Photo: Jack ma · CC BY-SA 3.0

19%of the land protected

Outdoors in Brie · protected areas, woods and footpaths

35% of Brie is woodland, more than in 8 in 10 French towns

Protected areas cover 19% of Brie’s land. 52 km of footpaths cross Brie (1.5 km per km²). France has no Outdoors Grade yet: these are the figures, each beside the compared towns’ median.

19%protected 35%woodland 52km of footpaths

Protected areas

19%

of the commune’s land

Compared town: 0.1%

Woodland

35%

of the land, mapped on OpenStreetMap

Compared town: 13%

Footpaths

52 km

1.5 km per km²

Compared town: 1.7 km per km²

Hiking routes

0 km

waymarked, GR and others

Compared town: 0.3 km per km²

Parks & woods

named, in or within 400 m of the commune

First: Forêt domaniale de la Braconne

Throughout this page, the Charente 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 Brie 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 areas19%Share of the land in a national park, regional nature park, nature reserve or Natura 2000 site

78out of 100

Woodland35%Share of the land mapped as forest or woods on OpenStreetMap

81out of 100

Footpaths1.5 km per km²Km of mapped footpath and track open on foot, per km² of the commune

46out of 100

Hiking routes0 km per km²Km of waymarked hiking routes (GR and others), per km² of the commune

12out of 100

Percentiles among compared French towns; ties count half.

Towns its size

Brie has the 17th most footpaths per km² of 41 towns its size

The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (4,091 to 4,160 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.

Brie 1.5

Longeville-lès-MetzVieillevigne

048 km per km²

From Longeville-lès-Metz (7.3 km per km²) to Vieillevigne (0.2 km per km²).

Every town in the comparison

	Town	Paths (km/km²)	Woodland	Protected	Coast
1	Longeville-lès-Metz Moselle	7.3	9.3%	0%	327 km
2	Chanteloup-en-Brie Seine-et-Marne	6.5	24%	0%	166 km
3	Montferrier-sur-Lez Hérault	5.3	33%	8.3%	16 km
4	Indre Loire-Atlantique	4.7	7.9%	41%	30 km
5	Mareil-Marly Yvelines	3.8	24%	0%	136 km
6	Bouxières-aux-Dames Meurthe-et-Moselle	3.5	30%	0%	359 km
7	Le Plessis-Pâté Essonne	3.2	4.8%	0%	170 km
8	Fouras Charente-Maritime	2.8	2.8%	43%	On it
9	Turckheim Haut-Rhin	2.7	56%	7.9%	469 km
10	Neufchâtel-Hardelot Pas-de-Calais	2.5	27%	100%	On it
11	Aulnat Puy-de-Dôme	2.1	0.1%	0%	258 km
12	Aigrefeuille-sur-Maine Loire-Atlantique	2	5.8%	0%	44 km
13	Monéteau Yonne	1.9	37%	0%	293 km
14	Bouchain Nord	1.8	18%	0%	105 km
15	Le Houlme Seine-Maritime	1.7	37%	0%	44 km
16	Abscon Nord	1.6	6.4%	0%	100 km
17	Brie Charente	1.5	35%	19%	86 km
18	Veigy-Foncenex Haute-Savoie	1.5	38%	0.3%	293 km
19	Saint-Romain-le-Puy Loire	1.4	16%	17%	222 km
20	Val d'Oingt Rhône	1.3	20%	0%	266 km
21	Ghyvelde Nord	1.3	0.2%	6.9%	3.7 km
22	Pont-de-l'Arche Eure	1.2	72%	1.4%	59 km
23	Gondecourt Nord	1.2	4.8%	0%	68 km
24	Sainte-Menehould Marne	1.2	70%	35%	263 km
25	Nissan-lez-Enserune Hérault	1.1	4.6%	38%	12 km
26	Survilliers Val-d'Oise	1.1	23%	71%	135 km
27	Chaingy Loiret	1	21%	2.3%	202 km
28	La Destrousse Bouches-du-Rhône	0.9	11%	6.2%	19 km
29	Condé-sur-Vire Manche	0.9	3.4%	0%	33 km
30	Domfront en Poiraie Orne	0.9	13%	100%	52 km
31	Arsac Gironde	0.9	59%	100%	6.4 km
32	Neuilly-en-Thelle Oise	0.8	7.9%	0%	114 km
33	Saint-Lubin-des-Joncherets Eure-et-Loir	0.7	19%	0%	97 km
34	Eauze Gers	0.6	24%	9.8%	117 km
35	Pusignan Rhône	0.6	2.9%	0%	256 km
36	Pézilla-la-Rivière Pyrénées-Orientales	0.5	1.8%	0%	22 km
37	Les Mées Alpes-de-Haute-Provence	0.4	49%	17%	91 km
38	Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine Indre-et-Loire	0.3	9.9%	0%	161 km
39	Solesmes Nord	0.3	0.7%	0%	121 km
40	Saint-Joachim Loire-Atlantique	0.2	0.1%	100%	8.8 km
41	Vieillevigne Loire-Atlantique	0.2	4%	0%	42 km

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 Brie

Named parks, gardens and woods in the commune or within 400 m, the biggest and best-pathed first: Forêt domaniale de la Braconne leads, at 4,615 ha. Directions go to a point inside.

First pick

Forêt domaniale de la Braconne

Wood or forest

4,615 ha159.9 km of path

35 h 30 minto walk all 159.9 km of path

3.7 km eastfrom the center

Allée de Chez RondeletAllée Forestière du DucRoute Forestière du Lac Noir+3 paths

Directionsto a point inside

Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL): named parks, gardens and woods; sizes are the whole site.

Protected areas

19% of Brie lies in protected areas

The protected areas reaching the commune, and the nearest: national parks, regional nature parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.

Natura 2000 site

Forêts de la Braconne et de Bois Blanc

19% of the commune1.4 km from the center

Share of the commune’s land

Any protected area19%

Natura 2000 site19%

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.

19% of Brie’s land is protected, more than in 78% of compared French towns; the median compared town in Charente has 7.4%.

Source: INPN / PatriNat, protected areas July 2026, Natura 2000 December 2024; shares of IGN’s commune boundary.

Footpaths and woods

52 km of footpaths cross Brie

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

52 km

1.5 km per km²

Hiking routes

0 km

waymarked: 0 km per km²

Woodland

35%

about 11.9 km² of mapped woods

Km per km² of the commune · mapped on OpenStreetMap

BrieCharente medianFrance median

Footpaths1.5

Hiking routes0

012 km per km²

Share of the land · mapped woods and forest

BrieCharente medianFrance median

Woodland35%

0%50%100%

That is less than in 54% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland more than in 81% of compared French towns. Hiking routes often follow paths and lanes already counted, so the two lengths overlap: don’t add them. Every home in Brie is within 800 m of a mapped park or wood, as in most French towns.

A named hiking route within 2 km

Other named walk

De la Manche aux Pyrénées 13, La Villedieu - Touvre3.2 km

When to get out

The best walking months in Brie: April to September

Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at La Couronne, 17 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)	9.0	10.3	11.8	13.5	14.9	15.7	15.4	14.1	12.5	10.8	9.4	8.7
High (°C)	10	11	15	18	22	25	28	28	24	19	13	10
Rain (mm)	77	59	60	69	69	70	55	56	69	78	93	91

July is the driest month (55 mm) and August the warmest (highs of 28 °C). 93 mm of rain falls in November, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 42 nights a year. The climate in Brie →

Neighbors

Next to Brie

The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.

ChampniersRuelle-sur-TouvreMagnac-sur-TouvreL'Isle-d'EspagnacLa Rochefoucauld-en-AngoumoisGond-PontouvreBrie

Under 1%1–10 %10–25 %25–50 %50 %+

Town	Protected	Woodland	Paths (km/km²)
Brie	19%	35%	1.5
Champniers 5,281 · 5.1 km	0%	9.7%	0.3
Ruelle-sur-Touvre 7,408 · 6.1 km	8%	6.5%	0.8
Magnac-sur-Touvre 3,255 · 7.4 km	3.1%	22%	1
L'Isle-d'Espagnac 5,682 · 8.9 km	0%	13%	3.4
La Rochefoucauld-en-Angoumois 4,025 · 9.2 km	16%	39%	1.6
Gond-Pontouvre 5,862 · 9.5 km	16%	15%	1.4

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 Brie

Is Brie in a national or regional nature park?

No, but 19% of its land is in a nature reserve or a Natura 2000 site.

Are there good walks in Brie?

OpenStreetMap maps 52 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 1.5 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²).

How much of Brie is woodland?

35% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.

Is Brie near the sea?

No: the coast is 86 km from the town center, as the crow flies.

When is the best time for walking in Brie?

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 October 30, 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.