Villeurbanne Population and Area (Rhône)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Villeurbanne (Rhône)
Villeurbanne: Population and Area
With 164,747 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Villeurbanne is the 17th most populous town in France in 2026 and the 2nd most populous in the Rhône department, out of 266 communes. It covers 15 km² (12,630th largest area in France, 80th largest in the department), with a population density of 11,346 inhabitants per km², or 104 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 35th in France for density.
Villeurbanne is located in the Rhône department (69), in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region (formerly Rhône-Alpes), where it ranks 3rd by population out of 4,025 communes. The most populous town in the Rhône department is Lyon (525,314 inhabitants); the department is home to 1,940,015 people over 3,249 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Rhône department and the regional ranking: largest city in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Towns of similar size in the Rhône department: Lyon (pop. 525,314), Vénissieux (pop. 65,689), Vaulx-en-Velin (pop. 53,281), Saint-Priest (pop. 49,498).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 69266. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Villeurbanne, one of the largest cities in France without being an administrative capital
Villeurbanne is the most populous town in France that is neither a prefecture nor a subprefecture: it owes its size to its position in Lyon's inner ring, extending the urban fabric of Lyon without any break, on the left bank of the Rhône. Many visitors don't realize they have left Lyon when they walk from the Parc de la Tête-d'Or to the center of Villeurbanne.
A dense city, built to house the urban area
With its Gratte-Ciel district, built in the 1930s to provide modern housing for the workers of eastern Lyon, Villeurbanne chose height and density very early on. A university town with the La Doua campus, bordered by Vaulx-en-Velin and Bron, it keeps growing denser and ranks among the most densely populated towns in France outside Île-de-France. In the ranking, it is neck and neck with Dijon and Angers, prefecture cities that nonetheless have much larger territories.