Nîmes Population and Area (Gard)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Nîmes (Gard)
Nîmes: Population and Area
With 154,017 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Nîmes is the 21st most populous town in France in 2026 and the most populous in the Gard department, out of 350 communes. It covers 162 km² (74th largest area in France, largest in the department), with a population density of 952 inhabitants per km², or 8.7 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 992nd in France for density.
Nîmes is located in the Gard department (30), in the Occitanie region (formerly Languedoc-Roussillon), where it ranks 3rd by population out of 4,446 communes. It is the most populous town in the Gard department, which is home to 784,471 people over 5,853 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Gard department and the regional ranking: largest city in Occitanie.
Towns of similar size in the Gard department: Alès (pop. 46,632), Bagnols-sur-Cèze (pop. 18,409), Beaucaire (pop. 15,883).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 30189. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Nîmes, a major city in the Gard between the Rhône and the Cévennes
The prefecture of the Gard department and the third-largest town in Occitanie, behind Toulouse and Montpellier, Nîmes is one of the oldest major cities in France: its amphitheater, its Maison Carrée and its Tour Magne bear witness to a Roman city that was already important two thousand years ago. Its position on the route linking the Rhône valley to the Languedoc plain, between Marseille and Barcelona, explains a rare continuity of settlement.
A very large commune
The territory of Nîmes is one of the largest of any major French city: it takes in scrubland (garrigue), hills and part of the Costières, so its density is low compared with cities of similar population such as Villeurbanne or Le Mans. A city of sunshine, of ferias and of denim, the fabric that owes its name to it, Nîmes has been growing steadily for some twenty years, fueled by the arrival of retirees and families drawn by the climate and by the TGV lines to Paris, Lyon and Montpellier.