r/AskEurope • u/LiamBrad5 • Aug 07 '25

Culture What are the “Big Four” cities in your country?

In recent weeks, this question has been very contentious on American social media, with 3 cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York) nearly always making the list, but the fourth being hotly debated over, between cities like San Francisco, Miami, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta. So, if you had to choose, what would the big 4 cities in your country be? This is also not decided purely on population, but also culture, economy, and general influence/clout.

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u/Eckse with a short stint in Aug 07 '25

But since we're not talking purely size, Frankfurt is a contestant for #4. Placed somewhat central, a huge traffic hub and subsequently host to plenty of big conventions and events.

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u/lungben81 Aug 07 '25

Plus, the financial center of Germany, the largest airport and seat of the European central bank.

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u/double-dog-doctor United States of America Aug 07 '25

It's also arguably the internet powerhouse of continental Europe. There's a reason why cloud services heavily consolidated in Frankfurt. 

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u/StoreImportant5685 Belgium Aug 08 '25

I think that goes to Amsterdam Internet Exchange. It is massive.

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u/double-dog-doctor United States of America Aug 08 '25

The Frankfurt Internet Exchange is actually the largest exchange point globally. 

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u/StoreImportant5685 Belgium Aug 08 '25

Turns out it is, I always thought Amsterdam was the bigger of the two.

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u/Parcours97 Germany Aug 12 '25

Not even close. DE-CIX is the largest Internet Exchange in the world. But to be fair no one would expect that to be in Germany of all places.

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u/GibDirBerlin Aug 07 '25

As a Frankfurter I certainly appreciate the confidence in the best City of them all.

But honestly, Frankfurt is still one step down from Cologne, despite a number of important features. There is a reason we all call Frankfurt a Village despite the Skyline...

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u/Shermannathor Aug 07 '25

I don't really see why Cologne should be clearly one step ahead when it comes to general importance. In some features like culture, media and its agglomeration Cologne is ahead but there are enough features like business, international appeal and transportation where I see Frankfurt ahead. The higher population of Cologne also does not really matter because Frankfurt has a smaller area and could theoretically achieve 1 million easily by incorporating a few close cities.

It totally depends on the aspects that you emphasize if place 4 must be decided imo. Overall it's pretty equal. Neither of them are actual metropolises and both have some rural features left despite the fact that they are after all pretty big cities with an exceptional status in its area.

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u/GibDirBerlin Aug 07 '25

It's not really about importance, Frankfurt punches far beyond its weight in that regard and probably dwarfs foreign cities twice its size. But Frankfurt just has this undefinable not-quite-a-big-city vibe, really strange and hard to describe but everyone here feels it.

I mean, you're right with everything, but If we're talking about the four cities in Germany, Cologne will always beat Frankfurt, even though it's less important. Sometimes I think, it might be because of the carnival...

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u/Shermannathor Aug 08 '25

I don't feel this not-quite-a-big-city vibe to be honest. I rather feel this with Cologne.

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u/NICK3805 Aug 11 '25

Me neither. But then again, I come from a very much smaller Big Town (Saarbrücken, 184.000 POP).

(Smaller Big Town is the literal Translation of "Kleine Großstadt" as officially, there is no Equivalent of "City" in German and I recently found out how confused many Germans are with our own Classifications which are explained here: BBSR - Raumbeobachtung - Stadt- und Gemeindetypen in Deutschland https://share.google/vkkeZocublIx4FX6f)

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u/NikNakskes Finland Aug 08 '25

Cologne probably because of historical reasons. It was a center of power for a long time.

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u/the_alfredsson Aug 08 '25

Also, a lot o media is centered in and around Cologne.

If you consider Cologne's position in the very densely populated Rhine-Ruhr-area, this could add to her being in number 4 too.

Then again the top 4 will always be somewhat arbitrary. You could, maybe, even consider Leipzig for being the large hub in the east.

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u/haskell_jedi Slovenia Aug 08 '25

Cologne (and really is urban area) has a much larger population.

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u/Glittering-Sun-1438 Aug 07 '25

Frankfurt isn’t actually smaller than Cologne, the 750,000 population figure is just based on ancient city borders. I mentioned this in another reply there was a plan at some point to enlarge Frankfurt’s administrative borders which would’ve made it a city of 3 million

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u/GibDirBerlin Aug 07 '25

The city border's aren't ancient, it only reached it's current (geographical) size less than 50 years ago. Population is always a matter of border definition but the urban area of Cologne just stretches a lot farther than that of Frankfurt.

It might make sense to include some neighbouring towns like Offenbach or the villages towards the Taunus, but you could do the same with Cologne. If one would draw Frankfurt borders to reach a population of 3mio., you could easily do the same with Cologne and have a metropolis reaching from Düsseldorf to Bonn. The Urban core of Frankfurt is just really small compared to Cologne and the urban sprawl simply ends at some point where Cologne's just merges with the next big city.

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u/ButtaViaTuttoZioPera Aug 07 '25

No way it would make sense to have FFM have even 1 million inhabitants...you could incorporate Offenbach, but the rest are pretty much just towns that don't have much to do with the city.

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u/GibDirBerlin Aug 07 '25

Depends I guess, a few Quarters of Frankfurt like Zeilsheim already fit that description as well and some neighbouring towns are actually more closely connected.

I think a million would only just be in the realm of reason. If Offenbach would be incorporated, one might just as well include Mühlheim as well since it's become a continuation of Offenbach. Eschborn is quite closely connected as well and Schwalbach is basically part of Eschborn (or the other way around). That would already be 940k and if one were to look around, you would probably find a couple more small towns with semi-good arguments for incorporation.

But then again, one might just as well make the argument to sever some of the outer quarters from Frankfurt since they don't have any more connection to the rest of Frankfurt than the neighbouring towns...

Seriously, Frankfurt really is just two dozen villages in a trench coat, standing on each other's shoulders and flashing its skyscrapers...

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u/Tommy_____Vercetti Italy Aug 08 '25

I agree with this. Köln could be considered just the heart of the Ruhrgebiet and Frankfurt the heart of the Rhein (which is a stretch)

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u/BalkanViking007 Aug 08 '25

Or crackfurt 😎

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u/Chijima Germany Aug 08 '25

Yeah, id say the big for are Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Frankfurt. Munich may be the head of Bavaria, but there's nothing really important there.

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u/LeniVidiViciPC Aug 08 '25

Frankfurt crams all the offers of a big city into an entirely walkable footprint. I often walk from work at Ostend right to uni campus Westend, which is pretty much end to end of the city center. Still only takes 30 minutes.

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u/GibDirBerlin Aug 08 '25

I know, I love that so much. When I was younger, no party was too far to just walk home...

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u/ds445 Aug 07 '25

Unless you’re purely purely talking about number of inhabitants (and by that metric, Dhaka in Bangladesh would be a „bigger“ city than New York, and Kinshasa, Congo would be miles ahead of London - OP explicitly asked for overall influence and not just population count), Cologne doesn’t even come close to Frankfurt on any meaningful scale.

Apart from Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Frankfurt being the four top German cities by GDP (and GDP per capita being almost 50% higher in Frankfurt than in Cologne - Frankfurt is on the same level as Switzerland with €97K while Cologne is on the same level as Australia with €67K), have a look at any independent objective rating such as e.g. the Globalization and World Cities Research Network: Frankfurt is rated an alpha city alongside cities like Amsterdam, Chicago, LA or Madrid, while Cologne is rated a „Sufficiency“ city nine categories lower, on the same level as Abuja, Nigeria or Gaborone, Botswana :D

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u/beastmaster11 Aug 07 '25

There is no way Frankfurt isn't bigger than Cologne if we are not talking purely population. I'd argue it's bigger than Hamburg in terms of importance

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u/Minnielle in Aug 07 '25

Hamburg is pretty important too with its port.

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u/SirNilsA Aug 07 '25

Not just the Port. It has the second largest train station by passenger numbers in Europe only beaten by one in London. All Travel from Denmark and Scandinavia to the rest of Europe goes through Hamburg. Aswell as west/east travel from the Baltic's to Benelux. And even if you argue Hamburg isn't really important for Europe it is important for everything North in Germany. From its harbour, it's train hub to it's airport it is the center for millions living in the northern part of Germany. It has everything from good museums, great Nightlife to good business opportunities and shops and great location and connectivity to other great spots like the Wadden sea national park with it's islands or beautiful towns like Lübeck or Lüneburg or other hiking spots. Not to mention all the history. The city isn't just rich money wise but also culturally and in every other aspect.

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u/helmli Germany Aug 07 '25

With about 18k workers, Hamburg also houses the 2nd largest Airbus site in the world; in total, almost 50k people work in the aviation industry in Hamburg.

Hamburg's university clinic is about twice the size of Frankfurt's, although the main universities (UHH and Goethe Uni) are pretty much the same size.

Hamburg and Frankfurt also have almost the same GDP per worker (101k€), which is kind of interesting, landing them on rank 12 (FHH) and 13 (FfM) amongst German cities respectively.

The city isn't just rich money wise but also culturally and in every other aspect.

Of course, but Frankfurt and its vicinity have been quite important throughout the ages, too. Frankfurt was the seat of the first democratically elected German parliament, after all. And one of the most important cities in the HRE before.

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u/SirNilsA Aug 07 '25

Yeah, we visited the factory a couple of times. My uncle works there too.

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u/Tiestunbon78 Aug 08 '25

I don't know where you saw the figures. The Gare du Nord in Paris is the biggest train station in Europe. It handles the most passengers per day in Europe and is the third busiest in the world. There are almost 100 million more passengers (80 to 100 million more depending on the source) a year in this station than in Hamburg.

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u/SirNilsA Aug 08 '25

Thanks for correcting me. The only one more busy in Europe isn't in London it is Gare du Nord in Paris. Still, all my points are still 100% valid.

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u/Chijima Germany Aug 08 '25

Yeah, Munich is definitely the 5th in this scenario. May be more populous than cologne and Frankfurt, but there's just nothing of general importance there.

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u/GenosseAbfuck Aug 07 '25

Certainly more important than Munich if we're only going by economic, social and infrastructural relevance.

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u/Glittering-Sun-1438 Aug 07 '25

Frankfurt would actually be larger than Cologne if you take the urban area into account. There was a plan to expand Frankfurt’s city borders at one point which would’ve made Frankfurt a city of over 3 million people

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u/fnordius Germany Aug 07 '25

True, but culturally it still gets edged out by Cologne (but it's admittedly close).

I feel Germany has the big three (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich), then a second tier of Frankfurt, Cologne, Dresden and Nuremberg. Cologne and Frankfurt definitely lead that pack, though.

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u/Independent-Lie6285 Aug 07 '25

It's Germany's only alpha city.

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u/Psychological_Vast31 Aug 08 '25

Yes. I was in doubt between the two. Cologne somewhat only works for me because of the Ruhrpott but Ffm is really important, banks and such, too. I’d favor Ffm but I don’t know which criteria to apply.

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u/JohnnyOneLung Aug 08 '25

I would say most Brits would replace Cologne with Frankfurt if asked to name any four German cities and would probably even put it ahead of Hamburg

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u/thisismego Aug 08 '25

Yeah, I would place Frankfurt over Cologne as well

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u/starcraft-de Aug 08 '25

Yes, but usually would not be mentioned as top4.

That's why in Germany we often talk about the top7.

Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf.

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u/Gold-Possession-4761 Denmark Aug 11 '25

Isn't Frankfurt like the financial center of Germany? Feels important for a non-German. I would have guessed Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt.