Angers Population and Area (Maine-et-Loire)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Angers (Maine-et-Loire)
Angers: Population and Area
With 162,290 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Angers is the 18th most populous town in France in 2026 and the most populous in the Maine-et-Loire department, out of 176 communes. It covers 43 km² (1,750th largest area in France, 34th largest in the department), with a population density of 3,800 inhabitants per km², or 35 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 212th in France for density.
Angers is located in the Maine-et-Loire department (49), in the Pays de la Loire region, where it ranks 2nd by population out of 1,228 communes. It is the most populous town in the Maine-et-Loire department, which is home to 853,768 people over 7,107 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Maine-et-Loire department and the regional ranking: largest city in Pays de la Loire.
Towns of similar size in the Maine-et-Loire department: Cholet (pop. 56,363), Saumur (pop. 27,096), Sèvremoine (pop. 26,473).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 49007. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Angers, the second-largest city in Pays de la Loire
Capital of the Maine-et-Loire department, Angers is the second-largest town in Pays de la Loire, behind Nantes and ahead of Le Mans. The historic capital of Anjou, it grew up at the confluence of the Maine and the Loire, where the roads from Paris, Nantes and Tours meet, a position that made it a political and commercial center as early as the Middle Ages.
Steady growth, without ups and downs
The size of Angers comes neither from a port nor from heavy industry, but from continuous development: a university, departmental administrations, the plant-based sector, whose competitiveness cluster is the leading one in Europe for horticulture, and a quality of life often cited in rankings of the most livable cities. The commune, fairly large in area, keeps a reasonable density for a city of this rank, with a population growing slowly but surely, fueled by the arrival of students and of families from the Paris region.