The West Yorkshire Built-up Area, previously known as the West Yorkshire Urban Area, is a term used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to refer to a conurbation in West Yorkshire, England, based on the cities of Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield, and the large towns of Huddersfield and Halifax. It is the fourth largest urban area in the United Kingdom. However, it excludes other towns and villages such as Featherstone, Normanton, Castleford, Pontefract, Hemsworth, Todmorden, Hebden Bridge, Knottingley, Wetherby and Garforth which, though part of the county of West Yorkshire, are considered independently. There are substantial areas of agricultural land within the designated area – more than in any other official urban area in England – many of the towns and cities are only just connected by narrow outlying strips of development.
Urban subdivisions
The ONS gives the conurbation a population of 1,777,934 (2011 census), which makes it the fourth-most populous in the UK. The ONS partitions the area down into 39 sub-divisions:
Baildon Batley Bingley Bottom Boat Bradford Brighouse Burley in Wharfedale Carlton Cleckheaton Dewsbury East Morton Guiseley Halifax Haworth Heckmondwike Holmfirth Horbury Horsforth Huddersfield KeighleyLeeds Liversedge Menston Middlestown Mirfield Morley Netherton Ossett Otley Pudsey Robin Hood Rothwell Scholes Shipley Sowerby Bridge Thornton Wakefield Walton Yeadon
Three further subdivisions are given with no population numbers as they are present or former industrial areas with no resident population.
Rawdon is the subdivision name for Horsforth Vale, on which a former industrial plant was redeveloped for housing from 2010, too late to be recorded for the 2011 census.
Brookfoot Quarry (Marshalls Southowram) Esholt Water Treatment plant, named 'Works, nr Bradford' by the ONS Rawdon
Note that the areas below do not have exactly the same borders in each census, so the numbers are not always comparable (e.g. what was classified as Lofthouse/Stanley in 2001 was classified as part of Wakefield in 2011).
#SubdivisionPopulation 2011Population 2001Population 1991Population 19811Leeds 474,632443,247424,194445,2422Bradford 349,561293,717289,376293,3363Huddersfield 162,949146,234143,726147,8254Wakefield 99,25176,88673,95574,7645Halifax 88,1346Dewsbury62,94554,34150,16849,6127Keighley 56,34849,45349,56749,1888Batley46,9339Brighouse 33,28632,36032,19832,59710Pudsey 32,21632,39131,63631,94311Morley 29,67354,05147,57944,65212Shipley 28,69428,16228,16528,81513Bingley 22,49319,88419,58518,95414Holmfirth 21,70615Ossett 21,23121,07620,40520,41716Yeadon 19,66817Rothwell 19,51218Mirfield 19,33018,39018,45918,59919Horsforth 18,89518,92818,59319,20520Liversedge 17,69721Baildon 15,94415,36815,38514,90722Otley 14,21523Heckmondwike 12,08511,2919,8559,77524Guiseley 11,96025Cleckheaton 11,64826Horbury 10,36110,0029,1869,79227Burley in Wharfedale 7,04128Haworth 6,37929Thornton5,28930Sowerby Bridge 4,60131Menston 4,3694,6604,8884,86532Netherton 3,68633Robin Hood 3,57334Walton 3,23135Middlestown 2,36636Scholes 2,31737Bottom Boat 1,16938East Morton 1,16939Carlton842Guiseley/Yeadon31,38131,10430,811Cleckheaton and Liversedge26,79627,15126,340Lofthouse/Stanley22,94719,13617,439Holmfirth/Honley22,69021,97921,138Queensbury8,7187,4247,410Shelf4,4964,2374,204New Farnley2,548Total1,777,9341,499,4651,445,9811,467,412
References