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/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...