Colmar Population and Area (Haut-Rhin)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Colmar (Haut-Rhin)
Colmar: Population and Area
With 68,013 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Colmar is the 79th most populous town in France in 2026 and the 2nd most populous in the Haut-Rhin department, out of 366 communes. It covers 67 km² (616th largest area in France, largest in the department), with a population density of 1,022 inhabitants per km², or 9.3 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 921st in France for density.
Colmar is located in the Haut-Rhin department (68), in the Grand Est region (formerly Alsace), where it ranks 6th by population out of 5,115 communes. The most populous town in the Haut-Rhin department is Mulhouse (106,083 inhabitants); the department is home to 784,356 people over 3,525 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Haut-Rhin department and the regional ranking: largest city in Grand Est.
Towns of similar size in the Haut-Rhin department: Mulhouse (pop. 106,083), Saint-Louis (pop. 23,072), Wittenheim (pop. 15,695), Illzach (pop. 15,135).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 68066. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Colmar, prefecture of the Haut-Rhin and third-largest city in Alsace
Prefecture of the Haut-Rhin, Colmar is nevertheless only the department's second-largest town by population, behind Mulhouse. It is also the third-largest city in Alsace, after Strasbourg and Mulhouse, at the foot of the Vosges and in the heart of the Alsace wine country.
A large, well-preserved tourist city
Spared by the destruction of both world wars, Colmar has kept an exceptional old town, with its half-timbered houses, the Petite Venise (Little Venice) quarter along the Lauch and the Unterlinden Museum, home to the Isenheim Altarpiece. The birthplace of the sculptor Bartholdi, creator of the Statue of Liberty, it draws large numbers of visitors every year, especially for its Christmas market. Its territory, very large for a city of this size, includes vast farmland and forests in the Rhine plain, hence a lower density than most prefectures of comparable size.