Largest metropolitan areas in the Nordic countries

The largest metropolitan areas in the Nordic countries are difficult to rank in size because the definition patterns are different from country to country.

By any definition, the metropolitan areas of Copenhagen and Stockholm will rank in top, but it is debatable which one is bigger. For example, Metropolitan Stockholm includes vast rural areas, whereas the Stockholm urban area covers only the continuously built-up area. There are various common definitions of Metropolitan Copenhagen: the former Danish Capital Region/Copenhagen metropolitan area (defunct), followed by the smaller Capital Region of Denmark, or the yet smaller Metropolitan Copenhagen.

The Øresund Region is a regional cross-border development region centered around Copenhagen and Malmö, including all of Zealand in Denmark and Scania in Southern Sweden. If regarded as a single metropolitan area, it is by far the largest in the Nordic countries. The population density in Denmark and southern Sweden is almost as big as central northern Europe, but much lower in the rest of Scandinavia.

The East Jutland metropolitan area was recently defined in some reports from eastern Jutlandic municipalities and the Danish government. Rather than an actual urban zone it is more of a vision for a future metro region, based on the growth that municipalities along the E45 motorway are experiencing.

Similarly, some other metropolitian areas are not defined by any fixed guidelines but rather by an estimate of economical and commuter ties between one or several cities and the surrounding region. In some cases, towns have coined names for new metropolitan regions for PR purposes.

Contrarily, the largest urban areas in the Nordic countries can be ranked by more general criteria.