WalkablyIs Swindon walkable?
This page covers Swindon: 221,000 people, including Highworth.
In Swindon, the walk to public transport is the strong point: 2 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. Its weakest point against Europe is the walk to shops, and even that is 6 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. Walking is easiest in North Star in Central Swindon North (score 78) and hardest in Wanborough (score 43): a gap of 35 points.
The walk to eight daily needs
The typical walk is the middle value: half of the buildings in Swindon have a shorter walk, and half have a longer one. The words compare it with every place where people live in the 20 countries on the map, so the same minutes get the same word everywhere.
| Need | Typical walk | Compared with Europe | Buildings with one within 20 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Groceries | 6 min | Better than most | 96% |
| Food and drink | 6 min | Better than most | 98% |
| Shops | 6 min | Better than most | 97% |
| Health | 8 min | Better than most | 95% |
| School | 6 min | Better than most | 98% |
| Parks | 4 min | Better than most | 99% |
| Culture | 8 min | Better than most | 94% |
| Public transport | 2 min | Better than most | 99% |
Compared with the rest of the country
The map is cut into six-sided cells 55 m across, and every cell that a street passes through gets a score: we call these street cells. We sort all 8,553,993 street cells in Great Britain (the United Kingdom without Northern Ireland, which the map scores together with Ireland) from hardest to easiest to walk, then cut the list into five equal groups, called fifths. In Swindon, 53% of the street cells are in the most walkable fifth, more than the 20% of an average place.
| Fifth of the street cells in Great Britain | Bar | Swindon |
|---|---|---|
| Most walkable fifth | 53% | |
| Second fifth | 19% | |
| Middle fifth | 10% | |
| Fourth fifth | 9% | |
| Least walkable fifth | 9% |
The city at a glance
On the map, click any street to see its score and the walk to each need.
The most and least walkable areas
Each street cell takes the name of the nearest neighbourhood, village or town on OpenStreetMap, up to 1.5 km away. We rank the 17 areas where people live: each has at least 200 street cells and 500 buildings, and at least a quarter as many buildings per street cell as Swindon as a whole, so ports, hill parks and farmland drop out. Click a name to open it on the map.
Most walkable
| Area | Typical score | In the top fifth |
|---|---|---|
| 78 | 100% | |
| 72 | 96% | |
| 70 | 100% | |
| 64 | 86% | |
| 64 | 74% |
Least walkable
| Area | Typical score | In the top fifth |
|---|---|---|
| 43 | 20% | |
| 44 | 26% | |
| 49 | 31% | |
| 54 | 58% | |
| 55 | 55% |
Cities like Swindon
These three cities come closest to Swindon in number of people and typical score, from any of the 20 countries. Swindon scores higher than all three.
| City | Country | People | Typical score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Almería | Spain | 227,000 | 61 |
| Warrington | United Kingdom | 210,000 | 61 |
| Magdeburg | Germany | 244,000 | 61 |
What this page covers
This page uses the boundary of Swindon as Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, draws it. Besides Swindon itself, it takes in Highworth. About 221,000 people live there (2018 figure). Inside it we scored 13,557 street cells with 100,558 buildings in them.
Every number here comes from the same scores as the map. The score runs from 0 to 100. The walk to eight daily needs on real streets makes up 60% of it, and how pleasant the streets are makes up 40%. The comparison with Europe counts every place by its buildings, 163,668,724 buildings in all. How the score works.