Blue Banana in the context of "Southern Germany"

The Randstad (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrɑntstɑt] ; "Rim City" or "Edge City") is a roughly crescent- or arc-shaped conurbation in the Netherlands, that includes almost half the country's population. With a central-western location, it connects and comprises the Netherlands' four biggest cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht), their suburbs, and many towns in between, that all grew and merged into each other. Among other things, it includes the Port of Rotterdam (the world's busiest seaport outside Asia), the Port of Amsterdam (Europe's fourth-busiest seaport), and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (Europe's fourth-busiest airport). With a population of approximately 8.4 million people it is one of the largest metropolitan regions in Europe, comparable in population size to the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region or the San Francisco Bay Area, and covers an area of approximately 11,372 km (4,391 sq mi). The Randstad had a gross regional domestic product of €510 billion in 2022, making it the second most productive region in the European Union, only behind the Paris metropolitan area. It encompasses both the Amsterdam metropolitan area and Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area. It is part of the larger Blue Banana megalopolis.

The Randstad's main cities are Almere, Amsterdam, Delft, Dordrecht, Haarlem, The Hague, Leiden, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. Other cities and towns include Alkmaar, Alphen aan den Rijn, Amersfoort, Amstelveen, Capelle aan den IJssel, Gouda, Heerhugowaard, Hilversum, Hoofddorp, Hoorn, Lelystad, Nieuwegein, Purmerend, Rijswijk, Schiedam, Spijkenisse, Vlaardingen, Zaandam, Zeist, and Zoetermeer.

The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (German: Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr) is the largest metropolitan region in Germany, with over ten million inhabitants. A polycentric conurbation with several major urban concentrations, the region covers an area of 7,110 square kilometres (2,750 sq mi), entirely within the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region spreads from the Ruhr area (Dortmund-Bochum-Essen-Duisburg) in the north to the urban areas of the cities of Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf (the state capital), Wuppertal, Leverkusen, Cologne (the region's largest and Germany's fourth largest city), and Bonn in the south. The location of the Rhine-Ruhr at the heart of the European Blue Banana makes it well connected to other major European cities and metropolitan areas such as the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region.

The metropolitan area is named after the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, which are the region's defining geographical features and historically its economic backbone.

This list ranks metropolitan areas in Europe by their population according to three different sources; it includes metropolitan areas that have a population of over 1 million.

North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a state (Land) in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state in Germany. Apart from the city-states (Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen), it is also the most densely populated state in Germany. Covering an area of 34,084 km (13,160 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest German state by size.

North Rhine-Westphalia features 30 of the 81 German municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants, including Cologne (over 1 million), the state capital Düsseldorf (630,000), Dortmund and Essen (about 590,000 inhabitants each) and other cities predominantly located in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area, the largest urban area in Germany and the fourth-largest on the European continent. The location of the Rhine-Ruhr at the heart of the European Blue Banana makes it well connected to other major European cities and metropolitan areas like the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Region.

The Golden Banana or Sun Belt is an area of higher population density lying between Cartagena in the west and Genoa in the east along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

The area runs along the Mediterranean coast, including the French cities of Nice, Marseille, Montpellier, and Perpignan, and the Spanish cities of Figueres, Barcelona and Valencia. It was defined by the "Europe 2000" report from the European Commission in 1995 similarly to the Blue Banana.

RECLUS (Réseau d'étude des changements dans les localisations et les unités spatiales) is a public interest group founded in 1984, associated to the Maison de la géographie de Montpellier (Geography House of Montpellier). The acronym translates to "Network for the study of changes in the locations and the spatial units" and was coined as a tribute to Élisée Reclus, the 19th-century French geographer, author of the New Universal Geography, a treatise in 19 volumes, published by Hachette, between 1876 and 1894 [1]. One of the most important ideas of Reclus is indeed the trans-boundary region, which is retaken by Roger Brunet, the founder of the RECLUS group and its director until 1991, in order to formulate the concept of the European Megalopolis. Hérvé Théry was a Director of the institute

The Euregio Meuse-Rhine (Dutch: Euregio Maas–Rijn [øːˈreːɣijoː ˌmaːsˈrɛin], French: Eurorégion Meuse–Rhin [øʁɔʁeʒjɔ̃ møz ʁɛ̃], German: Euregio Maas–Rhein [ɔʏˈʁeːɡi̯o ˌmaːsˈʁaɪn], Limburgish: Euregio Maas–Rien [øːˈʀeːɣijoː ˌmaːsˈʀiːn]) is a Euroregion created in 1976, with judicial status achieved in 1991. It comprises 11.000 km and has around 3.9 million inhabitants around the city-corridor of Aachen–Maastricht–Hasselt–Liège. The seat of the region has been in Eupen, Belgium since 1 January 2007. Within a wider context, the region is part of what is called the Blue Banana European urbanisation corridor.