Photo: Dominic Nelson · CC BY-SA 4.0Almost every home in Aiffres is within 800 m of a park or wood
3.4% of Aiffres is mapped woodland. 14% of Aiffres’ land lies in protected areas. 26 km of footpaths cross Aiffres (1 km per km²). France has no Outdoors Grade yet: these are the figures, each beside the compared towns’ median.
Throughout this page, the Deux-Sèvres median and the France median are the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade), each figure its own median.
How Aiffres 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.
Percentiles among compared French towns; ties count half.
Aiffres has the 15th fewest footpaths per km² of 41 towns its size
The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (5,376 to 5,468 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Cormelles-le-Royal (7.2 km per km²) to Noyant-Villages (0.1 km per km²).
Every town in the comparison
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cormelles-le-Royal Calvados | 7.2 | 2.2% | 0% | 15 km |
| 2 | Heillecourt Meurthe-et-Moselle | 6.1 | 1.5% | 0% | 369 km |
| 3 | Marsannay-la-Côte Côte-d'Or | 6 | 47% | 49% | 405 km |
| 4 | Marles-les-Mines Pas-de-Calais | 3.6 | 3.7% | 0% | 57 km |
| 5 | Crégy-lès-Meaux Seine-et-Marne | 3.5 | 10% | 0% | 159 km |
| 6 | Le Cendre Puy-de-Dôme | 3.4 | 3.3% | 1.8% | 249 km |
| 7 | Levens Alpes-Maritimes | 3 | 64% | 12% | 17 km |
| 8 | Charbonnières-les-Bains Rhône | 2.8 | 16% | 0% | 252 km |
| 9 | Saint-Genis-les-Ollières Rhône | 2.5 | 14% | 0% | 250 km |
| 10 | Roques Haute-Garonne | 2.4 | 4.3% | 40% | 148 km |
| 11 | Peyrolles-en-Provence Bouches-du-Rhône | 2.4 | 63% | 69% | 38 km |
| 12 | La Roque-d'Anthéron Bouches-du-Rhône | 2.3 | 36% | 51% | 39 km |
| 13 | Plouhinec Morbihan | 2 | 24% | 32% | On it |
| 14 | Saint-Pierre-lès-Nemours Seine-et-Marne | 1.8 | 45% | 29% | 214 km |
| 15 | Wervicq-Sud Nord | 1.8 | 3% | 0% | 48 km |
| 16 | Ollainville Essonne | 1.7 | 37% | 0% | 165 km |
| 17 | Rosheim Bas-Rhin | 1.7 | 57% | 0% | 443 km |
| 18 | Rousset Bouches-du-Rhône | 1.7 | 7.1% | 7.7% | 27 km |
| 19 | Arnage Sarthe | 1.6 | 11% | 0% | 138 km |
| 20 | Cruseilles Haute-Savoie | 1.6 | 40% | 21% | 273 km |
| 21 | Flers-en-Escrebieux Nord | 1.5 | 12% | 1% | 85 km |
| 22 | Bordères-sur-l'Échez Hautes-Pyrénées | 1.4 | 22% | 0% | 128 km |
| 23 | Vic-le-Comte Puy-de-Dôme | 1.2 | 19% | 100% | 241 km |
| 24 | Lacroix-Saint-Ouen Oise | 1.2 | 73% | 76% | 121 km |
| 25 | Coulogne Pas-de-Calais | 1.2 | 1.1% | 0% | 4.7 km |
| 26 | Saint-Astier Dordogne | 1 | 33% | 8% | 89 km |
| 27 | Aiffres Deux-Sèvres | 1 | 3.4% | 14% | 54 km |
| 28 | Le Lion-d'Angers Maine-et-Loire | 1 | 5.4% | 0.8% | 115 km |
| 29 | Fenain Nord | 1 | 10% | 99% | 97 km |
| 30 | Drusenheim Bas-Rhin | 0.8 | 29% | 17% | 449 km |
| 31 | Saint-Memmie Marne | 0.7 | 4.7% | 0% | 239 km |
| 32 | La Ferrière Vendée | 0.7 | 9.6% | 0% | 38 km |
| 33 | Boulay-Moselle Moselle | 0.7 | 11% | 0% | 339 km |
| 34 | Mouguerre Pyrénées-Atlantiques | 0.5 | 40% | 7.9% | 11 km |
| 35 | Reichshoffen Bas-Rhin | 0.5 | 27% | 100% | 420 km |
| 36 | Étoile-sur-Rhône Drôme | 0.5 | 8.7% | 1.6% | 154 km |
| 37 | Garons Gard | 0.5 | 0.1% | 0% | 35 km |
| 38 | Ploumagoar Côtes-d'Armor | 0.5 | 20% | 0% | 19 km |
| 39 | Châtillon-sur-Seine Côte-d'Or | 0.4 | 12% | 100% | 334 km |
| 40 | Aubigny-sur-Nère Cher | 0.3 | 25% | 24% | 265 km |
| 41 | Noyant-Villages Maine-et-Loire | 0.1 | 23% | 13% | 164 km |
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.
Parks and woods to walk in, in and around Aiffres
Named parks, gardens and woods in the commune or within 400 m, the biggest and best-pathed first: Bois de Beau Lieu leads, at 19 ha. Directions go to a point inside.
Jardin des Senteurs
Square Bourdeau
Bois de Lens
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL): named parks, gardens and woods; sizes are the whole site.
14% of Aiffres lies in protected areas
The protected areas reaching the commune, and the nearest: national parks, regional nature parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.
Marais Poitevin Regional Nature Park
Plaine de Niort Sud-Est
Share of the commune’s land
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.
14% of Aiffres’ land is protected, more than in 75% of compared French towns; the median compared town in Deux-Sèvres has 0.4%. A regional nature park is a charter between communes to look after a landscape: farming, building and hunting go on inside it.
Source: INPN / PatriNat, protected areas July 2026, Natura 2000 December 2024; shares of IGN’s commune boundary.
26 km of footpaths cross Aiffres
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.
Km per km² of the commune · mapped on OpenStreetMap
Share of the land · mapped woods and forest
That is less than in 68% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland less than in 83% 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 Aiffres is within 800 m of a mapped park or wood, as in most French towns.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
The best walking months in Aiffres: April to September
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Niort, 3.1 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 | 15.0 | 15.8 | 15.4 | 14.2 | 12.5 | 10.8 | 9.3 | 8.6 |
| High (°C) | 9 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 24 | 26 | 26 | 23 | 18 | 13 | 10 |
| Rain (mm) | 82 | 64 | 63 | 67 | 67 | 59 | 52 | 53 | 62 | 88 | 92 | 97 |
July is the driest month (52 mm) and August the warmest (highs of 26 °C). 97 mm of rain falls in December, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 35 nights a year. The climate in Aiffres →
Next to Aiffres
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.
Niort, Vouillé and Magné have at least twice as much protected land.
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 Aiffres
Is Aiffres in a national or regional nature park?
No, but 14% of its land is in a nature reserve or a Natura 2000 site.
Are there good walks in Aiffres?
OpenStreetMap maps 26 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 1 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²).
How much of Aiffres is woodland?
3.4% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
Is Aiffres near the sea?
No: the coast is 54 km from the town center, as the crow flies.
When is the best time for walking in Aiffres?
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 9, 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.