Metropolitan regions are NUTS 3 regions or a combination of NUTS 3 regions which represent all agglomerations of at least 250 000 inhabitants.

These agglomerations were identified using the Urban Audit's Functional Urban Area (FUA).

Each agglomeration is represented by at least one NUTS 3 region. If in an adjacent NUTS 3 region more than 50% of the population also lives within this agglomeration, it is included in the metro.

• Schematic overview: 'Defining urban areas in Europe'.
• Complete list of metro-regions (based on the 2013 NUTS version and 2010 Geostat population grid).
• Complete list of metro-regions (based on the 2010 NUTS version and 2006 Geostat population grid).
• Complete list of regional typologies and local information corresponding to NUTS 3.

As the metro-regions are based on agglomerations, which include the commuter belt around a city, this approach corrects the distortions created by commuting and the GDP per inhabitant becomes meaningful, whereas comparison of GDP per inhabitant of NUTS 3 regions is far more difficult to interpret, since the difference may be partly artificial.