Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Mike Pennington · CC BY-SA 2.0The sea makes up 47% of the area within 5 km. The Shetland National Scenic Area begins 2.9 mi from the town’s edge. Parks and playing fields in Lerwick add up to 1.1 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical town in England and Wales has 2.1. Lerwick has no Outdoors Grade: Scottish towns aren’t graded on the outdoors yet.
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Lerwick’s strongest suit is the sea, followed by the Shetland National Scenic Area close by. Where it falls short is how far some homes are from a park.
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Lerwick’s locality.
The biggest is Gilbertson Park, 3.1 ha (8 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 2,700 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 19 playgrounds are mapped in and around the town, about one for every 353 residents.
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the locality; circle size shows each one’s area. National Scenic Areas are Scotland’s finest landscapes, chosen by NatureScot.
Protected landscape begins just outside the 5 km ring the Outdoors Grade measures, so Lerwick scores 0% on it even though the Shetland National Scenic Area is 2.9 mi away.
46 km of footpaths, tracks and core paths are mapped in Lerwick and the kilometre around it, 1.5 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.
Close to home, the Ness of Sound has 5 km of local walk within 2 km of the town.
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.
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) | 6.6 | 9.0 | 11.6 | 14.5 | 17.1 | 18.9 | 18.1 | 15.6 | 12.7 | 10.0 | 7.3 | 5.9 |
| High (°C) | 7 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 14 | 11 | 9 | 7 |
| Rain (mm) | 145 | 118 | 105 | 64 | 53 | 55 | 63 | 82 | 101 | 126 | 139 | 146 |
May is the driest month (53 mm) and August the warmest (highs of 16 °C). Winter days are short, about 6 hours of daylight in December, and 146 mm of rain falls in December, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 23 nights a year. The climate in Lerwick →
47% of the area within 5 km of Lerwick is sea. 9 beaches are mapped within 5 km, 1 with a name.
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 19 playgrounds without a name on the map.
Plus 4 slipways without a name on the map.
Gilbertson Park, 3.1 ha (8 acres), with 1 km of path. King George's Field (0.5 ha) is second. 3 named parks, gardens and playing fields are in the town or within 400 m of it.
The nearest protected landscape is the Shetland National Scenic Area, 2.9 mi south-west of the town’s edge. It covers 142 km² and was designated in 1980.
9 waymarked walking routes pass within 2 km of the town, including the Ness of Sound, Coastal Walk and Cunningham Way.
61% 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%.
July and August: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
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 Lerwick’s 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.