Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Ji-Elle · CC BY-SA 3.0100% of Bitche’s land lies in protected areas. Mapped woodland covers 75% of Bitche. Bitche has 46 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 Moselle median and the France median are the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade), each figure its own median.
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and less good.
What sets Bitche apart: the regional nature park around it, then its woods.
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.
The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (4,911 to 5,022 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Villefranche-sur-Mer (4.2 km per km²) to Saint-Laurent-Médoc (0.1 km per km²).
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Villefranche-sur-Mer Alpes-Maritimes | 4.2 | 19% | 26% | On it |
| 2 | Beaucourt Territoire de Belfort | 3.7 | 33% | 0% | 414 km |
| 3 | Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche Yvelines | 3.6 | 38% | 0% | 136 km |
| 4 | Pechbonnieu Haute-Garonne | 2.8 | 15% | 0% | 150 km |
| 5 | Luzarches Val-d'Oise | 2.6 | 47% | 100% | 130 km |
| 6 | Saint-Mathieu-de-Tréviers Hérault | 2.6 | 48% | 66% | 26 km |
| 7 | La Grand-Croix Loire | 2.5 | 15% | 0% | 219 km |
| 8 | La Mure Isère | 2.2 | 10% | 0% | 176 km |
| 9 | Decazeville Aveyron | 2.2 | 40% | 0% | 168 km |
| 10 | Montchanin Saône-et-Loire | 2.1 | 20% | 0% | 355 km |
| 11 | Sainte-Marie-la-Mer Pyrénées-Orientales | 1.9 | 1.4% | 1.3% | On it |
| 12 | Lorette Loire | 1.8 | 13% | 0.2% | 220 km |
| 13 | Bousbecque Nord | 1.5 | 1.4% | 0% | 49 km |
| 14 | Laigneville Oise | 1.5 | 29% | 0% | 112 km |
| 15 | Mamers Sarthe | 1.4 | 0.9% | 0.1% | 110 km |
| 16 | Bitche Moselle | 1.3 | 75% | 100% | 398 km |
| 17 | Crécy-la-Chapelle Seine-et-Marne | 1.1 | 21% | 0% | 172 km |
| 18 | Cluny Saône-et-Loire | 1.1 | 42% | 100% | 322 km |
| 19 | Plouigneau Finistère | 1.1 | 19% | 12% | 9 km |
| 20 | La Souterraine Creuse | 1.1 | 18% | 0% | 193 km |
| 21 | Claira Pyrénées-Orientales | 1.1 | 0% | 0% | 7 km |
| 22 | Bruyères-sur-Oise Val-d'Oise | 1 | 3.1% | 0.2% | 122 km |
| 23 | Le Fenouiller Vendée | 1 | 4.1% | 9.9% | 3.5 km |
| 24 | Créon Gironde | 0.9 | 24% | 0% | 32 km |
| 25 | Briare Loiret | 0.8 | 27% | 7.9% | 266 km |
| 26 | Souppes-sur-Loing Seine-et-Marne | 0.7 | 19% | 1.4% | 223 km |
| 27 | Sainte-Eulalie Gironde | 0.6 | 7.3% | 0% | 14 km |
| 28 | Heyrieux Isère | 0.6 | 6.6% | 0% | 242 km |
| 29 | Decize Nièvre | 0.6 | 15% | 32% | 355 km |
| 30 | Nivillac Morbihan | 0.5 | 9.4% | 3.7% | 9.4 km |
| 31 | Lestrem Pas-de-Calais | 0.5 | 1% | 0% | 52 km |
| 32 | Neuville-aux-Bois Loiret | 0.5 | 19% | 0% | 196 km |
| 33 | Witry-lès-Reims Marne | 0.4 | 3.6% | 0% | 201 km |
| 34 | Lisle-sur-Tarn Tarn | 0.4 | 30% | 0% | 136 km |
| 35 | Morcenx-la-Nouvelle Landes | 0.4 | 64% | 12% | 34 km |
| 36 | Verdun-sur-Garonne Tarn-et-Garonne | 0.3 | 12% | 8.5% | 174 km |
| 37 | Val d'Erdre-Auxence Maine-et-Loire | 0.3 | 11% | 0% | 97 km |
| 38 | Beaurepaire Isère | 0.3 | 4.5% | 0% | 210 km |
| 39 | Rambervillers Vosges | 0.2 | 38% | 0% | 414 km |
| 40 | Saint-James Manche | 0.2 | 6.3% | 0% | 12 km |
| 41 | Saint-Laurent-Médoc Gironde | 0.1 | 61% | 100% | 7.6 km |
Tap a number to zoom to a park or wood. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is the commune’s boundary.
Named parks, gardens and woods in the commune or within 400 m, the biggest and best-pathed first: Forêt domaniale de Mouterhouse leads, at 1,624 ha. Directions go to a point inside.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL): named parks, gardens and woods; sizes are the whole site.
The protected areas reaching the commune, and the nearest: national parks, regional nature parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.
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.
100% of Bitche’s land is protected, more than in 96% of compared French towns; the median compared town in Moselle has 0%. 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.
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.
That is less than in 59% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland more than in 99% 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 Bitche is within 800 m of a mapped park or wood, as in most French towns.
+13 more
GR 532 passes within 2 km of Bitche.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Mouterhouse, 7.6 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) | 8.6 | 10.1 | 11.7 | 13.6 | 15.3 | 16.2 | 15.8 | 14.4 | 12.5 | 10.7 | 9.1 | 8.2 |
| High (°C) | 5 | 7 | 12 | 17 | 21 | 24 | 26 | 26 | 21 | 15 | 9 | 5 |
| Rain (mm) | 92 | 80 | 79 | 55 | 78 | 69 | 76 | 69 | 72 | 83 | 89 | 112 |
April is the driest month (55 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 26 °C). 112 mm of rain falls in December, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 99 nights a year. The climate in Bitche →
Named gardens in the commune.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) and Wikidata.
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.
| Town | Protected | Woodland | Paths (km/km²) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitche | 100% | 75% | 1.3 |
| Niederbronn-les-Bains 4,347 · 19 km | 100% | 74% | 2.6 |
| Ingwiller 3,995 · 20 km | 100% | 61% | 1.2 |
| Reichshoffen 5,418 · 22 km | 100% | 27% | 0.5 |
| Gundershoffen 3,834 · 24 km | 0.1% | 23% | 0.3 |
| Bouxwiller 3,754 · 26 km | 0.3% | 11% | 0.7 |
| Val-de-Moder 5,102 · 26 km | 0.1% | 5.9% | 0.5 |
Yes: Bitche lies in Vosges du Nord Regional Nature Park (100% of the commune).
OpenStreetMap maps 54 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 1.3 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²); 46 km of waymarked hiking routes cross it.
75% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
No: the coast is 398 km from the town center, as the crow flies.
April to September: long days, mild highs and little rain, from Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at the nearest suitable station.
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.