Functional area
Statistical area in France
An aire d'attraction d'une ville (or AAV, literally meaning "catchment area of a city") is a statistical area used by France's national statistics office INSEE since 2020, officially translated as functional area in English by INSEE, which consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and the surrounding exurbs, towns and intervening rural areas that are socioeconomically tied to the central urban agglomeration, as measured by commuting patterns. INSEE's functional area (AAV) is therefore akin to what is most often called metropolitan area in English.
01Definition
INSEE's AAV follows the same definition as the Functional Urban Area (FUA) used by Eurostat and the OECD, and the AAVs are thus strictly comparable to the FUAs. Before 2020, INSEE used another metropolitan statistical area, the aire urbaine (AU), which was defined differently than the AAV, but the AU has now been discontinued and replaced with the AAV in order to facilitate international comparisons with Eurostat's FUAs.
The functional area is a grouping of communes comprising a 'population and employment centre' (pôle de population et d'emploi in French), which Eurostat calls "city" or "greater city" (depending on the FUA), defined according to population and employment criteria, and an outlying 'commuting zone' (couronne in French), which Eurostats calls "commuting zone" in English, like INSEE, but zone de navettage in French (unlike INSEE which calls it couronne), in which at least 15% of the working population work in the population and employment centre.
02Table
| Rank (2023) |
Rank (2012) |
Rank (1990) |
Functional area (AAV) |
Population (2023) |
Population (2012) |
Population (1990) |
Yearly change (2012-2023) |
Yearly change (1990-2012) |
Land area (km²) |
Number of communes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | Paris | 13,320,752 | 12,734,837 | 11,392,740 | +0.41% | +0.51% | 18,941 | 1,929 |
| 2 | 2 | 2 | Lyon | 2,339,329 | 2,135,294 | 1,790,325 | +0.83% | +0.81% | 4,606 | 398 |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | Marseille, Aix-en-Provence | 1,917,728 | 1,815,196 | 1,594,849 | +0.50% | +0.59% | 3,972 | 115 |
| 4 | 4 | 4 | Lille (French part) | 1,530,624 | 1,470,295 | 1,390,191 | +0.37% | +0.26% | 1,666 | 201 |
| 5 | 5 | 6 | Toulouse | 1,529,112 | 1,322,271 | 935,009 | +1.33% | +1.60% | 6,520 | 527 |
| 6 | 6 | 5 | Bordeaux | 1,426,278 | 1,229,618 | 986,179 | +1.36% | +1.02% | 6,316 | 275 |
| 7 | 7 | 7 | Nantes | 1,050,815 | 917,944 | 722,234 | +1.24% | +1.11% | 3,471 | 116 |
| 8 | 8 | 8 | Strasbourg (French part) | 875,163 | 817,493 | 704,238 | +0.62% | +0.69% | 2,227 | 268 |
| 9 | 10 | 13 | Montpellier | 842,923 | 722,859 | 501,936 | +1.41% | +1.69% | 2,414 | 161 |
| 10 | 12 | 12 | Rennes | 789,516 | 695,892 | 521,255 | +1.15% | +1.33% | 3,804 | 183 |
| 11 | 9 | 10 | Grenoble | 727,380 | 702,884 | 614,455 | +0.31% | +0.62% | 2,876 | 204 |
| 12 | 11 | 9 | Rouen | 715,234 | 691,256 | 646,549 | +0.31% | +0.31% | 2,792 | 317 |
| 13 | 13 | 11 | Nice | 641,721 | 603,992 | 558,520 | +0.55% | +0.36% | 2,073 | 100 |
| 14 | 14 | 16 | Toulon | 591,135 | 546,677 | 481,466 | +0.71% | +0.58% | 1,004 | 35 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | Tours | 529,468 | 504,231 | 437,547 | +0.44% | +0.65% | 3,632 | 162 |
| 16 | 18 | 18 | Clermont-Ferrand | 510,668 | 476,679 | 432,862 | +0.51% | +0.50% | 2,845 | 209 |
| 17 | 15 | 14 | Nancy | 507,812 | 511,901 | 496,486 | -0.07% | +0.14% | 3,121 | 353 |
| 18 | 17 | 15 | Saint-Étienne | 503,351 | 489,046 | 491,789 | +0.26% | -0.03% | 1,636 | 105 |
| 19 | 19 | 19 | Caen | 486,716 | 455,492 | 399,635 | +0.60% | +0.60% | 2,597 | 296 |
| 20 | 20 | 20 | Orléans | 463,435 | 432,433 | 374,252 | +0.63% | +0.66% | 3,422 | 136 |
| 21 | 30 | 41 | Geneva, Annemasse (French part) | 460,952 | 382,331 | 258,475 | +1.71% | +1.81% | 1,737 | 158 |
| 22 | 22 | 23 | Angers | 448,162 | 414,843 | 355,626 | +0.70% | +0.70% | 2,419 | 81 |
| 23 | 26 | 34 | Perpignan | 432,128 | 392,701 | 301,619 | +0.87% | +1.22% | 1,775 | 118 |
| 24 | 23 | 22 | Dijon | 419,527 | 400,804 | 365,025 | +0.42% | +0.43% | 3,896 | 333 |
| 25 | 21 | 21 | Mulhouse | 410,900 | 408,461 | 370,251 | +0.05% | +0.45% | 1,227 | 132 |
| 26 | 24 | 30 | Cannes-Antibes | 404,118 | 393,308 | 332,735 | +0.25% | +0.77% | 432 | 24 |
| 27 | 28 | 27 | Brest | 381,115 | 362,509 | 335,795 | +0.46% | +0.35% | 1,877 | 245 |
| 28 | 27 | 26 | Metz | 378,942 | 364,812 | 338,432 | +0.35% | +0.34% | 1,265 | 68 |
| 29 | 29 | 33 | Le Mans | 371,448 | 363,691 | 326,702 | +0.19% | +0.49% | 2,340 | 144 |
| 30 | 39 | 40 | Nîmes | 357,349 | 332,737 | 259,675 | +0.65% | +1.14% | 1,468 | 92 |
| 31 | 32 | 32 | Reims | 356,721 | 348,281 | 329,208 | +0.22% | +0.26% | 3,251 | 294 |
| 32 | 31 | 31 | Amiens | 354,121 | 349,530 | 329,781 | +0.12% | +0.27% | 3,076 | 369 |
| 33 | 25 | 25 | Fort-de-France | 346,577 | 372,379 | 340,815 | -0.65% | +0.41% | 974 | 28 |
| 34 | 38 | 38 | Avignon | 345,592 | 323,996 | 272,025 | +0.59% | +0.80% | 964 | 48 |
| 35 | 34 | 28 | Valenciennes (French part) | 336,830 | 336,466 | 335,758 | +0.01% | +0.01% | 725 | 102 |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Functional area”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- FR-AAV-2020-simplified.png by ព្រះមហាក្សត្ររាជ, CC BY-SA 4.0
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