Tourcoing Population and Area (Nord)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Tourcoing (Nord)
Tourcoing: Population and Area
With 99,346 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Tourcoing is the 43rd most populous town in France in 2026 and the 2nd most populous in the Nord department, out of 647 communes. It covers 15 km² (11,914th largest area in France, 78th largest in the department), with a population density of 6,540 inhabitants per km², or 60 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 91st in France for density.
Tourcoing is located in the Nord department (59), in the Hauts-de-France region (formerly Nord-Pas-de-Calais), where it ranks 3rd by population out of 3,782 communes. The most populous town in the Nord department is Lille (240,109 inhabitants); the department is home to 2,645,946 people over 5,743 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Nord department and the regional ranking: largest city in Hauts-de-France.
Towns of similar size in the Nord department: Lille (pop. 240,109), Roubaix (pop. 98,701), Dunkerque (pop. 87,442), Villeneuve-d'Ascq (pop. 63,462).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 59599. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Tourcoing, a major city on the Belgian border
Bordering Belgium, Tourcoing is one of the hubs of the Métropole Européenne de Lille and the third-largest town in Hauts-de-France after Lille and Amiens, almost exactly level with its twin Roubaix. The two cities, which adjoin each other, owe their size to the same history: the 19th-century wool industry, which made this corner of northern France one of the most densely populated in Europe.
A population inherited from the Industrial Revolution
Nicknamed the "cité du Broutteux," Tourcoing reached its peak population in the 1970s, before losing residents as the textile mills closed. The city remains very dense, with an unbroken fabric of workers' houses, courées (housing courts) and converted former spinning mills, and forms with Roubaix, Wattrelos and Mouvaux a continuous conurbation all the way to Lille. Its population is now stabilizing, supported by urban renewal, the tramway and the service-sector activities of the Lille metropolitan area.