Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 4,306 in Rhône, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Cours grades A− overall: better than 76% of compared French towns, and #37 of 107 in Rhône. Its weakest subject is health (C+): after allowing for care homes, deaths from 2016 to 2025 were 7% below expected, against 12% below for the median of compared French towns. Its strongest is cost of living (A+): at the median price, a 70 m² home costs 3.8 times the median annual income per consumption unit in the intercommunality.
Hazard risk isn’t graded in France yet: national flood maps cover only some areas. The overall grade uses the other six subjects.
The 3 things Cours does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compares Cours with other French towns of 2,500 or more, ordered by how far its rank is from the middle. American and UK towns are graded separately.
How TownRatings grades French towns →
The Culture ministry lists no building in Cours as a monument historique. That’s true of 25% of compared French towns too.
The nearest classé monument is Voie romaine, in Thizy-les-Bourgs, 2.1 mi away.
25% of its homes were built before 1919, against 7.4% in the median compared French town.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Cours.
Rents are the ministry’s estimates of advertised rents, not rents actually paid.
In the comparison, Cours comes below both Rhône’s towns (€14.83/m²) and compared French towns (€12.41/m²). The median price, €1,357/m², comes from 137 sales of houses and apartments in Cours from July 2023 to June 2026. Only one of the 118 towns in Rhône costs less to buy into than Cours, whose median sale is €1,357/m².
| By type | Median per m² | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Houses | €1,406/m² | 123 |
Source: DGFiP, DVF property sales (Etalab geolocated); Housing Ministry, Carte des loyers 2025; INSEE, Filosofi 2023 · Licence Ouverte
For Cours, that is below both Rhône’s towns (41%) and compared French towns (30%). People 65 and over make up 31% of the town.
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Median share of women: Rhône 51.5%, France 51.8%.
| Cours | Rhône median | France median | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 19% | 17% |
| 15–24 | 9.1% | 11% | 11% |
| 25–44 | 19% | 24% | 23% |
| 45–64 | 26% | 26% | 26% |
| 65+ | 31% | 19% | 22% |
| No diploma | 29% | 15% | 19% |
| CAP or BEP | 30% | 21% | 26% |
| Baccalauréat | 17% | 17% | 18% |
| Higher education | 18% | 41% | 30% |
INSEE, census 2023 · Rhône median and France median: the median of compared communes
Cours sits below both Rhône’s towns (€30,220) and compared French towns (€25,970) on this measure. Cours has 2,350 jobs for 1,600 working residents, 1.5 per worker. 11.1% of the labour force are out of work.
Source: INSEE, census 2023 (commuting, employment, jobs at place of work); INSEE, Filosofi 2023 · Licence Ouverte
Care access and life expectancy are shown for context, not graded.
That puts Cours above both Rhône’s towns (76) and compared French towns (88). From 2016 to 2025, 767 residents of Cours died, against 644 expected from France’s death rates at each age: 19% more. The care-home adjustment is a TownRatings modeling step, not an official statistic.
Source: INSEE, deaths by commune of residence 2016–2025 and censuses; Eurostat, death rates by age (© European Union); INSEE, BPE 2025; DREES, APL 2024; INSEE, life expectancy by département 2025 · Licence Ouverte
Police and gendarmerie recorded 91 offenses in the graded categories in Cours in 2025. For vehicle theft and theft from vehicles, this figure isn’t published when it’s small (five or fewer in at least one of the last three years); the index uses the département’s average instead, 4.4% of the index here.
Not in the gradeTheft without violence, drug use and fraud are shown for information but left out of the Safety Grade, which counts violence plus burglaries, vehicle thefts, thefts from vehicles and criminal damage per resident.
Source: SSMSI (Interior Ministry), recorded crime by commune, 2023–2025 · Licence Ouverte
Nothing in Cours is on the monuments historiques list. These are the nearest classé monuments, within 15.5 mi.
Wikidata places 5 people here, but for none of them do the articles confirm Cours as the birthplace, so nobody is listed.
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more. The map uses IGN’s commune boundaries. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cours | 4,306 | — | A− | A+ | B− | C+ |
| Thizy-les-Bourgs | 5,771 | 4.3 | A− | A+ | C+ | B |
| Chauffailles Saône-et-Loire | 3,638 | 7.3 | A | A | C+ | B+ |
| Charlieu Loire | 3,766 | 8.6 | A− | A | C− | B+ |
| Amplepuis | 4,876 | 8.8 | A− | A | C | B− |
| Pouilly-sous-Charlieu Loire | 2,588 | 11 | — | A | — | A+ |
| Mably Loire | 7,233 | 13 | B+ | A− | C+ | B− |
People: INSEE, census 2023. Miles: center to center.
It grades B− for safety, #41 of 107 in Rhône. In 2025 police and gendarmerie recorded 9 burglaries and 39 acts of criminal damage.
Homes cost less than in most compared French towns: the median sale price from July 2023 to June 2026 was €1,357/m², against €2,430/m² for the median of compared French towns. Incomes are lower than in most compared French towns too, so Cours grades A+ for cost of living.
Commune in Rhône, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Cours is a commune of 4,306 people in the Communauté d'agglomération de l'Ouest Rhodanien. TownRatings compares communes, France’s local unit: each has its own mayor and its own statistics. Its area takes in the town and the countryside around it.
Built from INSEE’s 2026 official geography (COG) and IGN Admin Express boundaries
Sources: INSEE, census 2023 (population, employment, commuting) · INSEE, Filosofi 2023 (income per consumption unit, poverty) · DGFiP, DVF property sales, July 2023 to June 2026 · Housing Ministry, Carte des loyers 2025 · SSMSI, recorded crime by commune, 2023–2025 · Ministry of Education (DEPP), brevet and bac results and value-added indicators, 2025 · INSEE, deaths by commune of residence 2016–2025 and censuses 2012–2023; Eurostat, death rates by age (© European Union); INSEE, BPE 2025 (care homes, emergency and maternity units, GPs, pharmacies); DREES, APL 2024; INSEE, life expectancy by département 2025 (provisional) · INSEE, BPE 2025 and Filosofi 200 m grid (walking distances) · IGN Admin Express (boundaries) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranking French towns against each other only, 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.