WalkablyIs Lens walkable?
This page covers greater Lens: 179,000 people, including Liévin and Hénin-Beaumont.
In Lens, the walk to a school is the strong point: 6 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. The walk to a place to eat is the weak point: 10 minutes for the typical building, worse than most of Europe. Walking is easiest in Centre-Ville (score 77) and hardest in Beaumont (score 48): a gap of 29 points.
The walk to eight daily needs
The typical walk is the middle value: half of the buildings in Lens 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 | 8 min | About typical | 98% |
| Food and drink | 10 min | Worse than most | 88% |
| Shops | 7 min | About typical | 99% |
| Health | 7 min | Better than most | 99% |
| School | 6 min | Better than most | 100% |
| Parks | 5 min | About typical | 99% |
| Culture | 10 min | Better than most | 89% |
| Public transport | 3 min | Better than most | 100% |
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 Lens, 90% of the street cells are in the most walkable fifth, more than the 20% of an average place.
| Fifth of the street cells in France | Bar | Lens |
|---|---|---|
| Most walkable fifth | 90% | |
| Second fifth | 4% | |
| Middle fifth | 3% | |
| Fourth fifth | 2% | |
| Least walkable fifth | 2% |
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 Lens as a whole, so ports, hill parks and farmland drop out. Click a name to open it on the map.
Even Beaumont, the least walkable area here, has 54% of its street cells in the most walkable fifth in France. Lens walks far better than most of the country, so even its weakest areas beat most other places.
Most walkable
| Area | Typical score | In the top fifth |
|---|---|---|
| 77 | 100% | |
| 62 | 100% | |
| 61 | 97% | |
| 61 | 100% | |
| 58 | 99% |
Least walkable
| Area | Typical score | In the top fifth |
|---|---|---|
| 48 | 54% | |
| 49 | 84% | |
| 49 | 94% | |
| 49 | 100% | |
| 50 | 86% |
Cities like Lens
These three cities come closest to Lens in number of people and typical score, from any of the 20 countries. Lens scores higher than all three.
| City | Country | People | Typical score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basingstoke and Deane | United Kingdom | 176,000 | 53 |
| Turku | Finland | 206,000 | 54 |
| Blackburn with Darwen | United Kingdom | 149,000 | 54 |
What this page covers
This page uses the area Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, calls greater Lens: the city and the towns that have grown into it. Besides Lens itself, it takes in Liévin, Hénin-Beaumont, Avion, Méricourt, Montigny-en-Gohelle and Sallaumines. About 179,000 people live there (2023 figure). Inside it we scored 9,499 street cells with 124,551 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.