Photo: Cayambe · CC BY-SA 3.0Cayenne is on the coast
Footpaths add up to 66 km across Cayenne (2.6 km per km²). No protected area reaches Cayenne; the nearest, Mont Grand Matoury nature reserve, is 7 km from the town center. Cayenne has 2 km of waymarked hiking routes. France has no Outdoors Grade yet: these are the figures, each beside the compared towns’ median.
Throughout this page, the French Guiana median and the France median are the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade), each figure its own median.
What kind of outdoors place is Cayenne?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and less good.
What sets Cayenne apart: the sea, then protected land close by.
How Cayenne 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.
Cayenne has the 8th fewest footpaths per km² of 41 towns its size
The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (55,790 to 68,092 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Issy-les-Moulineaux (10.9 km per km²) to Saint-André (0.6 km per km²).
Every town in the comparison
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Issy-les-Moulineaux Hauts-de-Seine | 10.9 | 2.2% | 0% | 149 km |
| 2 | Marseille 10e Bouches-du-Rhône | 10.6 | 23% | 37% | 4 km |
| 3 | Maisons-Alfort Val-de-Marne | 10.3 | 2.1% | 0% | 158 km |
| 4 | Ivry-sur-Seine Val-de-Marne | 8.5 | 0.6% | 0% | 155 km |
| 5 | Évry-Courcouronnes Essonne | 8.4 | 9.5% | 0% | 174 km |
| 6 | Clamart Hauts-de-Seine | 8.4 | 26% | 0% | 151 km |
| 7 | Pantin Seine-Saint-Denis | 8.3 | 1.9% | 0% | 148 km |
| 8 | Levallois-Perret Hauts-de-Seine | 7.7 | 0% | 0% | 143 km |
| 9 | Villeneuve-d'Ascq Nord | 7.6 | 8% | 2.3% | 65 km |
| 10 | Villejuif Val-de-Marne | 7.4 | 1% | 0% | 156 km |
| 11 | Bobigny Seine-Saint-Denis | 7.3 | 0.3% | 0% | 149 km |
| 12 | Antony Hauts-de-Seine | 6.2 | 4.8% | 0.6% | 157 km |
| 13 | Chambéry Savoie | 6 | 15% | 1.5% | 235 km |
| 14 | Paris 9e Paris | 5.1 | 0% | 0% | 147 km |
| 15 | Meaux Seine-et-Marne | 5.1 | 7.8% | 5.5% | 162 km |
| 16 | Marseille 3e Bouches-du-Rhône | 5.1 | 0% | 0% | 1.1 km |
| 17 | Vénissieux Rhône | 5 | 3.8% | 0% | 247 km |
| 18 | Sarcelles Val-d'Oise | 4.9 | 6.9% | 0% | 139 km |
| 19 | Pessac Gironde | 4.8 | 22% | 0% | 24 km |
| 20 | Clichy Hauts-de-Seine | 4.6 | 0.6% | 0% | 143 km |
| 21 | Lorient Morbihan | 4.6 | 1.8% | 0.6% | On it |
| 22 | Le Blanc-Mesnil Seine-Saint-Denis | 4.6 | 2.1% | 0% | 147 km |
| 23 | Vannes Morbihan | 4.6 | 12% | 33% | On it |
| 24 | Neuilly-sur-Seine Hauts-de-Seine | 4.4 | 0.1% | 0% | 143 km |
| 25 | Marseille 14e Bouches-du-Rhône | 3.9 | 1.4% | 23% | 2.7 km |
| 26 | Troyes Aube | 3.7 | 1.2% | 0% | 272 km |
| 27 | Marseille 11e Bouches-du-Rhône | 3.3 | 43% | 42% | 7.5 km |
| 28 | Calais Pas-de-Calais | 3.3 | 2.1% | 0% | On it |
| 29 | Fréjus Var | 3.1 | 48% | 33% | On it |
| 30 | Hyères Var | 3 | 25% | 83% | On it |
| 31 | La Seyne-sur-Mer Var | 2.9 | 21% | 15% | On it |
| 32 | Quimper Finistère | 2.9 | 25% | 0% | On it |
| 33 | Marseille 12e Bouches-du-Rhône | 2.7 | 6.8% | 0% | 5.2 km |
| 34 | Cayenne French Guiana | 2.6 | 14% | 0% | On it |
| 35 | Bourges Cher | 2.3 | 4.9% | 0.4% | 283 km |
| 36 | Valence Drôme | 2.1 | 3.3% | 0% | 164 km |
| 37 | Niort Deux-Sèvres | 2 | 6.2% | 100% | 51 km |
| 38 | Narbonne Aude | 1.2 | 11% | 63% | On it |
| 39 | Colmar Haut-Rhin | 1.2 | 19% | 29% | 473 km |
| 40 | Montauban Tarn-et-Garonne | 0.8 | 5.4% | 1.3% | 175 km |
| 41 | Saint-André Réunion | 0.6 | 16% | 31% | On it |
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 Cayenne
Named parks, gardens and woods in the commune or within 400 m, the biggest and best-pathed first: Îlet la Mère leads, at 53 ha. Directions go to a point inside.
Jardin Botanique Gaston Monnerville
Place des Palmistes
Jardin Paysager
Place Léopold Héder
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL): named parks, gardens and woods; sizes are the whole site.
Mont Grand Matoury nature reserve 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.
Mont Grand Matoury nature reserve
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.
Natura 2000 doesn’t apply in the overseas départements.
Source: INPN / PatriNat, protected areas July 2026, Natura 2000 December 2024; shares of IGN’s commune boundary.
66 km of footpaths cross Cayenne
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 more than in 68% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland more than in 51% of compared French towns. Hiking routes often follow paths and lanes already counted, so the two lengths overlap: don’t add them. The center of Cayenne is within 800 m of a mapped park or wood (INSEE’s population grid doesn’t cover French Guiana).
3 named hiking routes within 2 km
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
The walking year in Cayenne
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Cayenne-Matoury, 13 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) | 11.9 | 12.0 | 12.1 | 12.2 | 12.3 | 12.4 | 12.4 | 12.3 | 12.1 | 12.0 | 11.9 | 11.8 |
| High (°C) | 29 | 29 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 31 | 31 | 32 | 32 | 33 | 32 | 30 |
| Rain (mm) | 399 | 335 | 315 | 443 | 600 | 392 | 262 | 135 | 63 | 55 | 135 | 352 |
October is the driest month (55 mm) and the warmest (highs of 33 °C). 600 mm of rain falls in May, the wettest month. Summer highs reach 33 °C, too hot for the outline. The climate in Cayenne →
A garden to visit in Cayenne
Named gardens in the commune.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) and Wikidata.
Next to Cayenne
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.
| Town | Protected | Woodland | Paths (km/km²) | Coast |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cayenne | 0% | 14% | 2.6 | On it |
| Remire-Montjoly 27,723 · 7.5 km | 0% | 36% | 0.9 | On it |
| Matoury 36,512 · 9.8 km | 14% | 54% | 0.2 | On it |
| Macouria 19,899 · 18 km | 0% | 50% | 0.1 | On it |
| Montsinéry-Tonnegrande 3,626 · 18 km | 0% | 83% | 0 | On it |
| Roura 3,449 · 23 km | 100% | 93% | 0 | On it |
Matoury and Roura have at least twice as much protected land. Remire-Montjoly, Matoury and Macouria are more wooded.
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 Cayenne
Is Cayenne in a national or regional nature park?
No. The nearest protected area is Mont Grand Matoury nature reserve, 7 km from the town center.
Are there good walks in Cayenne?
OpenStreetMap maps 66 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 2.6 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²); 2 km of waymarked hiking routes cross it.
How much of Cayenne is woodland?
14% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
Is Cayenne near the sea?
Yes: the commune touches the coast, 0.2 km from its center.
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.