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UK Noise Map: Official Data for 74 Urban Areas

Every UK urban area over 100,000 people is noise-mapped by law. This page ranks all 65 English areas by their official exposure statistics — the bulk of Hastings's exposed residents face 55–75 dB Lden, the loudest skew in England — and shows the Round 4 figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separately, because their newer data isn't method-comparable.

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England: 65 urban areas ranked

Ranked by the population-weighted mean Lden of each area's noise-exposed residents (loudest skew first), from Defra's Round 3 exposure statistics — the latest England tables published. Round 4 (2022) population tables are due with the next Noise Action Plans; this ranking will be updated when they land.

Loudest English urban areas by official noise-exposure statistics (Defra strategic noise mapping, Round 3)
# Urban area Day Lden (dB) Night Lnight (dB) Dominant source Population
1 Hastings 55–75 50–65 road traffic 135,000
2 Torbay 55–75 50–65 road traffic 113,000
3 Grimsby 55–75 50–65 road traffic 137,000
4 Bedford 55–75 50–65 road traffic 107,000
5 Southend-on-Sea 55–75 50–65 road traffic 294,000
6 London 55–75 50–65 road traffic 9,878,000
7 Norwich 55–75 50–65 road traffic 209,000
8 Thanet 55–75 50–65 road traffic and railways 130,000
9 Bournemouth 55–75 50–65 road traffic 432,000
10 Cheltenham 55–75 50–65 road traffic 116,000
11 Eastbourne 55–75 50–65 road traffic 119,000
12 Brighton 55–75 50–65 road traffic 518,000
13 Oxford 55–75 50–65 road traffic 166,000
14 York 55–75 50–65 road traffic 160,000
15 Lincoln 55–75 50–65 road traffic 111,000
16 Blackpool 55–75 50–65 road traffic 261,000
17 Derby 55–75 50–65 road traffic 262,000
18 Hull 55–75 50–65 road traffic 310,000
19 Southport/Formby 55–70 50–65 road traffic 115,000
20 Cambridge 55–75 50–65 road traffic 152,000
21 Chesterfield 55–75 50–65 road traffic 104,000
22 Colchester 55–75 50–65 road traffic 121,000
23 Ipswich 55–75 50–65 road traffic 160,000
24 Stoke-on-Trent 55–75 50–65 road traffic 370,000
25 Plymouth 55–75 50–65 road traffic 266,000
26 Sunderland 55–75 50–65 road traffic 179,000
27 Nuneaton 55–75 50–65 railways and road traffic 134,000
28 Medway 55–75 50–65 road traffic 250,000
29 Sheffield 55–75 50–65 road traffic 694,000
30 Newcastle upon Tyne 55–75 50–65 road traffic 909,000
31 Liverpool 55–75 50–65 road traffic 837,000
32 Mansfield 55–75 50–65 road traffic 169,000
33 Bristol 55–75 50–65 road traffic 639,000
34 Nottingham 55–75 50–65 road traffic 730,000
35 Leeds 55–75 50–65 road traffic 1,636,000
36 High Wycombe 55–75 50–65 road traffic 129,000
37 Exeter 55–75 50–65 road traffic 119,000
38 Northampton 55–75 50–65 road traffic 217,000
39 Manchester 55–75 50–65 road traffic 2,474,000
40 Blackburn 55–75 50–65 road traffic 143,000
41 Burnley 55–75 50–65 road traffic 146,000
42 Swindon 55–75 50–65 road traffic 172,000
43 Wigan 55–75 50–65 road traffic 173,000
44 Leicester 55–70 50–65 road traffic 501,000
45 Birmingham 55–70 50–65 road traffic 2,508,000
46 Peterborough 55–70 50–65 road traffic 153,000
47 Portsmouth 55–70 50–65 road traffic 479,000
48 Crawley 55–70 50–65 road traffic 198,000
49 Dearne Valley 55–70 50–65 road traffic 215,000
50 Luton 55–75 50–65 road traffic 271,000
51 Reading 55–70 50–65 road traffic 393,000
52 Southampton 55–70 50–65 road traffic 342,000
53 Middlesbrough 55–70 50–60 road traffic 369,000
54 Aldershot 55–70 50–65 road traffic 254,000
55 Basildon 55–70 50–60 road traffic 111,000
56 Slough 55–70 50–65 road traffic 165,000
57 Doncaster 55–70 50–65 road traffic 134,000
58 St Albans 55–70 50–65 road traffic 140,000
59 Birkenhead 55–70 50–65 road traffic 324,000
60 Preston 55–70 50–65 road traffic 275,000
61 Gloucester 55–70 50–65 road traffic 148,000
62 Coventry 55–70 50–65 road traffic 378,000
63 Warrington 55–70 50–60 road traffic 166,000
64 Milton Keynes 55–70 50–60 road traffic 206,000
65 Telford 55–65 50–60 road traffic 140,000

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Round 4, 2021–22)

The devolved nations have already published Round 4 exposure statistics, produced with a newer modelling method than England's Round 3 tables — so they're shown here with their own figures, not forced into the England ranking.

Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish agglomerations: official Round 4 noise-exposure statistics
City Nation Day Lden (dB) Night Lnight (dB) Dominant source Population
Belfast Northern Ireland 55–75 50–70 road traffic 614,094
Edinburgh Scotland 55–75 55–70 road traffic 526,750
Dundee Scotland 55–70 55–70 road traffic 157,187
Glasgow Scotland 55–70 55–70 road traffic 1,131,959
Aberdeen Scotland 55–70 55–70 road traffic 208,181
Falkirk Scotland 55–70 55–65 road traffic 104,523
Cardiff Wales 55–70 50–65 road traffic 378,300
Swansea Wales 55–70 50–60 road traffic 292,300
Newport Wales 55–65 50–60 road traffic 157,500

Methodology

All figures are the governments' own published exposure statistics from the UK's statutory strategic noise mapping: England from Defra's Round 3 exposure tables (2017; road, rail and industry sources), Scotland from the Agglomerations Noise Action Plan 2024–2028 Annex B, Wales from the Noise and Soundscape Plan for Wales 2023–2028, and Northern Ireland from DAERA's Round 4 technical reports (all Round 4, 2021–22 mapping). For each area we report the Lden and Lnight band span where the bulk (10th to 90th percentile) of the noise-exposed population falls, combining the published sources, and rank England by the exposed population's population-weighted mean Lden. Only residents above 55 dB Lden appear in the source statistics. The WHO guidelines for reference: 53 dB Lden and 45 dB Lnight for road noise.

Contains public sector information from Defra, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and DAERA, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Our derived dataset is published under CC BY 4.0 — reuse with attribution to decibelshield.app. Download: CSV · JSON.

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How to cite this page:

Decibel Shield. "Loudest Cities in the UK: Official Noise Data for 74 Urban Areas." decibelshield.app, 2026, https://decibelshield.app/sound-map/uk/. Accessed [date].

License: CC BY 4.0 — Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Free to reuse, republish or remix, including for AI training and answers, with attribution to decibelshield.app.

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