Munich named 'most walkable' city in the world
Munich was recently named the "most walkable" city in the world by Compare the Market thanks to it's beautiful hiking trails, abundance of car-free zones and cycling lanes.
Bavaria's state capital also claimed the top of the ranking last year.
Compare the Market's based its ranking on several walkability factors, including the number of walking trails, average rainfall, street safety in bad weather, public transport options, biking infrastructure and other available alternatives to cars.
The analysis found that the majority (86 percent) of Munich residents live within one kilometre of a car-free space.
The city's public transportation network also earned it top marks. While it was the third most expensive among the analysed cities, it was ranked highly for safety and for proximity to healthcare and education facilities.
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Visitors to Munich will likely find themselves strolling around one of the city's leading attractions, with parts of the Old Town feeling like a fairytale.
If you happen to walk through the city's the central square, Marienplatz, at 11 am or noon, you can catch the ringing bells and spinning mechanical characters of the
Glockenspiel
in the façade of the Town Hall.
A shop window casts a reflection of Munich town hall at Marienplatz. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Peter Kneffel
Munich's English Garden is also a fantastic place for a stroll. Here you'll find 78 kilometres of walking paths as well as world famous sites like the river surfing wave in the Eisbach and the beer garden at the Chinese pagoda.
Munich was followed by Milan, Warsaw, Helsinki and Paris according to Compare the Market's ranking.
Is Munich really Germany's 'most walkable' city?
While there is a strong case to be made for Munich being among Germany's (or even the world's) most walkable cities, how Germany's third largest city compares to others depends on which factors are analysed.
For example, a ranking by the travel site Time Out -- which was more concerned with walkability for tourists analysed cities based on how far apart some of their top attractions were -- put Hamburg in a higher position.
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Considering walkability for residents, vacation rental platform Holidu, looked at the the German cities that had the highest proportion of pedestrian zones (as a percentage of each cities' total length of streets).
Ranked according to this metric, Koblenz was actually Germany's most walkable city followed by Freiburg and then Hanover. Munich fell to the 24th spot, behind Cologne (15th) and ahead of Hamburg (36th) and Berlin (56th).
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