Photo: Benoit-caen · CC BY-SA 4.0Almost every home in Argentan is within 800 m of a park or wood
2.2% of Argentan is mapped woodland. 11% of Argentan’s land lies in protected areas. Argentan has 8 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 Orne median and the France median are the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade), each figure its own median.
How Argentan 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.
Argentan has the 15th fewest footpaths per km² of 41 towns its size
The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (13,138 to 13,897 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Saint-André-lez-Lille (8.6 km per km²) to Gien (0.3 km per km²).
Every town in the comparison
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saint-André-lez-Lille Nord | 8.6 | 2.7% | 0% | 59 km |
| 2 | Avon Seine-et-Marne | 6.4 | 30% | 27% | 206 km |
| 3 | Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande Ille-et-Vilaine | 5.9 | 8.1% | 0% | 50 km |
| 4 | Anzin Nord | 5.4 | 3.1% | 0.5% | 103 km |
| 5 | Fleury-Mérogis Essonne | 4.2 | 35% | 0% | 170 km |
| 6 | Gex Ain | 4.2 | 63% | 72% | 306 km |
| 7 | Lons Pyrénées-Atlantiques | 4.2 | 7.7% | 9% | 92 km |
| 8 | Freyming-Merlebach Moselle | 4.1 | 19% | 0% | 358 km |
| 9 | Andrésy Yvelines | 3.8 | 23% | 0% | 126 km |
| 10 | Saint-Jean-de-Védas Hérault | 3.7 | 4.5% | 0% | 9 km |
| 11 | Fontenay-le-Fleury Yvelines | 3.3 | 8% | 0% | 141 km |
| 12 | Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Gard | 3.1 | 13% | 22% | 58 km |
| 13 | Val-de-Reuil Eure | 3.1 | 16% | 24% | 64 km |
| 14 | Mouvaux Nord | 3 | 3.2% | 0% | 58 km |
| 15 | Les Ponts-de-Cé Maine-et-Loire | 2.8 | 6.5% | 33% | 120 km |
| 16 | Caudry Nord | 2.8 | 1.8% | 0% | 123 km |
| 17 | Lourdes Hautes-Pyrénées | 2.8 | 52% | 6.8% | 129 km |
| 18 | Kingersheim Haut-Rhin | 2.7 | 13% | 0% | 445 km |
| 19 | Plougastel-Daoulas Finistère | 2.6 | 28% | 6.5% | On it |
| 20 | Canet-en-Roussillon Pyrénées-Orientales | 2.6 | 1.1% | 50% | On it |
| 21 | Outreau Pas-de-Calais | 2.6 | 4.8% | 0% | 1.7 km |
| 22 | Carros Alpes-Maritimes | 2.3 | 25% | 64% | 11 km |
| 23 | Claye-Souilly Seine-et-Marne | 2.3 | 30% | 0% | 155 km |
| 24 | Plouzané Finistère | 2.2 | 8% | 0% | On it |
| 25 | Bonneville Haute-Savoie | 1.8 | 47% | 5.2% | 269 km |
| 26 | Seclin Nord | 1.8 | 3.3% | 0% | 69 km |
| 27 | Argentan Orne | 1.7 | 2.2% | 11% | 62 km |
| 28 | Cuers Var | 1.5 | 32% | 0% | 16 km |
| 29 | Mions Rhône | 1.5 | 1.3% | 0% | 244 km |
| 30 | Autun Saône-et-Loire | 1.3 | 43% | 100% | 377 km |
| 31 | Berre-l'Étang Bouches-du-Rhône | 1.3 | 1.1% | 15% | 16 km |
| 32 | Genas Rhône | 1.3 | 2.3% | 0% | 252 km |
| 33 | Amilly Loiret | 1.2 | 33% | 0% | 240 km |
| 34 | Moissac Tarn-et-Garonne | 1 | 27% | 2.5% | 167 km |
| 35 | Tulle Corrèze | 1 | 34% | 0% | 187 km |
| 36 | Cusset Allier | 0.9 | 18% | 1.4% | 290 km |
| 37 | Méru Oise | 0.8 | 16% | 0% | 106 km |
| 38 | Pierrelatte Drôme | 0.7 | 2.8% | 4.4% | 103 km |
| 39 | Monteux Vaucluse | 0.7 | 2.6% | 26% | 65 km |
| 40 | Thouars Deux-Sèvres | 0.3 | 12% | 0.4% | 102 km |
| 41 | Gien Loiret | 0.3 | 35% | 1.8% | 256 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 Argentan
Named parks, gardens and woods in the commune or within 400 m, the biggest and best-pathed first: Bois du Tellier leads, at 120 ha. Directions go to a point inside.
Bois de la Lande
Bois des Peintres
Parc de la Vallée des mômes
Parc des Rédemptoristes
Place Pierre Semard
Place du Point d'Argentan
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL): named parks, gardens and woods; sizes are the whole site.
11% of Argentan lies in protected areas
The protected areas reaching the commune, and the nearest: national parks, regional nature parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.
Normandie-Maine Regional Nature Park
Haute vallée de l’Orne et affluents
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.
11% of Argentan’s land is protected, more than in 73% of compared French towns; the median compared town in Orne has 11%. 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.
31 km of footpaths and 8 km of hiking routes cross Argentan
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 50% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland less than in 89% 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 Argentan 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 Argentan: April to September
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Argentan, 3.5 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) | 8.7 | 10.1 | 11.7 | 13.6 | 15.2 | 16.1 | 15.8 | 14.3 | 12.5 | 10.7 | 9.1 | 8.3 |
| High (°C) | 7 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 22 | 24 | 24 | 21 | 16 | 11 | 8 |
| Rain (mm) | 63 | 54 | 51 | 49 | 60 | 47 | 50 | 55 | 50 | 70 | 68 | 75 |
June is the driest month (47 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 24 °C). 75 mm of rain falls in December, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 49 nights a year. The climate in Argentan →
Next to Argentan
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Argentan | 11% | 2.2% | 1.7 | 62 km |
| Gouffern en Auge 3,636 · 9.7 km | 33% | 25% | 0.6 | 59 km |
| Sées 4,168 · 21 km | 100% | 5.5% | 0.3 | 79 km |
| Falaise 7,680 · 21 km | 0% | 4% | 2.8 | 43 km |
| Vimoutiers 2,978 · 26 km | 0% | 2.2% | 0.9 | 46 km |
Gouffern en Auge and Sées have at least twice as much protected land. Gouffern en Auge is 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 Argentan
Is Argentan in a national or regional nature park?
No, but 11% of its land is in a nature reserve or a Natura 2000 site.
Are there good walks in Argentan?
OpenStreetMap maps 31 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 1.7 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²); 8 km of waymarked hiking routes cross it.
How much of Argentan is woodland?
2.2% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
Is Argentan near the sea?
No: the coast is 62 km from the town center, as the crow flies.
When is the best time for walking in Argentan?
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 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.