Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: JC Allin · CC BY-SA 3.0100% of Chevreuse’s land lies in protected areas. Mapped woodland covers 50% of Chevreuse. Chevreuse has 22 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 Yvelines 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 Chevreuse 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 (5,441 to 5,563 residents), by km of footpath per km². Hover for each one’s protected land and woods; click for its page.
From Le Port-Marly (5.9 km per km²) to Noyant-Villages (0.1 km per km²).
| Town | Paths (km/km²) | Woodland | Protected | Coast | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Le Port-Marly Yvelines | 5.9 | 13% | 0% | 138 km |
| 2 | Crégy-lès-Meaux Seine-et-Marne | 3.5 | 10% | 0% | 159 km |
| 3 | Nouzonville Ardennes | 3 | 67% | 100% | 203 km |
| 4 | Chevreuse Yvelines | 2.9 | 50% | 100% | 147 km |
| 5 | Lardy Essonne | 2.7 | 46% | 0.1% | 173 km |
| 6 | Coublevie Isère | 2.7 | 18% | 73% | 220 km |
| 7 | Penmarch Finistère | 2.5 | 0% | 18% | On it |
| 8 | Beaurains Pas-de-Calais | 2.5 | 1.1% | 0% | 79 km |
| 9 | La Roque-d'Anthéron Bouches-du-Rhône | 2.3 | 36% | 51% | 39 km |
| 10 | Saint-Sébastien-de-Morsent Eure | 2.2 | 35% | 0% | 71 km |
| 11 | Aussillon Tarn | 2 | 41% | 100% | 75 km |
| 12 | Le Boulou Pyrénées-Orientales | 2 | 19% | 7.4% | 18 km |
| 13 | Guînes Pas-de-Calais | 1.8 | 34% | 100% | 10 km |
| 14 | Baisieux Nord | 1.8 | 2.5% | 0% | 70 km |
| 15 | Ollainville Essonne | 1.7 | 37% | 0% | 165 km |
| 16 | Rosheim Bas-Rhin | 1.7 | 57% | 0% | 443 km |
| 17 | Arnage Sarthe | 1.6 | 11% | 0% | 138 km |
| 18 | Nogent-sur-Seine Aube | 1.6 | 18% | 2.5% | 230 km |
| 19 | Ille-sur-Têt Pyrénées-Orientales | 1.4 | 7.9% | 0.1% | 34 km |
| 20 | Foulayronnes Lot-et-Garonne | 1.4 | 9.9% | 0% | 130 km |
| 21 | Pollestres Pyrénées-Orientales | 1.3 | 0.9% | 0% | 14 km |
| 22 | Ambazac Haute-Vienne | 1.2 | 50% | 8.1% | 177 km |
| 23 | Grans Bouches-du-Rhône | 1.2 | 13% | 43% | 22 km |
| 24 | Viarmes Val-d'Oise | 1.1 | 31% | 100% | 126 km |
| 25 | Quincy-Voisins Seine-et-Marne | 1.1 | 30% | 0% | 166 km |
| 26 | Neuville-de-Poitou Vienne | 1 | 0.3% | 26% | 114 km |
| 27 | Les Achards Vendée | 0.9 | 4.6% | 0% | 15 km |
| 28 | Drap Alpes-Maritimes | 0.8 | 33% | 0% | 4.8 km |
| 29 | Saint-Memmie Marne | 0.7 | 4.7% | 0% | 239 km |
| 30 | La Ferrière Vendée | 0.7 | 9.6% | 0% | 38 km |
| 31 | Carbonne Haute-Garonne | 0.6 | 9.8% | 7.6% | 153 km |
| 32 | Chazelles-sur-Lyon Loire | 0.6 | 13% | 0% | 232 km |
| 33 | Étoile-sur-Rhône Drôme | 0.5 | 8.7% | 1.6% | 154 km |
| 34 | Châtillon-sur-Seine Côte-d'Or | 0.4 | 12% | 100% | 334 km |
| 35 | Roquemaure Gard | 0.3 | 12% | 13% | 66 km |
| 36 | Ernée Mayenne | 0.3 | 1.4% | 0.1% | 48 km |
| 37 | Servian Hérault | 0.3 | 7.4% | 0% | 17 km |
| 38 | Aubigny-sur-Nère Cher | 0.3 | 25% | 24% | 265 km |
| 39 | La Garnache Vendée | 0.2 | 9.8% | 0% | 18 km |
| 40 | Nueil-les-Aubiers Deux-Sèvres | 0.2 | 4.2% | 0% | 83 km |
| 41 | Noyant-Villages Maine-et-Loire | 0.1 | 23% | 13% | 164 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 Départementale de Méridon leads, at 402 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 Chevreuse’s land is protected, more than in 99% of compared French towns; the median compared town in Yvelines 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 more than in 73% of compared French towns for footpaths per km², and for woodland more than in 92% 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 Chevreuse is within 800 m of a mapped park or wood, as in most French towns.
2 GR routes pass within 2 km of Chevreuse: GR655 OT and GR 11D.
Source: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), extracts of October 25, 2026 (Geofabrik).
Météo-France’s 1991–2020 normals at Choisel, 4.3 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 | 8 | 12 | 15 | 19 | 23 | 25 | 25 | 21 | 16 | 10 | 7 |
| Rain (mm) | 61 | 52 | 52 | 49 | 68 | 62 | 52 | 56 | 52 | 66 | 65 | 76 |
April is the driest month (49 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 25 °C). 76 mm of rain falls in December, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 53 nights a year. The climate in Chevreuse →
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, colored by the share of their land in protected areas.
| Town | Protected | Woodland | Paths (km/km²) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chevreuse | 100% | 50% | 2.9 |
| Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse 7,747 · 2 km | 100% | 48% | 4.2 |
| Magny-les-Hameaux 9,386 · 3.6 km | 100% | 29% | 4.1 |
| Voisins-le-Bretonneux 10,624 · 5.7 km | 5.4% | 8.8% | 13.8 |
| Gif-sur-Yvette 22,544 · 5.8 km | 60% | 28% | 7.8 |
| Guyancourt 29,778 · 7.3 km | 0% | 22% | 8.9 |
| Montigny-le-Bretonneux 32,465 · 7.4 km | 4.9% | 18% | 10 |
Yes: Chevreuse lies in Haute Vallée de Chevreuse Regional Nature Park (100% of the commune).
OpenStreetMap maps 40 km of footpaths and tracks open on foot in the commune, 2.9 km per km² (the median compared town: 1.7 km per km²); 22 km of waymarked hiking routes cross it.
50% of the commune is mapped woodland, private woods included; the median compared French town has 13%.
No: the coast is 147 km from the town center, as the crow flies.
April and June 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.