First pick
Espace Georges Gilbert
Park or garden
1.3 ha0.3 km of path
1.8 km eastfrom the center
Directionsto a point inside
Photo: Sea Ane · CC BY-SA 4.016%woodland
Outdoors in Laon · protected areas, woods and footpaths
Almost every home in Laon is within 800 m of a park or wood
No protected area reaches Laon; the nearest, Collines du Laonnois oriental (Natura 2000), is 4.7 km from the town center. 47 km of footpaths cross Laon (1.1 km per km²). Mapped woodland covers 16% of Laon. France has no Outdoors Grade yet: these are the figures, each beside the compared towns’ median.
Protected areas
0%
of the commune’s land
Nearest: Collines du Laonnois oriental, 4.7 km
Woodland
16%
of the land, mapped on OpenStreetMap
Compared town: 13%
Footpaths
47 km
1.1 km per km²
Compared town: 1.7 km per km²
Hiking routes
12 km
waymarked, GR and others
Compared town: 0.3 km per km²
Parks & woods
6
named, in or within 400 m of the commune
First: Espace Georges Gilbert
Throughout this page, the Aisne median and the France median are the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade), each figure its own median.
Against French towns
How Laon compares with French towns
Each figure against the 3,798 compared French towns (communes with an overall grade): the marked bar is the town’s, the line the median. Described, not graded.
Protected areas0%Share of the land in a national park, regional nature park, nature reserve or Natura 2000 site
22out of 100
Woodland16%Share of the land mapped as forest or woods on OpenStreetMap
56out of 100
Footpaths1.1 km per km²Km of mapped footpath and track open on foot, per km² of the commune
34out of 100
Hiking routes0.3 km per km²Km of waymarked hiking routes (GR and others), per km² of the commune
44out of 100
Percentiles among compared French towns; ties count half.
Towns its size
Laon has the 5th fewest footpaths per km² of 41 towns its size
The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (22,858 to 25,643 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Vichy (8.8 km per km²) to Sainte-Suzanne (0.4 km per km²).
Every town in the comparison
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vichy Allier | 8.8 | 1.3% | 12% | 290 km |
| 2 | Vélizy-Villacoublay Yvelines | 7.6 | 33% | 0% | 150 km |
| 3 | Hérouville-Saint-Clair Calvados | 7 | 4.9% | 0% | 11 km |
| 4 | Les Lilas Seine-Saint-Denis | 6.6 | 4.4% | 0% | 150 km |
| 5 | Fontenay-aux-Roses Hauts-de-Seine | 6.1 | 1.8% | 0% | 153 km |
| 6 | Rodez Aveyron | 5.9 | 5.5% | 0% | 136 km |
| 7 | Roissy-en-Brie Seine-et-Marne | 5.9 | 46% | 0% | 168 km |
| 8 | Le Kremlin-Bicêtre Val-de-Marne | 5.8 | 1.8% | 0% | 154 km |
| 9 | Brunoy Essonne | 5.2 | 18% | 0% | 170 km |
| 10 | Lanester Morbihan | 5.2 | 13% | 0.1% | On it |
| 11 | Saint-Jean-de-Braye Loiret | 5 | 16% | 4.3% | 207 km |
| 12 | Montbéliard Doubs | 4.9 | 22% | 0% | 418 km |
| 13 | Alençon Orne | 4.8 | 2.3% | 5.5% | 97 km |
| 14 | Marseille 2e Bouches-du-Rhône | 4.8 | 0% | 0% | On it |
| 15 | Deuil-la-Barre Val-d'Oise | 4.6 | 6.1% | 0% | 138 km |
| 16 | Montgeron Essonne | 4.6 | 46% | 0% | 168 km |
| 17 | Combs-la-Ville Seine-et-Marne | 4.4 | 14% | 0% | 176 km |
| 18 | Béthune Pas-de-Calais | 4 | 4% | 0% | 60 km |
| 19 | Orly Val-de-Marne | 3.9 | 5% | 0% | 162 km |
| 20 | Eysines Gironde | 3.9 | 7.6% | 3.1% | 15 km |
| 21 | Rochefort Charente-Maritime | 3.5 | 1.4% | 38% | On it |
| 22 | La Valette-du-Var Var | 3.4 | 23% | 32% | 3.7 km |
| 23 | Tassin-la-Demi-Lune Rhône | 3.2 | 18% | 0% | 250 km |
| 24 | Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône Val-d'Oise | 3.2 | 7.4% | 0% | 123 km |
| 25 | Le Bouscat Gironde | 3 | 1.4% | 0% | 16 km |
| 26 | Dammarie-les-Lys Seine-et-Marne | 2.7 | 35% | 26% | 192 km |
| 27 | Maisons-Laffitte Yvelines | 2.6 | 6.5% | 0% | 133 km |
| 28 | Olivet Loiret | 2.5 | 23% | 0% | 208 km |
| 29 | Vernon Eure | 2.5 | 56% | 3.5% | 90 km |
| 30 | Dole Jura | 2.5 | 36% | 37% | 400 km |
| 31 | Saint-Dizier Haute-Marne | 2.1 | 47% | 0% | 293 km |
| 32 | Libourne Gironde | 2 | 2.5% | 14% | 30 km |
| 33 | Saintes Charente-Maritime | 1.9 | 12% | 9.3% | 26 km |
| 34 | Frontignan Hérault | 1.8 | 0.9% | 29% | On it |
| 35 | Couëron Loire-Atlantique | 1.3 | 6.6% | 33% | 28 km |
| 36 | Cavaillon Vaucluse | 1.1 | 3.2% | 100% | 45 km |
| 37 | Laon Aisne | 1.1 | 16% | 0% | 156 km |
| 38 | Challans Vendée | 0.9 | 10% | 0.9% | 15 km |
| 39 | Vierzon Cher | 0.8 | 44% | 0% | 265 km |
| 40 | Beaupréau-en-Mauges Maine-et-Loire | 0.4 | 5.1% | 0% | 78 km |
| 41 | Sainte-Suzanne Réunion | 0.4 | 31% | 49% | On it |
The map
Parks, woods, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park or wood. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is the commune’s boundary.
Green: parks, gardens and woods mapped on OpenStreetMap, named or not.© OpenStreetMap contributors · INPN / PatriNat · IGN
Places to walk
Parks and woods to walk in, in and around Laon
Named parks, gardens and woods in the commune or within 400 m, the biggest and best-pathed first: Espace Georges Gilbert leads, at 1.3 ha. Directions go to a point inside.
Square de la Tour Penchée
Park or garden
0.3 ha0.3 km of path
1.2 km westfrom the center
Directionsto a point inside
Square des Docteurs Émile et Marcel Macon
Park or garden
0.4 ha0.1 km of path
Centralin the middle of Laon
Directionsto a point inside
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL): named parks, gardens and woods; sizes are the whole site.
Protected areas
Collines du Laonnois oriental is the nearest protected area, 4.7 km away
The protected areas reaching the commune, and the nearest: national parks, regional nature parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.
Natura 2000 site
Collines du Laonnois oriental
4.7 km from the town center
Share of the commune’s land
Any protected area0%
Designations overlap (a regional park can hold a Natura 2000 site), so the rows don’t add up; the first counts each piece of land once.
Source: INPN / PatriNat, protected areas July 2026, Natura 2000 December 2024; shares of IGN’s commune boundary.
Footpaths and woods
47 km of footpaths and 12 km of hiking routes cross Laon
Paths, bridleways, steps and tracks open on foot, and waymarked hiking routes, mapped on OpenStreetMap inside the commune; woods are mapped forest and woodland, private woods included.
Footpaths
47 km
1.1 km per km²
Hiking routes
12 km
waymarked: 0.3 km per km²
Woodland
16%
about 7.3 km² of mapped woods
Km per km² of the commune · mapped on OpenStreetMap
LaonAisne medianFrance median
Footpaths1.1
Hiking routes0.3
012 km per km²
Share of the land · mapped woods and forest
LaonAisne medianFrance median
Woodland16%
0%50%100%
That is less than in 66% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland more than in 56% of compared French towns. Hiking routes often follow paths and lanes already counted, so the two lengths overlap: don’t add them. 99% of Laon’s residents live within 800 m of a mapped park or wood, close to the typical town.
3 named hiking routes within 2 km
GR (long-distance)
GR 14518 km
GR 1429.2 km
GR 12A1.4 km
3 GR routes pass within 2 km of Laon: GR 145, GR 142 and GR 12A.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
When to get out
The best walking months in Laon: April to September
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Aulnois-Ss-Laon, 3.6 km away, and the daylight at the town’s latitude. Outlined months have long days, highs of 15 to 30 °C and little rain for the place.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 8.6 | 10.0 | 11.7 | 13.7 | 15.3 | 16.3 | 15.9 | 14.4 | 12.5 | 10.7 | 9.0 | 8.2 |
| High (°C) | 6 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 19 | 22 | 25 | 25 | 21 | 16 | 10 | 7 |
| Rain (mm) | 60 | 51 | 50 | 44 | 59 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 47 | 57 | 56 | 75 |
April is the driest month (44 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 25 °C). 75 mm of rain falls in December, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 51 nights a year. The climate in Laon →
Neighbors
Next to Laon
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.
Athies-sous-LaonLa FèreBeautorTergnierCrouyVilleneuve-Saint-GermainLaon
Under 1%1–10 %10–25 %25–50 %50 %+
| Town | Protected | Woodland | Paths (km/km²) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laon | 0% | 16% | 1.1 |
| Athies-sous-Laon 2,578 · 4.2 km | 0% | 8.9% | 0.2 |
| La Fère 2,796 · 21 km | 11% | 12% | 0.9 |
| Beautor 2,579 · 23 km | 40% | 3.6% | 1.3 |
| Tergnier 13,045 · 26 km | 4.8% | 9% | 1.2 |
| Crouy 3,049 · 27 km | 0% | 23% | 0.3 |
| Villeneuve-Saint-Germain 2,616 · 29 km | 0% | 11% | 0.8 |
La Fère and Beautor have at least twice as much protected land.
How to read these numbers
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Protected areas. National-park cores, national parks’ outer areas, regional nature parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites, from INPN. A national park’s core is strictly protected; its outer area and a regional park are charters between communes, not bans. Designations overlap, so the total counts each piece of land once.
- Woodland. Forest and woods as OpenStreetMap maps them, private woods included: woods nobody has mapped are missing, and a mapped wood isn’t necessarily open to walkers.
- Footpaths and hiking routes. Footpaths, bridleways, steps and tracks open on foot, then waymarked hiking routes (GR and others) measured apart. A route often follows a path or lane already counted: the two overlap. Paths nobody has mapped are missing.
- Green space nearby. The share of residents (INSEE’s 200 m grid) within 800 m, as the crow flies, of a mapped park, garden or wood edge. It measures nearness, not a way in. Guadeloupe and French Guiana have no grid: their pages say whether the town center is within 800 m.
- The coast. The straight-line distance from the town center to OpenStreetMap’s coastline, which follows the tide line into estuaries. A commune is on the coast when the coastline crosses its boundary.
- No grade yet. U.S. and UK towns have an Outdoors Grade; French towns don’t yet. Each figure is set beside the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade) in the département and in France, each figure its own median.
Questions about the outdoors in Laon
Is Laon in a national or regional nature park?
No. The nearest protected area is Collines du Laonnois oriental, 4.7 km from the town center.
Are there good walks in Laon?
OpenStreetMap maps 47 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 1.1 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²); 12 km of waymarked hiking routes cross it.
How much of Laon is woodland?
16% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
Is Laon near the sea?
No: the coast is 156 km from the town center, as the crow flies.
When is the best time for walking in Laon?
April to September: long days, mild highs and little rain, from Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at the nearest suitable station.
Why is there no Outdoors Grade for French towns?
TownRatings grades the outdoors in the U.S. and the UK; the French figures are new and not graded yet. This page sets each one beside the median compared French town instead.
Sources: INPN / PatriNat (protected areas 2026, Natura 2000 2024) · © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL (paths, hiking routes, woods, coast, gardens) · INSEE, Filosofi 2021 200 m grid (residents) · IGN Admin Express (boundaries) · Météo-France normals 1991–2020 · Medians and percentiles: TownRatings, over compared French towns, updated November 4, 2026. Under the Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab).
Contains public sector information under the Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab): INSEE, DGFiP, the Interior Ministry’s statistics service (SSMSI), the Ministry of Education (DEPP), the Health Ministry’s statistics service (DREES) and the Housing Ministry (Carte des loyers). Commune boundaries: IGN Admin Express.