Percentage of inhabitants living in each European capital city (2016)

This map, created by the illustrator Jakub Marian, shows the percentage of inhabitants in each country who live in the metropolitan area of the capital, with data from 2016.

At the top of the list are Malta (Valletta, 90%), Luxembourg (Luxembourg, 76%), Iceland (Reykjavik, 65%) and Latvia (Riga, 52%), all of which are countries with small populations and are not very large, making it easier for a large percentage of the population to be concentrated around the capital.

On the opposite side are Switzerland (Bern, 5%), Germany (Berlin, 5%), Italy (Rome, 7%) and Ukraine (Kiev, 7%), which have in common that they are more decentralised countries and that the capital is one of many major urban centres.

Sources

• European countries by percentage of population living in the capital metropolitan area