Poverty levels are high in the large urban centres, and especially in their central towns. The proportion of incomes that fall below the poverty line is systematically higher than the national average, and there are some very marked local differences, with the share of these incomes exceeding 25% in ten of the central towns studied. The situation is more contrasted for the wealthiest populations. In Paris and half of the metropolitan areas, these populations are significantly or strongly over-represented, while in the majority of central towns, they tend to be under-represented. Paris and its suburbs are a special case, with a high concentration of wealthy people both in the central towns and in certain suburbs. Outside the Paris agglomeration, the analysis of internal income disparities in the central towns revealed three main profiles which differed in the way in which those with high and low incomes were over- or under-represented. The differences in profiles between suburbs were not as great as those between the central towns, and schematically, two groups emerged, the wealthy suburbs and the low-income suburbs. However, it is not only these inequalities in income distribution that account for the diversity of local situations; other indicators were applied to measure segregation or the concentration of the highest or lowest income groups, to gain a better understanding of territorial disparities.