Walkably: walkability scores for 31 European countries

This release holds the scores of every street cell in 31 European countries in one map file, a table with the typical score of each of 528 cities, and a table for the official districts of Hamburg. Researchers can map the street cells and compare cities and districts. Raian Pollock made it. How the score works Two parts make the score. The map gives scores from 0 to 100 for street cells with 55 m sides, about 95 m across. A typical score is the resident-weighted median. Reach is 60% of the score: the walk on real streets to eight daily needs, where a shorter walk scores more and a second and third option nearby also count. Street quality is 40% of the score. Census checks, compared neighbourhood by neighbourhood with how people get to work, gave rank correlations of 0.73 for the middle of France's 28 cities, 0.62 for the middle of the 301 council areas of England and Wales, and 0.69 for the middle of Ireland's 34 counties and cities. Every check, including the ones that did not pass, is on walkably.org/accuracy. What each need counts: Groceries: This counts supermarkets, convenience stores, greengrocers, bakeries, pastry shops, butchers, delis, fish shops, cheese shops, dairy shops, frozen food shops, health food shops, farm shops, and markets. Food and drink: This counts restaurants, cafes, bars, pubs, fast food, ice cream shops, food courts, and beer gardens. Shops: This counts other shops on OpenStreetMap, including services with a shop front such as hairdressers, estate agents, and car repair. Banks and post offices count as shops. Health: This counts pharmacies, doctors, clinics, hospitals, dentists, and other health care places such as physiotherapists. Vets do not count. School: This counts schools, kindergartens, colleges, and universities. Nurseries and childcare count as school. Parks: This counts playgrounds, parks of any size, and gardens open to the public. Private gardens and nature reserves do not count. Culture: This counts theatres, cinemas, libraries, arts centres, community centres, music venues, museums, and galleries. Gyms do not count. Public transport: This counts train stations, small train stops, metro stations, tram stops, bus stops, and platforms. Train and metro stations weigh the most, tram stops weigh less, and bus stops weigh less again. Method in full: walkably.org/about What you can do with it Researchers, teachers, and students can work directly with the map file and the tables. They can map the street cells, compare cities, and compare the official districts of Hamburg. Instructors can teach with the scores in courses. Students can write theses. Limits All scores are estimates. Data from OpenStreetMap can be missing or out of date, summer shade is an estimate, and a score can be wrong for a street or building. The score does not describe the people who live there, or safety, crime or income. Version Version 2026.10-m5. Changes since the Walkably pages of 10 October 2026, by version: 2026.10-m3 20 October 2026, People weights: the typical score of a city, area or district now counts the people who live in each cell, not the buildings. 21 October 2026, Fix for isolated places: a place with quiet streets and nothing to walk to no longer scores high. This change can only lower a score. 2026.10-m4 22 October 2026, Metro stations: metro stations are now recognised more reliably, and each station counts once. 23 October 2026, Barcelona trees: in Barcelona only, shade and trees inside the city now use the city's own tree data. 23 October 2026, Street connections: more street pieces are now connected to the walking network. This fixed cells in Hamburg that could reach nothing. 24 October 2026, Resident ranks: the field "p" in the map file is now the rank among residents, weighted by the people who live in each cell. Typical scores for cities and districts are recomputed from the new cell scores. 24 October 2026, Streets and shops: living streets with a speed limit above walking pace are now scored and named as residential streets. Shops at fuel stations now count only for groceries. 25 October 2026, Netherlands terrain: better height data for the Netherlands. This change affects slope only. 26 October 2026, Main roads: more main roads are now part of the walking network, in all 31 countries, with the largest effect in Great Britain and Ireland. Private roads and roads where walking is not allowed stay excluded. 26 October 2026, Border cells: a cell on a country border now appears once, not once per country, keeping the copy with the higher reach. 27 October 2026, Counted places: tutoring places, opticians, adult-education colleges and music conservatories now count toward the needs they serve, and adult venues no longer count. A school mapped only as a building now counts as a school, unless a school is already mapped nearby. 2026.10-m5 31 October 2026, School and hospital grounds: walks to a school or hospital now end at the edge of the grounds, not in the middle, so a large site can be reached at its fence. 31 October 2026, City outlines: each city is now measured inside its own outline from OpenStreetMap, not a wider urban area. Typical scores, shares and populations of many cities changed. Every later change is listed by date at walkably.org/changes. Files README.md in this record lists the files, the grid and every column and map field. Licence and credit The data is under ODbL 1.0. Anyone may use and share the scores and the map data, also commercially, if they credit Walkably with a link to walkably.org, and "© OpenStreetMap contributors" and the sources listed below. Changed versions of the database must be shared under the same licence. Maps and figures made from the data need only this credit. We also ask for a citation with the DOI and a note of what you made. These are requests, not conditions. For custom data cuts or help using the scores in a product, write to [e-mail]. Contains information from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, www.openstreetmap.org/copyright, available under the ODbL. Slope: © Mapterhorn, mapterhorn.com/attribution (names each national terrain source). Summer shade: generated using European Union's Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information (modified: Tree Cover Density 2018 turned into a shade estimate). Building heights: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, GHS-BUILT-H R2023A, CC BY 4.0. Street noise in Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, strategic noise map, CC BY 4.0. Street trees in Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, street tree register, CC BY 4.0. Where people live: Eurostat, Census 2021 population grid, 1 km, shared within each square by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre, GHS-POP R2023A (Pesaresi et al., 2024), CC BY 4.0; combined by Walkably. Source: Eurostat. Where people live in Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Iceland: ONS, Census 2021, table TS001; NRS, Scotland's Census 2022; NISRA, Census 2021, table MS-A01 (all OGL v3.0); Statistics Iceland (Hagstofa Íslands), Census 2021, table CEN1104 (CC BY 4.0). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2024. Copyright National Records of Scotland, contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2024. Source: NISRA: Website: www.nisra.gov.uk. Contains Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. City populations: Source: Eurostat. City outlines: the outline used to count the cells and buildings of each city comes from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the ODbL.