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Since the end of the last century the population has been predominantly urban and suburban. By 1900 about three quarters of the British people were living within the boundaries of urban administrative areas, and the large "conurbation" was already the dominant type of British community. This ugly but useful noun describes those areas of urban development where a number of separate towns, linked by a common industrial or commercial interest, have grown into one another.

For over a third of a century about forty per cent of the population has lived in seven great conurbations. Greater London, with a population of 8,348,000, is the largest of these. The other conurbations and their centers are: southeast Lancashire: Manchester; west Midlands: Birmingham; west Yorkshire: Leeds and Bradford; Merseyside: Liverpool; Tyneside: Newcastle upon Tyne; and Clydeside: Glasgow. Of these the west Midland area is growing most rapidly. Southeast Lancashire has lost population—a reflection of the waning of the textile industry.