Greater Glasgow refers to the Greater Glasgow Health Board area, and the Greater Glasgow Metropolitan Settlement Area (created in the 2001 census) in Scotland.
Greater Glasgow, in a more general sense, refers to the City of Glasgow, together with the network of towns and villages that immediately surround it. The surrounding commuter area of Greater Glasgow including other towns, has an approximate population of 2.1 million people, though this is not recorded on the census.
Following the boundary changes in 1996, and the creation of unitary councils in Scotland, replacing the former regional and district councils, The Greater Glasgow Settlement Area or Metropolitan Area was created for the 2001 Census from groups of neighbouring urban postcodes grouped so that each group of postcode unit contains at least a given number of addresses per unit area and the group contains at least 500 residents. The total population is around 2.1 million people.
Due to council boundary changes since the previous census of 1991, Greater Glasgow has four distinct definitions for the population of Glasgow in the 2001 Census: the smallest is the new Glasgow City Council Area (which lost the district of Rutherglen to South Lanarkshire, the Greater Glasgow Health Board area (covered by the local NHS Trust), the City of Glasgow Locality Area (formerly Glasgow District Council Area) and the Greater Glasgow Metropolitan Settlement Area (including surrounding localities).
