Poitiers Population and Area (Vienne)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Poitiers (Vienne)
Poitiers: Population and Area
With 92,187 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Poitiers is the 50th most populous town in France in 2026 and the most populous in the Vienne department, out of 265 communes. It covers 42 km² (1,816th largest area in France, 38th largest in the department), with a population density of 2,189 inhabitants per km², or 20 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 412th in France for density.
Poitiers is located in the Vienne department (86), in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region (formerly Poitou-Charentes), where it ranks 3rd by population out of 4,293 communes. It is the most populous town in the Vienne department, which is home to 449,082 people over 6,990 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Vienne department and the regional ranking: largest city in Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Towns of similar size in the Vienne department: Châtellerault (pop. 31,656), Buxerolles (pop. 10,408), Jaunay-Marigny (pop. 7,784).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 86194. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Poitiers, a major city of west-central France
Capital of the Vienne department and former capital of the Poitou-Charentes region until 2016, Poitiers is today the main hub of northern Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the largest city in its department. Capital of the Duchy of Aquitaine in the Middle Ages, the "city of a hundred bell towers" perched on a promontory between the Clain and the Boivre rivers, it is one of the oldest university towns in France: its university, founded in 1431, educated Descartes and du Bellay.
A student city and a tech hub
The population of Poitiers is driven by its students, who account for nearly one resident in three, one of the highest proportions in France. The other engine is the Futuroscope, opened in 1987 in the neighboring town of Chasseneuil-du-Poitou, the region's leading tourist attraction, around which a technology park of public agencies and businesses has grown up. Located halfway between Paris and Bordeaux on the TGV line, the city remains mid-sized and sparsely populated, with a territory that takes in valleys and countryside.