The chart above shows the largest metropolitan economies in the European Union that happen to also be among the world's largest 300 metropolitan economies based on the Brookings Institution. Western Europe dominates in both the number of large economies and the size of each.
Findings
- Of the 73 EU metropolises that make up 300 of the world's largest metropolitan economies, 47 of them are located in Western Europe.
- Southern Europe has the second largest number of large metropolitan economies at 15.
- Eastern Europe has seven and northern Europe has four.
Caveats
- The data is from 2014.
Details
London and Paris are by far the largest metropolitan economies in the EU. For some reason, an agglomeration of cities comes in third but if the Netherlands were to do the same with Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the two cities would overtake the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region handily.
Outside of western Europe, Milan is the largest urban economy and Stockholm and Warsaw lead northern and eastern Europe respectively at less than half Milan's economy each.
Sources
Brookings Institution. "Global Metro Monitor." Accessed December 17, 2017. https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-metro-monitor/.