EU - BLUE BANANA

The blue banana depicts a multinational European megalopolis, which includes several metropolises from different (Western) European states. Roughly speaking, the Blue Banana starts at the agglomerations of Milan and Turin, and ends at the agglomerations in the West Midlands of Great Britain, with the agglomerations of the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and the Ruhr area in between, among others.

Internationally, the Blue Banana is one of the most important agglomerations. Two of the ten largest ports (Port of Rotterdam and Port of Antwerp), many international bodies, such as the Peace Palace, Europol and Eurojust in The Hague, the de facto capital of the EU and headquarters of NATO (Brussels), the headquarters of the European Central Bank (in Frankfurt am Main), the headquarters of both international and intergovernmental organizations such as the World Trade Organization and the High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva as well as the (minor) internationally known culture, nightlife and fashion life in the major cities within this conurbation. The Blue Banana is in the top five of the largest megalopolises in the world in terms of population.