Mérignac Population and Area (Gironde)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Mérignac (Gironde)
Mérignac: Population and Area
With 78,946 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Mérignac is the 64th most populous town in France in 2026 and the 2nd most populous in the Gironde department, out of 534 communes. It covers 48 km² (1,294th largest area in France, 41st largest in the department), with a population density of 1,639 inhabitants per km², or 15 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 567th in France for density.
Mérignac is located in the Gironde department (33), in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region (formerly Aquitaine), where it ranks 6th by population out of 4,293 communes. The most populous town in the Gironde department is Bordeaux (271,552 inhabitants); the department is home to 1,716,986 people over 9,976 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Gironde department and the regional ranking: largest city in Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Towns of similar size in the Gironde department: Bordeaux (pop. 271,552), Pessac (pop. 68,102), Talence (pop. 47,340), Villenave-d'Ornon (pop. 42,858).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 33281. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Mérignac, the second-largest town in the Gironde
Bordering Bordeaux to the west, Mérignac is the second most populous town in the Gironde department, without being either a prefecture or a subprefecture. Its size comes from its role in the Bordeaux urban area: it is home to Bordeaux-Mérignac airport and to a large share of the region's aerospace industry.
A sprawling town that grew with aviation
Still rural until the mid-20th century, Mérignac developed alongside the airport and the aircraft plants, including Dassault Aviation's, where the Falcon business jets and the Rafale are assembled. Its vast territory, one of the largest in the Bordeaux metropolitan area, mixes neighborhoods of detached houses, business parks, parks and woodland, which gives it a lower density than the inner-ring towns. Its population has grown almost without interruption since the 1950s, driven by jobs in the airport area and by the tramway that links it to central Bordeaux.