City  | City limits (2006) | Density /km² (city limits) | Density /sq mi (city limits) | Urban area (2005) | LUZ (2004) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin | 3,410,000 | 3,815 | 9,880 | 3,761,000 | 4,971,331 |
| London | 7,512,400 | 4,761 | 12,330 | 9,332,000 | 11,917,000 |
| Madrid | 3,228,359 | 5,198 | 13,460 | 4,990,000 | 5,804,829 |
| Paris | 2,153,600 | 24,672 | 63,900 | 9,928,000 | 11,089,124 |
| Rome | 2,708,395 | 2,105 | 5,450 | 2,867,000 | 3,457,690 |
The combined population of all 27 member states has been estimated at 499,794,855 as of January 2009.[171]
The EU's population is 7.3% of the world total, yet the EU covers just 3% of the Earth's land, amounting to a population density of 113 km2 (44 sq mi) making the EU one of the most densely populated regions of the world. One third of EU citizens live in cities of over a million people, rising to 80% living in urban areas generally.[172] The EU is home to more global cities than any other region in the world.[173] It contains 16 cities with populations of over one million.
Besides many large cities, the EU also includes several densely populated regions that have no single core but have emerged from the connection of several cites and are now encompassing large metropolitan areas. The largest are Rhine-Ruhr having approximately 11.5 million inhabitants (Cologne, Dortmund, Düsseldorf et al.), Randstad approx. 7 million (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht et al.), Frankfurt/Rhine-Main approx. 5.8 million (Frankfurt, Wiesbaden et al.), the Flemish diamond approx. 5.5 million (urban area in between Antwerp, Brussels, Leuven and Ghent), the Upper Silesian Industrial Region approx. 3.5 million (Katowice, Sosnowiec et al.), and the Öresund Region approx. 2.5 million (Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden).[174]
Languages
| Language | Native Speakers | Total |
|---|---|---|
| English | 13% | 51% |
| German | 18% | 32% |
| French | 12% | 26% |
| Italian | 13% | 16% |
| Spanish | 9% | 15% |
| Polish | 9% | 10% |
| Dutch | 5% | 6% |
| Greek | 3% | 3% |
| Czech | 2% | 3% |
| Swedish | 2% | 3% |
| Hungarian | 2% | 2% |
| Portuguese | 2% | 2% |
| Catalan | 1% | 2% |
| Slovak | 1% | 2% |
| Danish | 1% | 1% |
| Finnish | 1% | 1% |
| Lithuanian | 1% | 1% |
| Slovene | 1% | 1% |
| Published in 2006, before the | ||
Among the many languages and dialects used in the EU, it has 23 official and working languages: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, and Swedish.[177][178] Important documents, such as legislation, are translated into every official language. The European Parliament provides translation into all languages for documents and its plenary sessions.[179] Some institutions use only a handful of languages as internal working languages.[180] Language policy is the responsibility of member states, but EU institutions promote the learning of other languages.[181][182]
German is the most widely spoken mother tongue (about 88.7 million people as of 2006), followed by English, Italian and French. English is by far the most spoken foreign language at over half (51%) of the population, with German and French following. 56% of European citizens are able to engage in a conversation in a language other than their mother tongue.[183] Most official languages of the EU belong to the Indo-European language family, except Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian, which belong to the Uralic language family, and Maltese, which is an Afroasiatic language. Most EU official languages are written in the Latin alphabet except Bulgarian, written in Cyrillic, and Greek, written in the Greek alphabet.[184]
Besides the 23 official languages, there are about 150 regional and minority languages, spoken by up to 50 million people.[184] Of these, only the Spanish regional languages (Catalan/Valencian, Galician, and the non-Indo-European Basque), Scottish Gaelic and Welsh [185] can be used by citizens in communication with the main European institutions.[186] Although EU programmes can support regional and minority languages, the protection of linguistic rights is a matter for the individual member states. Though the population of Romani speakers is triple[187] that of Welsh speakers (despite the Porajmos) and the history of Romani people in Europe is seven centuries long, their language is not official in any EU state.
Besides the many regional languages, a broad variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by immigrant communities in the member states: Turkish, Maghrebi Arabic, Russian, Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Ukrainian, Punjabi and Balkan languages are spoken in many parts of the EU. Many older immigrant communities are bilingual, being fluent in both the local (EU) language and in that of their ancestral community. Migrant languages have no formal status or recognition in the EU or in the EU countries, although from 2007 they are eligible for support from the language teaching section of the EU's Lifelong Learning Programme 2007–2013.[184]
Religion
The EU is a secular body with no formal connections to any religion and no mention of religion in any current or proposed treaty.[135] Discussion over the draft texts of the European Constitution and later the Treaty of Lisbon included proposals to mention Christianity or God, or both, in the preamble of the text, but the idea faced opposition and was dropped.[189] Other significant religions present in EU countries are Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism, the latter two having a strong presence in the United Kingdom.[190]
This emphasis on Christianity stems from it being by far the largest religion in Europe. Christians in the EU are divided among followers of Roman Catholicism, numerous Protestant denominations (especially in northern Europe) and Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic (in south eastern Europe). Other religions, such as Islam and Judaism, are also represented in the EU population. As of 2009[update], the EU had an estimated Muslim population of 23 million,[191] and an estimated Jewish population of over a million.[192]
Eurostat's Eurobarometer opinion polls show that the majority of EU citizens have some form of belief system, with 21% seeing it as important. Many countries have experienced falling church attendance and membership in recent years.[193] The 2005 Eurobarometer showed that of the European citizens (of the 25 members at that time), 52% believed in a god, 27% in some sort of spirit or life force and 18% had no form of belief. The countries where the fewest people reported a religious belief were the Czech Republic (19%) and Estonia (16%),[194] The most religious countries are Malta (95%; predominantly Roman Catholic), and Cyprus and Romania both with about 90% of citizens believing in God (both predominantly Eastern Orthodox). Across the EU, belief was higher among women, increased with age, those with religious upbringing, those who left school at 15 with a basic education, and those "positioning themselves on the right of the political scale (57%)."
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