WalkablyIs Sofia (София) walkable?
This page covers Sofia: 1.2 million people, including Нови Искър and Банкя.
In Sofia, the walk to shops is the strong point: 4 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. Its weakest point against Europe is the walk to culture, and even that is 11 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. Walking is easiest in Център (score 86) and hardest in ж.к. Лозен парк (score 29): a gap of 57 points.
The walk to eight daily needs
The typical walk is the middle value: half of the buildings in Sofia have a shorter walk, and half have a longer one. The words compare it with every place where people live in the 31 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 | 5 min | Better than most | 94% |
| Food and drink | 5 min | Better than most | 94% |
| Shops | 4 min | Better than most | 97% |
| Health | 7 min | Better than most | 86% |
| School | 5 min | Better than most | 94% |
| Parks | 4 min | Better than most | 96% |
| Culture | 11 min | Better than most | 78% |
| Public transport | 3 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 2,383,696 street cells in Bulgaria from hardest to easiest to walk, then cut the list into five equal groups, called fifths. In Sofia, 58% of the street cells are in the most walkable fifth, more than the 20% of an average place.
| Fifth of the street cells in Bulgaria | Bar | Sofia |
|---|---|---|
| Most walkable fifth | 58% | |
| Second fifth | 16% | |
| Middle fifth | 11% | |
| Fourth fifth | 8% | |
| Lowest-scoring fifth | 6% |
The city at a glance
On the map, click any street to see its score and the walk to each need.
Most walkable and least served 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 80 areas where people live: each has at least 200 street cells and 182 buildings, and at least a quarter as many buildings per street cell as Sofia 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 86 | 100% | |
| 83 | 100% | |
| 82 | 100% | |
| 82 | 100% | |
| 80 | 100% |
Fewest daily needs within a walk
| Area | Typical score | In the top fifth |
|---|---|---|
| 29 | 38% | |
| 34 | 69% | |
| 38 | 47% | |
| 41 | 56% | |
| 41 | 61% |
The score measures walks to eight daily needs and pleasant streets, not people, safety, crime or income. If you think a score is wrong, write to [email protected] and we will check and correct it.
Cities like Sofia
These three cities come closest to Sofia in number of people and typical score, from any of the 31 countries. All three score higher than Sofia.
| City | Country | People | Typical score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham | United Kingdom | 1.1 million | 62 |
| Leeds | United Kingdom | 787,000 | 61 |
| Palermo | Italy | 629,000 | 60 |
What this page covers
This page uses the boundary of Sofia as Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, draws it. Besides Sofia itself, it takes in Нови Искър, Банкя and Бухово. About 1.2 million people live there (2022 figure). Inside it we scored 67,004 street cells with 129,196 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, 194,990,696 buildings in all. How the score works.