| The numbers for the 2006, 1911, and 1801 populations come from INSEE (L'Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, http://www.insee.fr), which is responsible for the French census. The latest one was in 2006, and the first was in 1801, and I thought 1911 was a nice year in between, just before the First World War. It's hard to find all this info on their website, but it's all there somewhere. I've used the population by commune (as they define it), rather than urban area or anything else. For populations before 1801, I used the charts in "The Population of European Cities from 800 to 1850" by Paul Bairoch, Jean Batou, and Pierre Chèvre. Naturally, the populations of medieval and early modern cities can only be estimated, but the list is probably accurate enough. I should also note that this was inspired by AngrySi's game (http://www.sporcle.com/games/AngrySi/populations-of-england-over-700-years). The French cities don't change as much as the English ones, but it's interesting to see the populations fluctuate due to wars and revolutions. |
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