Is Milan (Milano) walkable?

This page covers greater Milan: 3.6 million people, including Monza and Busto Arsizio.

Questa pagina in italiano

66/100Typical walking score where people live. It mixes the walk to eight daily needs with how pleasant the streets are.
79%Milan is better than this share of places where people live, across the 20 countries on the map.
10thBy typical score, of the 39 cities in Italy on this site.

In Milan, the walk to shops is the strong point: 3 minutes for the typical building, much better than most of Europe. Its weakest point against Europe is the walk to public transport, and even that is 4 minutes for the typical building, better than most of Europe. Walking is easiest in Brera (score 88) and hardest in Nizzolina in Marnate (score 33): a gap of 55 points.

The walk to eight daily needs

The typical walk is the middle value: half of the buildings in Milan 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
Groceries5 minBetter than most98%
Food and drink3 minMuch better than most100%
Shops3 minMuch better than most99%
Health5 minMuch better than most97%
School6 minBetter than most98%
Parks3 minBetter than most100%
Culture8 minBetter than most92%
Public transport4 minBetter than most97%

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 13,208,252 street cells in Italy from hardest to easiest to walk, then cut the list into five equal groups, called fifths. In Milan, 90% of the street cells are in the most walkable fifth, more than the 20% of an average place.

Share of the street cells in Milan in each fifth. The dashed line marks 20%, the share every fifth has in Italy.
Fifth of the street cells in ItalyBarMilan
Most walkable fifth
90%
Second fifth
5%
Middle fifth
2%
Fourth fifth
2%
Least walkable fifth
under 1%

The city at a glance

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Each of the 2,198 hexagons groups the street cells within about 445 m of its centre and takes the shade of their middle fifth. The line is the boundary this page uses.
See Milan 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 177 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 Milan as a whole, so ports, hill parks and farmland drop out. Click a name to open it on the map.

Even Nizzolina in Marnate, the least walkable area here, has 63% of its street cells in the most walkable fifth in Italy. Milan 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 Italy.
AreaTypical scoreIn the top fifth
88100%
86100%
86100%
85100%
84100%

Least walkable

Letters A to E on the map.
AreaTypical scoreIn the top fifth
3363%
3970%
3984%
4270%
4285%

Cities like Milan

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

CityCountryPeopleTypical score
BerlinGermany3.7 million67
HamburgGermany1.9 million67
ViennaAustria1.8 million67

What this page covers

This page uses the area Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, calls greater Milan: the city and the towns that have grown into it. Besides Milan itself, it takes in Monza, Busto Arsizio, Sesto San Giovanni, Cinisello Balsamo, Legnano, Cologno Monzese and smaller places. About 3.6 million people live there (2025 figure). Inside it we scored 96,900 street cells with 323,173 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.