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The largest towns in the UK

The biggest places in the United Kingdom without city status. "Town" has no legal definition in the UK — unlike city, which is a status granted by the monarch — so lists like this one disagree depending on how each place is counted. Here is ours, with the counting stated.

By James Burfield, SEO consultant, Bath · Page updated
How we count. Figures are for the populated place (the settlement), which for some towns covers a wider built-up area — Birkenhead's figure, for example, takes in much of the Wirral's urban footprint. London boroughs are excluded: Croydon is bigger than most entries here, but calling a borough of the capital a "town" stretches the word past use. Details in sources & method.
#TownCountyNationPopulation2005Change
1 Birkenhead Metropolitan Borough of Wirral England 325,264 ——
2 Reading Reading England 318,014 244,070+30.3%
3 Northampton West Northamptonshire England 245,899 197,322+24.6%
4 Oldham Borough of Oldham England 237,110 104,782boundary differs
5 Luton Luton England 225,262 193,669+16.3%
6 Swindon Borough of Swindon England 201,669 162,439+24.2%
7 Dudley Dudley England 199,059 199,059+0.0%
8 St Helens St. Helens England 183,200 ——
9 Ipswich Suffolk England 178,835 143,767+24.4%
10 Wigan Borough of Wigan England 175,405 80,788boundary differs
11 Warrington Warrington England 172,330 81,238boundary differs
12 Walsall Walsall England 172,141 172,141+0.0%
13 Mansfield Nottinghamshire England 171,958 70,447boundary differs
14 Slough Slough England 164,793 134,072+22.9%
15 Bournemouth Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council England 163,600 175,017-6.5%
16 Telford Telford and Wrekin England 155,570 ——
17 Poole Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council England 151,500 150,092+0.9%
18 Burnley Lancashire England 149,422 73,480boundary differs
19 Huddersfield Kirklees England 149,017 149,017+0.0%
20 Blackburn Blackburn with Darwen England 146,521 106,154+38.0%
21 Blackpool Blackpool England 145,007 143,101+1.3%
22 Basildon Essex England 144,859 101,362+42.9%
23 Middlesbrough Middlesbrough England 142,707 142,707+0.0%
24 Bolton Borough of Bolton England 141,331 141,331+0.0%
25 Stockport Borough of Stockport England 139,052 139,052+0.0%
26 High Wycombe Buckinghamshire England 133,204 80,357boundary differs
27 Newcastle under Lyme Staffordshire England 127,727 75,794boundary differs
28 Solihull Solihull England 126,577 96,267+31.5%
29 Watford Hertfordshire England 125,707 125,707+0.0%
30 Saint Peters Kent England 125,370 ——
31 Crawley West Sussex England 124,008 107,061+15.8%
32 Burton upon Trent Staffordshire England 122,199 ——
33 Cheltenham Gloucestershire England 118,836 103,249+15.1%
34 Rotherham Rotherham England 117,618 117,618+0.0%
35 Worthing West Sussex England 113,866 99,110+14.9%
36 Chesterfield Derbyshire England 113,057 70,679+60.0%
37 Mendip Somerset England 110,000 ——
38 Sutton Coldfield City and Borough of Birmingham England 109,899 107,030+2.7%
39 Basingstoke Hampshire England 107,642 96,348+11.7%
40 Maidstone Kent England 107,627 90,894+18.4%
41 Bedford Bedford England 106,940 86,658+23.4%
42 Woking Surrey England 103,900 ——
43 West Bromwich Sandwell England 103,112 135,618-24.0%
44 Eastbourne East Sussex England 101,689 112,906-9.9%
45 Gillingham Medway England 101,187 101,187+0.0%
46 Rochdale Borough of Rochdale England 97,550 97,550+0.0%
47 Hemel Hempstead Hertfordshire England 95,961 85,629+12.1%
48 Harlow Essex England 93,300 94,365-1.1%
49 Hastings East Sussex England 92,855 89,100+4.2%
50 High Peak Derbyshire England 92,666 ——
51 Darlington Darlington England 92,363 87,204+5.9%
52 Stevenage Hertfordshire England 91,774 84,651+8.4%
53 Southport Sefton England 91,703 93,044-1.4%
54 Grays Borough of Thurrock England 89,755 70,934+26.5%
55 Harrogate North Yorkshire England 89,060 87,024+2.3%
56 Hartlepool Hartlepool England 88,855 86,713+2.5%
57 Nuneaton Warwickshire England 88,813 73,555+20.7%
58 Redditch Worcestershire England 87,847 77,128+13.9%
59 Londonderry County Borough Derry City and Strabane Northern Ireland 87,153 ——
60 Grimsby North East Lincolnshire England 86,138 87,819-1.9%
61 Cannock Staffordshire England 86,121 68,067+26.5%
62 South Shields South Tyneside England 83,655 83,655+0.0%
63 Weston-super-Mare North Somerset England 82,903 82,903+0.0%
64 Halifax Calderdale England 82,624 82,624+0.0%
65 Tamworth Staffordshire England 81,964 74,129+10.6%
66 Gosport Hampshire England 81,952 70,793+15.8%
67 Scunthorpe North Lincolnshire England 81,576 72,514+12.5%
68 Chatham Medway England 80,596 75,509+6.7%
69 Stockton-on-Tees Stockton-on-Tees England 79,957 79,957+0.0%
70 Rugby Warwickshire England 78,117 63,323+23.4%
71 Gateshead Gateshead England 77,649 77,649+0.0%
72 Paisley Renfrewshire Scotland 77,270 73,074+5.7%
73 Shrewsbury Shropshire England 76,782 69,519+10.4%
74 Fylde Lancashire England 76,500 ——
75 Crewe Cheshire East England 76,437 70,455+8.5%
76 Bracknell Bracknell Forest England 76,103 76,103+0.0%
77 East Kilbride South Lanarkshire Scotland 75,310 74,231+1.5%
78 Hove Brighton and Hove England 75,174 75,174+0.0%
79 Aylesbury Buckinghamshire England 74,748 74,565+0.2%
80 Guildford Surrey England 71,873 71,873+0.0%
81 Barnsley Barnsley England 71,447 71,447+0.0%
82 Lowestoft Suffolk England 71,327 71,479-0.2%
83 Maidenhead Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead England 70,374 59,463+18.3%
84 Stafford Staffordshire England 70,145 65,290+7.4%
85 Rhondda Rhondda Cynon Taf Wales 69,506 59,450+16.9%
86 Royal Tunbridge Wells Kent England 68,910 61,075+12.8%
87 Corby North Northamptonshire England 68,164 50,029+36.2%
88 Paignton Borough of Torbay England 67,520 49,886+35.3%
89 Rossendale Lancashire England 67,400 ——
90 Washington Sunderland England 67,085 53,526+25.3%
91 Folkestone Kent England 66,429 45,992+44.4%
92 Ellesmere Port Town Cheshire West and Chester England 65,430 ——
93 Torquay Borough of Torbay England 65,388 65,388+0.0%
94 Loughborough Leicestershire England 64,884 59,317+9.4%
95 Taunton Somerset England 64,621 60,433+6.9%
96 Waterlooville Hampshire England 64,350 64,350+0.0%
97 Bognor Regis West Sussex England 63,885 65,391-2.3%
98 Newtownabbey Antrim and Newtownabbey Northern Ireland 63,860 63,860+0.0%
99 Buckley County of Flintshire Wales 63,576 ——
100 Great Yarmouth Norfolk England 63,434 59,601+6.4%

The 2005 column comes from the World Gazetteer archive we restored, giving a twenty-year comparison no other list of UK towns carries. Where the two sources draw a settlement's boundary differently the change is marked boundary differs rather than printed, because a percentage would be measuring the boundary, not the population. 80 of 100 towns have a comparable pair.

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Why isn't Reading a city?

Reading has over 300,000 residents, a university, and an economy larger than many cities — and has applied for city status repeatedly, most recently in 2022, without success. City status is granted by letters patent and there is no qualifying threshold to meet: a place is a city when the Crown says it is. Which is also how St Davids, population 1,751, outranks every place on this page.

More on this: why isn't Reading a city?

Common questions

What is the biggest town in the UK?
On our count it is Birkenhead, with 325,264 residents and no city status. Lists disagree here because "town" has no legal definition in the UK, so each publisher draws the boundary differently — we use the populated place and exclude London boroughs.
Why isn't Reading a city?
Because city status is granted by the monarch, not earned by size. Reading has over 300,000 residents and has applied repeatedly, most recently in 2022, without success. There is no population threshold that triggers it.
What is the difference between a town and a city in the UK?
City is a legal status granted by letters patent; there are exactly 76. Town has no legal definition at all, which is why no two published lists of the largest towns agree.
Is a town bigger than a city?
Often, yes. The largest towns here are far bigger than most of the 76 official cities — St Davids is a city with 1,751 residents, while several towns on this page exceed 200,000.