Is Pau walkable?

This page covers greater Pau: 119,000 people, including Lons and Billère.

64/100Typical walking score where people live. It mixes the walk to eight daily needs with how pleasant the streets are.
76%Pau is better than this share of places where people live, across the 20 countries on the map.
31stBy typical score, of the 45 cities in France on this site.

In Pau, the walk to health care is the strong point: 6 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. Its weakest point against Europe is the walk to a place to eat, and even that is 6 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. Walking is easiest in Centre Ville (score 86) and hardest in Copernic - Ousse des Bois - Hauterive (score 50): a gap of 36 points.

The walk to eight daily needs

The typical walk is the middle value: half of the buildings in Pau 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
Groceries6 minBetter than most96%
Food and drink6 minBetter than most96%
Shops4 minBetter than most98%
Health6 minBetter than most95%
School6 minBetter than most96%
Parks4 minBetter than most96%
Culture8 minBetter than most91%
Public transport3 minBetter than most98%

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 Pau, 81% of the street cells are in the most walkable fifth, more than the 20% of an average place.

Share of the street cells in Pau in each fifth. The dashed line marks 20%, the share every fifth has in France.
Fifth of the street cells in FranceBarPau
Most walkable fifth
81%
Second fifth
8%
Middle fifth
8%
Fourth fifth
4%
Least walkable fifth
under 1%

The city at a glance

12345ABCDE
Each of the 2,221 hexagons groups the street cells within about 110 m of its centre and takes the shade of their middle fifth. The line is the boundary this page uses.
See Pau 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 11 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 Pau as a whole, so ports, hill parks and farmland drop out. Click a name to open it on the map.

Even Copernic - Ousse des Bois - Hauterive, the least walkable area here, has 88% of its street cells in the most walkable fifth in France. Pau 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
86100%
78100%
69100%
67100%
6784%

Least walkable

Letters A to E on the map.
AreaTypical scoreIn the top fifth
5088%
51100%
5397%
5887%
6191%

Cities like Pau

These three cities come closest to Pau in number of people and typical score, from any of the 20 countries. Pau scores higher than 2 of them and lower than 1.

CityCountryPeopleTypical score
ReutlingenGermany119,00064
NissewaardNetherlands114,00064
AvignonFrance111,00064

What this page covers

This page uses the area Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, calls greater Pau: the city and the towns that have grown into it. Besides Pau itself, it takes in Lons and Billère. About 119,000 people live there (2023 figure). Inside it we scored 6,747 street cells with 48,268 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.