First pick
Square André Brothier
Park or garden
0.2 ha0.2 km of path
Centralin the middle of Ruffec
Directionsto a point inside
Photo: Jack ma · CC BY-SA 3.030%woodland
Outdoors in Ruffec · protected areas, woods and footpaths
Almost every home in Ruffec is within 800 m of a park or wood
Mapped woodland covers 30% of Ruffec. No protected area reaches Ruffec; the nearest, Plaine de Villefagnan (Natura 2000), is 7 km from the town center. 12 km of footpaths cross Ruffec (0.9 km per km²). 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: Plaine de Villefagnan, 7 km
Woodland
30%
of the land, mapped on OpenStreetMap
Compared town: 13%
Footpaths
12 km
0.9 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
1
named, in or within 400 m of the commune
First: Square André Brothier
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.
What kind of place
What kind of outdoors place is Ruffec?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and less good.
A wooded commune30% mapped woodland, more than in 76% of compared French towns, against 13% for the median compared town.Protected land nearbyPlaine de Villefagnan (Natura 2000) is 7 km from the town center.
What sets Ruffec apart: its woods, then protected land close by.
Against French towns
How Ruffec 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
Woodland30%Share of the land mapped as forest or woods on OpenStreetMap
76out of 100
Footpaths0.9 km per km²Km of mapped footpath and track open on foot, per km² of the commune
28out 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
Ruffec has the 16th fewest footpaths per km² of 41 towns its size
The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (3,419 to 3,481 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Mours-Saint-Eusèbe (3.7 km per km²) to Crèvecœur-le-Grand (0.1 km per km²).
Every town in the comparison
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mours-Saint-Eusèbe Drôme | 3.7 | 12% | 0% | 180 km |
| 2 | Sainte-Catherine Pas-de-Calais | 3.3 | 6.1% | 0% | 78 km |
| 3 | Lapugnoy Pas-de-Calais | 3 | 42% | 0% | 60 km |
| 4 | Verquin Pas-de-Calais | 2.9 | 5.5% | 0% | 62 km |
| 5 | Barbazan-Debat Hautes-Pyrénées | 2.6 | 47% | 0% | 136 km |
| 6 | Choisy-au-Bac Oise | 2.5 | 62% | 56% | 119 km |
| 7 | Vals-les-Bains Ardèche | 2 | 73% | 100% | 125 km |
| 8 | Ligugé Vienne | 1.8 | 38% | 0% | 114 km |
| 9 | Culoz-Béon Ain | 1.8 | 57% | 22% | 267 km |
| 10 | Aubin Aveyron | 1.7 | 49% | 2.3% | 166 km |
| 11 | La Boisse Ain | 1.7 | 16% | 0% | 265 km |
| 12 | La Chapelle-Heulin Loire-Atlantique | 1.6 | 15% | 17% | 51 km |
| 13 | Lampertheim Bas-Rhin | 1.6 | 1.2% | 0% | 443 km |
| 14 | Saint-Sulpice-de-Royan Charente-Maritime | 1.6 | 16% | 16% | On it |
| 15 | Saint-Céré Lot | 1.6 | 28% | 0% | 196 km |
| 16 | Saint-Martin-du-Var Alpes-Maritimes | 1.5 | 23% | 16% | 15 km |
| 17 | Mauriac Cantal | 1.4 | 22% | 17% | 227 km |
| 18 | Carpiquet Calvados | 1.4 | 0.2% | 0% | 16 km |
| 19 | Saint-Jeoire Haute-Savoie | 1.3 | 64% | 0% | 275 km |
| 20 | Rupt-sur-Moselle Vosges | 1.3 | 67% | 100% | 441 km |
| 21 | Azay-le-Rideau Indre-et-Loire | 1.2 | 27% | 100% | 162 km |
| 22 | Saint-Ambroix Gard | 1 | 30% | 100% | 78 km |
| 23 | Vic-la-Gardiole Hérault | 1 | 4.8% | 70% | On it |
| 24 | Troarn Calvados | 1 | 19% | 0% | 11 km |
| 25 | Artix Pyrénées-Atlantiques | 0.9 | 15% | 38% | 76 km |
| 26 | Ruffec Charente | 0.9 | 30% | 0% | 91 km |
| 27 | Mirande Gers | 0.8 | 20% | 0% | 150 km |
| 28 | Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs Isère | 0.7 | 12% | 0% | 213 km |
| 29 | Saint-Cyr-en-Val Loiret | 0.7 | 33% | 36% | 214 km |
| 30 | Val-de-Cognac Charente | 0.7 | 23% | 8.1% | 45 km |
| 31 | Andeville Oise | 0.7 | 11% | 0% | 105 km |
| 32 | Vouvray Indre-et-Loire | 0.7 | 10% | 9.6% | 192 km |
| 33 | Moult-Chicheboville Calvados | 0.5 | 8.3% | 6% | 19 km |
| 34 | Saint-Éloy-les-Mines Puy-de-Dôme | 0.5 | 23% | 0% | 290 km |
| 35 | Bournezeau Vendée | 0.3 | 9.3% | 0% | 35 km |
| 36 | Le Porge Gironde | 0.3 | 89% | 100% | On it |
| 37 | Le Mérévillois Essonne | 0.3 | 8.2% | 0% | 178 km |
| 38 | Villeneuve-la-Guyard Yonne | 0.2 | 18% | 0.2% | 227 km |
| 39 | Steenwerck Nord | 0.2 | 0.8% | 0% | 47 km |
| 40 | Bellevigne-les-Châteaux Maine-et-Loire | 0.2 | 28% | 100% | 128 km |
| 41 | Crèvecœur-le-Grand Oise | 0.1 | 4.3% | 0% | 70 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 Ruffec
Named parks, gardens and woods in the commune or within 400 m, the biggest and best-pathed first: Square André Brothier leads, at 0.2 ha. Directions go to a point inside.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL): named parks, gardens and woods; sizes are the whole site.
Protected areas
Plaine de Villefagnan is the nearest protected area, 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
Plaine de Villefagnan
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
12 km of footpaths cross Ruffec
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
12 km
0.9 km per km²
Hiking routes
0 km
waymarked: 0 km per km²
Woodland
30%
about 4 km² of mapped woods
Km per km² of the commune · mapped on OpenStreetMap
RuffecCharente medianFrance median
Footpaths0.9
Hiking routes0
012 km per km²
Share of the land · mapped woods and forest
RuffecCharente medianFrance median
Woodland30%
0%50%100%
That is less than in 72% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland more than in 76% 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 Ruffec 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
Via Sancti Martini - Camino de Zaragoza / Chemin de Saragosse0.4 km
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
When to get out
The best walking months in Ruffec: April to September
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Tusson, 14 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) | 9 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 21 | 25 | 27 | 27 | 23 | 18 | 13 | 10 |
| Rain (mm) | 78 | 59 | 61 | 65 | 65 | 65 | 48 | 57 | 61 | 82 | 91 | 91 |
July is the driest month (48 mm) and August the warmest (highs of 27 °C). 91 mm of rain falls in November, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 55 nights a year. The climate in Ruffec →
Neighbors
Next to Ruffec
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.
CivrayRuffec
Under 1%1–10 %10–25 %25–50 %50 %+
| Town | Protected | Woodland | Paths (km/km²) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruffec | 0% | 30% | 0.9 |
| Civray 2,522 · 15 km | 0% | 19% | 0.5 |
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 Ruffec
Is Ruffec in a national or regional nature park?
No. The nearest protected area is Plaine de Villefagnan, 7 km from the town center.
Are there good walks in Ruffec?
OpenStreetMap maps 12 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 0.9 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²).
How much of Ruffec is woodland?
30% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
Is Ruffec near the sea?
No: the coast is 91 km from the town center, as the crow flies.
When is the best time for walking in Ruffec?
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.