Photo: Julien Bertrand · Public domainParks, woods and footpaths in Balbigny
Footpaths add up to 10 km across Balbigny (0.6 km per km²). Protected areas cover 5.8% of Balbigny’s land. Mapped woodland covers 12% of Balbigny. France has no Outdoors Grade yet: these are the figures, each beside the compared towns’ median.
Throughout this page, the Loire median and the France median are the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade), each figure its own median.
How Balbigny 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.
Balbigny has the 18th fewest footpaths per km² of 41 towns its size
The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (2,884 to 2,938 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Batz-sur-Mer (6.4 km per km²) to Avord (0.1 km per km²).
Every town in the comparison
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Batz-sur-Mer Loire-Atlantique | 6.4 | 1.4% | 52% | On it |
| 2 | Gevrey-Chambertin Côte-d'Or | 3.4 | 39% | 30% | 408 km |
| 3 | Giromagny Territoire de Belfort | 3 | 42% | 100% | 443 km |
| 4 | Saint-Étienne-de-Fontbellon Ardèche | 3 | 30% | 0.6% | 118 km |
| 5 | Sainte-Anne-d'Auray Morbihan | 2.9 | 12% | 100% | 2.5 km |
| 6 | Le Pouzin Ardèche | 2.5 | 4.6% | 28% | 142 km |
| 7 | Blaye-les-Mines Tarn | 2.5 | 10% | 0% | 127 km |
| 8 | Fresnoy-le-Grand Aisne | 2.2 | 2.4% | 0% | 127 km |
| 9 | Montblanc Hérault | 1.5 | 18% | 0.1% | 12 km |
| 10 | Charquemont Doubs | 1.5 | 39% | 100% | 385 km |
| 11 | Bruyères Vosges | 1.4 | 70% | 2.4% | 428 km |
| 12 | Abrest Allier | 1.4 | 19% | 14% | 286 km |
| 13 | Orcet Puy-de-Dôme | 1.4 | 5.6% | 0% | 248 km |
| 14 | Péron Ain | 1.3 | 56% | 100% | 295 km |
| 15 | Megève Haute-Savoie | 1.3 | 40% | 0% | 241 km |
| 16 | Tresserve Savoie | 1.3 | 6.1% | 66% | 245 km |
| 17 | Châteauneuf-du-Rhône Drôme | 1.2 | 16% | 0.8% | 116 km |
| 18 | Cany-Barville Seine-Maritime | 1.1 | 20% | 0% | 7.9 km |
| 19 | Contrexéville Vosges | 1.1 | 34% | 0% | 379 km |
| 20 | Chavanay Loire | 0.8 | 21% | 99% | 213 km |
| 21 | Bourg-Argental Loire | 0.8 | 42% | 100% | 197 km |
| 22 | Joinville Haute-Marne | 0.7 | 61% | 0% | 317 km |
| 23 | Saint-Priest-Taurion Haute-Vienne | 0.6 | 45% | 0% | 175 km |
| 24 | Balbigny Loire | 0.6 | 12% | 5.8% | 251 km |
| 25 | Allonnes Maine-et-Loire | 0.5 | 20% | 100% | 141 km |
| 26 | Argentré Mayenne | 0.5 | 3.1% | 0% | 80 km |
| 27 | Labouheyre Landes | 0.5 | 74% | 100% | 30 km |
| 28 | Saint-Didier-sur-Chalaronne Ain | 0.4 | 7.4% | 4% | 297 km |
| 29 | Dormans Marne | 0.4 | 24% | 0% | 188 km |
| 30 | Neuville-sur-Escaut Nord | 0.4 | 0.8% | 0% | 105 km |
| 31 | La Ferté-en-Ouche Orne | 0.4 | 13% | 1.4% | 65 km |
| 32 | Lalinde Dordogne | 0.4 | 44% | 2.8% | 106 km |
| 33 | Pennautier Aude | 0.3 | 7.6% | 0% | 65 km |
| 34 | Sennecey-le-Grand Saône-et-Loire | 0.3 | 33% | 0% | 348 km |
| 35 | Rosières-en-Santerre Somme | 0.3 | 0.2% | 0% | 84 km |
| 36 | Thiant Nord | 0.3 | 13% | 0% | 107 km |
| 37 | Yvrac Gironde | 0.3 | 7.7% | 0% | 17 km |
| 38 | Rouillac Charente | 0.2 | 11% | 7% | 66 km |
| 39 | Auneuil Oise | 0.2 | 17% | 4.7% | 88 km |
| 40 | Fresnay-sur-Sarthe Sarthe | 0.2 | 6.9% | 0% | 112 km |
| 41 | Avord Cher | 0.1 | 3.2% | 0% | 300 km |
Parks, woods, footpaths & countryside
Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is the commune’s boundary.
8 in 10 residents of Balbigny live within 800 m of a park or wood
Each square is 1 resident in 100: in green, those within 800 m, as the crow flies, of a mapped park, garden or woodland edge (INSEE’s 200 m population grid against OpenStreetMap).
Residents within 800 m of green space · share of residents
About 500 residents live further away. The distance is a straight line to the edge of a mapped park or wood, not a walk to a gate, and a wood can be private.
5.8% of Balbigny lies in protected areas
The protected areas reaching the commune, and the nearest: national parks, regional nature parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.
Plaine du Forez
Milieux alluviaux et aquatiques de la Loire
Gorges de la Loire aval
Site à chiroptères des Monts du Matin
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.
5.8% of Balbigny’s land is protected, more than in 66% of compared French towns; the median compared town in Loire has 1.2%.
Source: INPN / PatriNat, protected areas July 2026, Natura 2000 December 2024; shares of IGN’s commune boundary.
10 km of footpaths cross Balbigny
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 83% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland less than in 53% of compared French towns. Hiking routes often follow paths and lanes already counted, so the two lengths overlap: don’t add them.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
The best walking months in Balbigny: April and June to September
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Feurs, 9.5 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) | 7 | 9 | 14 | 17 | 21 | 25 | 27 | 28 | 23 | 18 | 11 | 8 |
| Rain (mm) | 33 | 28 | 29 | 48 | 76 | 65 | 70 | 69 | 58 | 72 | 67 | 37 |
February is the driest month (28 mm) and August the warmest (highs of 28 °C). 76 mm of rain falls in May, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 63 nights a year. The climate in Balbigny →
Next to Balbigny
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.
| Town | Protected | Woodland | Paths (km/km²) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Balbigny | 5.8% | 12% | 0.6 |
| Feurs 8,367 · 9 km | 37% | 6.8% | 0.8 |
| Panissières 2,911 · 12 km | 0% | 21% | 0.4 |
| Boën-sur-Lignon 3,001 · 16 km | 4.3% | 12% | 1.2 |
| Montrond-les-Bains 5,652 · 20 km | 17% | 3.1% | 1.2 |
| Amplepuis 4,876 · 20 km | 0% | 29% | 0.4 |
| Tarare 10,893 · 21 km | 0% | 41% | 1.1 |
Feurs and Montrond-les-Bains have at least twice as much protected land. Panissières, Amplepuis and Tarare 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 Balbigny
Is Balbigny in a national or regional nature park?
No, but 5.8% of its land is in a nature reserve or a Natura 2000 site.
Are there good walks in Balbigny?
OpenStreetMap maps 10 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 0.6 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²).
How much of Balbigny is woodland?
12% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
Is Balbigny near the sea?
No: the coast is 251 km from the town center, as the crow flies.
When is the best time for walking in Balbigny?
April and June 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.