Béziers Population and Area (Hérault)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Béziers (Hérault)
Béziers: Population and Area
With 82,629 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Béziers is the 60th most populous town in France in 2026 and the 2nd most populous in the Hérault department, out of 341 communes. It covers 95 km² (265th largest area in France, largest in the department), with a population density of 865 inhabitants per km², or 7.9 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 1,106th in France for density.
Béziers is located in the Hérault department (34), in the Occitanie region (formerly Languedoc-Roussillon), where it ranks 5th by population out of 4,446 communes. The most populous town in the Hérault department is Montpellier (313,712 inhabitants); the department is home to 1,248,501 people over 6,101 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Hérault department and the regional ranking: largest city in Occitanie.
Towns of similar size in the Hérault department: Montpellier (pop. 313,712), Sète (pop. 45,901), Agde (pop. 30,340), Lunel (pop. 26,923).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 34032. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Béziers, the second-largest city in the Hérault
A subprefecture of the Hérault and the department's second-largest town after Montpellier, Béziers is one of the oldest cities in France: a Roman colony under the name Baeterrae, it overlooks the Orb River from the promontory crowned by the Saint-Nazaire cathedral.
A large city born of wine and the Canal du Midi
The size of Béziers is explained by winegrowing: in the 19th century, the city became one of the wine capitals of Languedoc, and its population rose sharply with the prosperity of the wine trade. It is also the birthplace of Pierre-Paul Riquet, the designer of the Canal du Midi, whose nine Fonseranes locks, on the edge of town, draw many visitors. The wine crisis of the 20th century slowed its development; today the city relies on tourism, the nearby beaches and an urban area that keeps gaining residents. Its large territory gives it a moderate density.