Photo: Fr.Latreille · CC BY-SA 4.0Signes lies inside Sainte-Baume Regional Nature Park
Protected areas cover 100% of Signes’ land. 60% of Signes is mapped woodland. 301 km of footpaths cross Signes (2.3 km per km²). France has no Outdoors Grade yet: these are the figures, each beside the compared towns’ median.
Throughout this page, the Var median and the France median are the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade), each figure its own median.
What kind of outdoors place is Signes?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and less good.
What sets Signes apart: the regional nature park around it, then its woods.
How Signes 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.
Signes has the 10th most footpaths per km² of 41 towns its size
The 40 compared French towns nearest in population (3,103 to 3,150 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Étiolles (3.7 km per km²) to Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure (0.1 km per km²).
Every town in the comparison
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Étiolles Essonne | 3.7 | 72% | 0% | 175 km |
| 2 | Sérézin-du-Rhône Rhône | 3.5 | 20% | 0% | 237 km |
| 3 | Spicheren Moselle | 3.1 | 39% | 0% | 362 km |
| 4 | Donville-les-Bains Manche | 3.1 | 2.8% | 0% | On it |
| 5 | Asnières-sur-Oise Val-d'Oise | 3.1 | 51% | 100% | 125 km |
| 6 | La Tranche-sur-Mer Vendée | 2.8 | 18% | 100% | On it |
| 7 | Morainvilliers Yvelines | 2.4 | 32% | 0% | 127 km |
| 8 | Saint-Germain-au-Mont-d'Or Rhône | 2.3 | 24% | 0% | 264 km |
| 9 | Solaize Rhône | 2.3 | 17% | 0% | 239 km |
| 10 | Signes Var | 2.3 | 60% | 100% | 18 km |
| 11 | La Flotte Charente-Maritime | 2.2 | 37% | 1.2% | On it |
| 12 | Béthisy-Saint-Pierre Oise | 2.1 | 37% | 21% | 127 km |
| 13 | La Sentinelle Nord | 1.9 | 3.3% | 0.5% | 104 km |
| 14 | Le Touvet Isère | 1.9 | 48% | 58% | 212 km |
| 15 | Éloyes Vosges | 1.8 | 59% | 0% | 428 km |
| 16 | Gilly-sur-Isère Savoie | 1.6 | 13% | 0.1% | 228 km |
| 17 | Chorges Hautes-Alpes | 1.5 | 34% | 16% | 122 km |
| 18 | Arbois Jura | 1.4 | 51% | 12% | 373 km |
| 19 | Plancoët Côtes-d'Armor | 1.4 | 13% | 100% | 3.9 km |
| 20 | Besse-sur-Issole Var | 1.3 | 36% | 0.7% | 26 km |
| 21 | Moyenmoutier Vosges | 1.2 | 72% | 2.8% | 426 km |
| 22 | Champcevinel Dordogne | 1.1 | 51% | 0% | 106 km |
| 23 | Le Plan-de-la-Tour Var | 1.1 | 40% | 0% | 7.3 km |
| 24 | Appoigny Yonne | 1 | 46% | 2.7% | 289 km |
| 25 | Vémars Val-d'Oise | 0.9 | 6.8% | 0% | 139 km |
| 26 | Arleux Nord | 0.9 | 7.5% | 0% | 99 km |
| 27 | Quarouble Nord | 0.9 | 19% | 100% | 106 km |
| 28 | Boussois Nord | 0.9 | 5.1% | 100% | 131 km |
| 29 | Saint-Thibéry Hérault | 0.8 | 6.2% | 0.2% | 12 km |
| 30 | Thézan-lès-Béziers Hérault | 0.8 | 0.9% | 0% | 22 km |
| 31 | Saint-Jacques-sur-Darnétal Seine-Maritime | 0.6 | 26% | 0% | 54 km |
| 32 | Le Molay-Littry Calvados | 0.5 | 10% | 0.1% | 14 km |
| 33 | Montfrin Gard | 0.5 | 3.1% | 14% | 47 km |
| 34 | Valensole Alpes-de-Haute-Provence | 0.4 | 44% | 100% | 75 km |
| 35 | Gimont Gers | 0.4 | 6.2% | 0% | 184 km |
| 36 | Château-Landon Seine-et-Marne | 0.4 | 13% | 0.2% | 224 km |
| 37 | Saint-Hippolyte Pyrénées-Orientales | 0.3 | 0% | 68% | 6.1 km |
| 38 | Maringues Puy-de-Dôme | 0.3 | 11% | 40% | 269 km |
| 39 | Merdrignac Côtes-d'Armor | 0.2 | 32% | 0% | 39 km |
| 40 | Lapalisse Allier | 0.2 | 12% | 0% | 301 km |
| 41 | Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure Charente | 0.1 | 23% | 0% | 103 km |
Parks, woods, footpaths & countryside
Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is the commune’s boundary.
Protected land in and around Signes
The protected areas reaching the commune, and the nearest: national parks, regional nature parks, nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.
Sainte-Baume Regional Nature Park
Sainte-Baume nature reserve
Valbelle nature reserve
Mont Caume - mont Faron - forêt domaniale des Morières
Massif de la Sainte-Baume
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.
100% of Signes’ land is protected, more than in 99% of compared French towns; the median compared town in Var has 19%. 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.
301 km of footpaths and 48 km of hiking routes cross Signes
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 more than in 62% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland more than in 95% 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 Signes is within 800 m of a mapped park or wood, as in most French towns.
2 named hiking routes within 2 km
2 GR routes pass within 2 km of Signes: GR 99 variante and GR 98.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
The best walking months in Signes: April to August
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Le Castellet-Aero, 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) | 9.3 | 10.4 | 11.8 | 13.4 | 14.7 | 15.4 | 15.1 | 13.9 | 12.4 | 10.9 | 9.6 | 9.0 |
| High (°C) | 11 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 21 | 25 | 28 | 28 | 23 | 19 | 14 | 11 |
| Rain (mm) | 73 | 44 | 48 | 64 | 48 | 31 | 12 | 22 | 80 | 95 | 103 | 70 |
July is the driest month (12 mm) and the warmest (highs of 28 °C). 103 mm of rain falls in November, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 30 nights a year. The climate in Signes →
Next to Signes
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Signes | 100% | 60% | 2.3 | 18 km |
| Le Beausset 10,219 · 11 km | 69% | 18% | 1.5 | 7.1 km |
| Le Castellet 6,040 · 11 km | 81% | 18% | 1.3 | 7.5 km |
| La Roquebrussanne 2,817 · 12 km | 100% | 36% | 1.9 | 24 km |
| Nans-les-Pins 5,215 · 12 km | 100% | 39% | 2 | 23 km |
| Plan-d'Aups-Sainte-Baume 2,527 · 12 km | 100% | 43% | 3.7 | 17 km |
| Cuges-les-Pins 6,236 · 13 km | 100% | 37% | 2.6 | 10 km |
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 Signes
Is Signes in a national or regional nature park?
Yes: Signes lies in Sainte-Baume Regional Nature Park (100% of the commune).
Are there good walks in Signes?
OpenStreetMap maps 301 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 2.3 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²); 48 km of waymarked hiking routes cross it.
How much of Signes is woodland?
60% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
Is Signes near the sea?
No: the coast is 18 km from the town center, as the crow flies.
When is the best time for walking in Signes?
April to August: 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.