Is Birmingham or Manchester The Second City? England’s 10 biggest cities ranked by population

How does Birmingham’s population compare to other cities in England? And is it bigger than Manchester?

Birmingham has been known as the UK’s Second City - the biggest outside London, the capital - since World War One.

But often Manchester tries to take this crown - and there has been much discussion over which of the two cities really is bigger.

Now a new set of data has been released that can finally settle the scores with the population in each English city being counted.

The research by Centre for Cities has analysed UK cities by focusing on primary urban areas (PIAs) - a definition created by the Department for Communities and Local Government as a statistical tool for analysing the major cities of England.

It captures the built up footprint of a city based on areas of continuous built-up land containing urban structures that are within 50 metres of each other.

In 2021, there was a total of 59,597,500 people living in England and Wales and a majority of them lived in cities

London has passed the 10 million mark in terms of population, surpassing all other English cities by a mile.

Here’s where Birmingham ranks in terms of population

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