38% of the French Population Live in a Densely Populated Municipality

In France, 25 million inhabitants live in densely populated municipalities in 2016 (i.e. 38% of the population). Next come the municipalities of intermediate population density (30% of the population), the sparsely populated municipalities (29%) and the very sparsely populated municipalities (4%). On average, 24% of Europe’s inhabitants live in sparsely or very sparsely populated communes. Only Île-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Hauts-de-France have more than one third of their population in densely populated municipalities. In the French Overseas Departments, the population is more concentrated than in Metropolitan France and very sparsely populated communes are much rarer.