Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Rob Farrow · CC BY-SA 2.0The sea makes up 33% of the area within 5 km. Footpaths add up to 82 km in the town and the kilometre around it, 4.3 for every square kilometre. A park or playing field is within a 5-minute walk for 94% of residents. St Andrews has no Outdoors Grade: Scottish towns aren’t graded on the outdoors yet.
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
St Andrews’ strongest suit is the sea, followed by the Fife Coastal Path.
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is St Andrews’ locality.
The biggest is Cockshaugh Park, 19 ha (48 acres). Directions go to the park’s nearest public entrance where Ordnance Survey maps one.
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (NRS Census 2022 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
About 1,100 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 24 playgrounds are mapped in and around the town, about one for every 686 residents.
82 km of footpaths, tracks and core paths are mapped in St Andrews and the kilometre around it, 4.3 km for every square kilometre (the typical town in England and Wales has 3.0). Bars show each route’s kilometres within 2 km of the town.
The Fife Coastal Path, a national route, passes St Andrews. The regional route here is the Fife Pilgrim Way.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Scotland has no rights-of-way register: everyone has a right of responsible access to most land, so tracks and councils’ core paths count. Paths are only as complete as the map in each area.
Historic Environment Scotland’s Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, and the listed buildings and scheduled monuments that stand inside St Andrews’ named parks.
7.1 ha. Part of St Andrews Botanic Garden, a historic garden or designed landscape (Grade ). 0 listed structures and monuments stand inside it or at its edge.
A listed building or monument counts when it sits inside the park’s OS Open Greenspace outline (to about 15 m), so a few at the boundary are included. Historic Environment Scotland designations.
The town’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 7.5 | 9.5 | 11.6 | 14.1 | 16.3 | 17.7 | 17.1 | 15.1 | 12.6 | 10.2 | 8.1 | 6.9 |
| High (°C) | 7 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 20 | 19 | 17 | 13 | 10 | 7 |
| Rain (mm) | 72 | 55 | 50 | 44 | 52 | 62 | 63 | 75 | 53 | 81 | 72 | 65 |
April is the driest month (44 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 20 °C). Winter days are short, about 7 hours of daylight in December, and 81 mm of rain falls in October, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 39 nights a year. The climate in St Andrews →
33% of the area within 5 km of St Andrews is sea. 8 beaches are mapped within 5 km, 3 with a name.
The Fife Coastal Path passes the town.
Sea: the area outside the ONS coastline (mean high water). Bathing water quality is published by SEPA; check it before swimming.
Mapped within 2 km of the town in OpenStreetMap. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
Plus 1 waterfall without a name on the map.
Plus 3 picnic sites without a name on the map.
Plus 22 playgrounds without a name on the map.
Plus 3 slipways without a name on the map.
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
| Town | Outdoors | Green space, ha per 1,000 | Near a park | Protected within 5 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Andrews | – | 3.0 | 94% | 0% |
| Cupar 8.2 mi | – | 2.7 | 93% | 0% |
| Tayport 8.2 mi | – | 5.3 | 100% | 0% |
| Anstruther 8.7 mi | – | 1.8 | 100% | 0% |
| Newport-on-Tay and Wormit 8.9 mi | – | 1.1 | 35% | 0% |
| Monifieth 10.3 mi | – | 1.5 | 66% | 0% |
| Dundee 11.4 mi | – | 2.8 | 87% | 0% |
None of the neighbours has a protected landscape within 5 km either.
Cockshaugh Park, 19 ha (48 acres), with 5.4 km of path. St Andrews (7.1 ha) is second. 3 named parks, gardens and playing fields are in the town or within 400 m of it.
No National Park or National Scenic Area is within 30 km (about 19 miles) of St Andrews.
4 waymarked walking routes pass within 2 km of the town, including the Fife Coastal Path, Fife Pilgrim Way and Columba Way on North FCP. Cockshaugh Park alone has 5.4 km of path.
94% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (NRS Census 2022 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical town in England and Wales is 83%.
June, July and September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
St Andrews Botanic Garden (Grade ) and St Andrews Links (Grade ) are on Historic Environment Scotland’s Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes.
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Scenic Area within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of St Andrews’ overall grade.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.