cities. In Scotland, NRS is interpreting this as a COVID-19 related impact with reductions in city populations attributed to people moving out of cities into surrounding local authorities.

Notes

It is worth noting that these city populations are based on local authority boundaries and thus do not reflect the size of the wider surrounding conurbation for each city. For example, the Greater Glasgow and Clyde population is 1.2 million, and using a wider definition of the Glasgow conurbation, encompassing the West of Scotland and including Lanarkshire and parts of Ayrshire, would bring the population to above 2 million.