Is Grenoble walkable?

This page covers greater Grenoble: 329,000 people, including Saint-Martin-d'Hères and Échirolles.

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75/100Typical walking score where people live. It mixes the walk to eight daily needs with how pleasant the streets are.
90%Grenoble is better than this share of places where people live, across the 20 countries on the map.
1stHighest typical score of the 45 cities in France on this site.

In Grenoble, the walk to culture is the strong point: 5 minutes for the typical building, much better than most of Europe. Its weakest point against Europe is the walk to a park, and even that is 3 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. Walking is easiest in Berriat Saint-Bruno (score 88) and hardest in Seyssins (score 55): a gap of 33 points.

The walk to eight daily needs

The typical walk is the middle value: half of the buildings in Grenoble 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.

NeedTypical walkCompared with EuropeBuildings with one within 20 min
Groceries4 minMuch better than most98%
Food and drink4 minMuch better than most99%
Shops3 minMuch better than most99%
Health4 minMuch better than most98%
School4 minMuch better than most98%
Parks3 minBetter than most99%
Culture5 minMuch better than most98%
Public transport2 minBetter than most100%

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 25,659,091 street cells in France from hardest to easiest to walk, then cut the list into five equal groups, called fifths. In Grenoble, 82% of the street cells are in the most walkable fifth, more than the 20% of an average place.

Share of the street cells in Grenoble in each fifth. The dashed line marks 20%, the share every fifth has in France.
Fifth of the street cells in FranceBarGrenoble
Most walkable fifth
82%
Second fifth
9%
Middle fifth
7%
Fourth fifth
2%
Least walkable fifth
under 1%

The city at a glance

12345ABCDE
Each of the 2,407 hexagons groups the street cells within about 126 m of its centre and takes the shade of their middle fifth. The line is the boundary this page uses.
See Grenoble on the map

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 18 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 Grenoble as a whole, so ports, hill parks and farmland drop out. Click a name to open it on the map.

Even Seyssins, the least walkable area here, has 93% of its street cells in the most walkable fifth in France. Grenoble walks far better than most of the country, so even its weakest areas beat most other places.

Most walkable

Numbers 1 to 5 on the map. In the top fifth: share of the area’s street cells in the most walkable fifth in France.
AreaTypical scoreIn the top fifth
88100%
8499%
82100%
82100%
79100%

Least walkable

Letters A to E on the map.
AreaTypical scoreIn the top fifth
5593%
6691%
6789%
6768%
6999%

Cities like Grenoble

These three cities come closest to Grenoble in number of people and typical score, from any of the 20 countries. Grenoble scores higher than all three.

CityCountryPeopleTypical score
MannheimGermany318,00074
ValladolidSpain322,00074
RennesFrance284,00074

What this page covers

This page uses the area Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, calls greater Grenoble: the city and the towns that have grown into it. Besides Grenoble itself, it takes in Saint-Martin-d'Hères, Échirolles, Fontaine, Meylan, Seyssinet-Pariset, Le Pont-de-Claix and smaller places. About 329,000 people live there (2023 figure). Inside it we scored 10,386 street cells with 56,940 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.