Urban green space availability to vulnerable groups - map viewer

Key messages

• In most European countries, urban areas with a higher proportion of people over 65 years old tend to have more green space than areas where fewer elderly live.
• There is no consistent relationship between green space availability and unemployment rate of the urban population for the 13 European countries for which data was available at fine scale.
• The level of greening around schools and hospitals located in urban areas tends to be low. On average, just over 10% of the area within 300m straight line distance from educational facilities is green, and only 6% is covered by trees. The greenest schools surroundings are in Northern Europe.
• On average, across European cities, there is just under 16% green space and just over 11% tree cover within 300m distance of healthcare facilities. Hospitals in cities in Finland, Latvia and Lithuania tend to have the greenest surroundings.

See the map viewer here.

For more information on social inequalities in access to urban green spaces, see the EEA briefing ‘Who benefits from nature in cities? Social inequalities in access to urban green and blue spaces across Europe’.