(05 October 2015) – Out of 100 persons in the European Union (EU) in 2014, 40 were living in densely-populated areas (or cities), 28 in thinly-populated (or rural) areas and 32 in intermediate areas (or towns and suburbs).
Across Member States, more than half of the population was living in cities in the United Kingdom (58.6%) and Cyprus (54.7%). A large part of the population was also concentrated in urban areas notably in Spain (48.5%), Malta (48.0%), Bulgaria (45.7%) and the Netherlands (45.2%).
In contrast, the largest share of the population was living in rural areas in Luxembourg (51.0%), followed by Slovenia (49.8%), Lithuania (47.6%), Slovakia (45.6%), Denmark (44.4%), Ireland (43.5%) and Romania (43.1%).
The population living in intermediate areas was predominant in Belgium (57.1%), while the population was almost evenly distributed between urban, intermediate and rural areas in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Finland.
Among the EU Member States, satisfaction with recreational and green areas for the population living in densely-populated areas was highest in the three EU Nordic Member States: Finland (8.5/10), Sweden (8.2/10) and Denmark (8.0/10). At the opposite end of the scale, urban populations with the lowest rated satisfaction were those living in Greece (5.0/10), Bulgaria (5.3/10) and Cyprus (5.9/10).