Medium sized cities in Netherlands & Germany: 2024 update

With the release of the 2023 census data, now is a good time to update past population density ranking images.

Over the past decade Hamilton’s population density has been improving. We can see the positive outcome by looking at the steady growth of local shops around the city in places such as Dinsdale, Hamilton East, and Five Cross Rds. In addition, ‘20% more bus trips were made in Hamilton’ this year compared to last year (p.285 Infrastructure and Transport Committee, 2 May 2024). With each update of this ranking Hamilton continues to be similar to medium-sized German cities. To compete with Dutch cities is a bit more of a challenge as Dutch cities are adapting to changing retail and social behaviour faster than most others.  

The data used for updating the Hamilton density map comes from Hamilton City Council’s ‘Economic data and reports’. We need to wait until October for the release of the 2023 census data at neighbourhood levels to give exact numbers. For this update, cities with populations of up to 250,000 people were added and cities under 150,000 were removed. If Hamilton was a city in the Netherlands it has a similar population density to five similar-sized cities. If Hamilton was a city in Germany it would be very average. As a regular visitor to Germany, some of their cities give the feeling that retail is in decline (Solingen and Hagen) yet other cities like Osnabrucke and Oldenburg (which has the same population and density as Hamilton and has second best suburban mall in Germany*) have city centres that feel busy, even with a shopping centre with large car parking facilities at the edge of the city.

*Shopping center with the most satisfied tenants in Germany. In second place is the Famila Einkaufsland Wechloy in Oldenburg - The strongest shopping centers in Germany – by TextilWirtschaft

Past Hamilton cities population density rankings - 2014 Australia, 2014 Netherlands, 2016 Germany & Netherlands, 2017 North America