Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: VVVCFFrance · CC0Mapped woodland covers 62% of Choisy-au-Bac. 39 km of footpaths cross Choisy-au-Bac (2.5 km per km²). Waymarked hiking routes add up to 3 km in Choisy-au-Bac. France has no Outdoors Grade yet: these are the figures, each beside the compared towns’ median.
Throughout this page, the Oise 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 Choisy-au-Bac apart: its protected countryside, 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 (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).
| 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 |
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 Compiègne leads, at 13,652 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.
56% of Choisy-au-Bac’s land is protected, more than in 87% of compared French towns; the median compared town in Oise has 0.1%.
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 more than in 66% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland more than in 96% 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 Choisy-au-Bac is within 800 m of a mapped park or wood, as in most French towns.
GR 12A passes within 2 km of Choisy-au-Bac.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Margny-Les-Compiegne, 5.7 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 | 10.0 | 11.7 | 13.7 | 15.3 | 16.2 | 15.9 | 14.4 | 12.5 | 10.7 | 9.0 | 8.2 |
| High (°C) | 6 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 19 | 22 | 25 | 25 | 21 | 16 | 10 | 7 |
| Rain (mm) | 51 | 45 | 43 | 42 | 58 | 54 | 57 | 63 | 44 | 60 | 53 | 65 |
April is the driest month (42 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 25 °C). 65 mm of rain falls in December, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 44 nights a year. The climate in Choisy-au-Bac →
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.
| Town | Protected | Woodland | Paths (km/km²) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Choisy-au-Bac | 56% | 62% | 2.5 |
| Longueil-Annel 2,586 · 3.2 km | 0% | 21% | 1.5 |
| Thourotte 4,463 · 4.4 km | 0.8% | 8% | 2.8 |
| Margny-lès-Compiègne 8,677 · 4.7 km | 0% | 1.3% | 2.1 |
| Compiègne 40,761 · 5.9 km | 76% | 74% | 3.4 |
| Venette 2,758 · 6.3 km | 0% | 7.3% | 1.4 |
| Ribécourt-Dreslincourt 3,871 · 8.9 km | 1.5% | 37% | 1.2 |
No, but 56% of its land is in a nature reserve or a Natura 2000 site.
OpenStreetMap maps 39 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 2.5 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²); 3 km of waymarked hiking routes cross it.
62% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
No: the coast is 119 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.