Geographical breakdowns

Statbel DataLab: new statistics, methods and data sources in beta version

72% of Belgians live less than 5 kilometres away from a motorway entrance

DataLab
72% of Belgians live less than 5 kilometres away from a motorway entrance

Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, publishes today an update of the geographical breakdowns based on the population figures on 1/1/2021.

72% of the Belgian population lives within 5 kilometres of a motorway entrance. In Wallonia and Flanders, this concerns 69% and 68% of the population, respectively. In the Brussels-Capital Region, all the inhabitants live within 5 kilometres of a motorway entrance.

In the province of Liège, 82% of the inhabitants have to drive less than 5 kilometres to find a motorway entrance, compared to 42%, 43% and 52% respectively in the provinces of Luxembourg, Namur and Limburg. 91% of Belgians live within 10 kilometres of a motorway entrance, and 99% within 20 kilometres.

Municipalities

There are only two Belgian municipalities where the entire population lives further than 20 kilometres from the nearest motorway entrance: Hamont-Achel and Vresse-sur-Semois.

Moreover, there are only 37 municipalities where the entire population has to drive more than 10 kilometres to the nearest motorway entrance.

96% of all Belgian municipalities have a motorway entrance within 20 kilometres that is accessible to more than 99% of their inhabitants.

69% of all municipalities have a motorway entrance within 10 kilometres that is accessible to more than 99% of their inhabitants.

25% of all municipalities have a motorway entrance within 5 kilometres that is accessible to more than 99% of their inhabitants.

19% of Belgians live less than one kilometre away from a motorway

Not only the entrances of motorways but also the distance to the motorway itself was used as a reference.

This shows that 19% of the population in Belgium lives within 1000 metres from a motorway. In Wallonia (21%), this figure is even slightly higher than in Flanders (18%) and the Brussels Capital Region (17%).

31% of the population in the province of Liège lives within 1 kilometre of a motorway. Antwerp follows with 25% and the province of Namur comes last (6%).

In two municipalities, more than 95% of the population lives less than 1 kilometre away from a motorway: Machelen and Auderghem.

In 11 Belgian municipalities, between 10% and 30% of the population lives less than 200 metres of a motorway.


Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, publishes in its DataLab statistics based on new geographical breakdowns. This makes it possible to identify the population living at a certain distance from a point. This can be a hospital, a train station, the border, a motorway or a motorway entrance, a school or a senior care facility.

Data used:

Situation on 1/1/2021.

For motorway entrances, the file Open Street Map 2019 (motorway and motorway_link) has been used and contains 765 motorway entrances in Belgium.

Buffers of 5 km, 10 km and 20 km were created for motorway entrances, and buffers of 200 m, 500 m and 1000 m for motorways.

Data used

Hospitals

This concerns 126 hospitals with an emergency department in Belgium, based on the institutions with initial emergency care (21-12-2020)) and specialised emergency care services (01-07-2021) of the FPS Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment - DG Health Care - Department Data Management (https://www.health.belgium.be/fr/sante/organisation-des-soins-de-sante/…).

Motorway entrances

For motorway entrances, the file Open Street Map 2021(motorway et motorway_link) has been used and contains 765motorway entrances in Belgium.

Train stations

The 553train stations in Belgium are active stations, i.e. stations with travellers counts (figures travellers on board (counts October 2020) - SNCB).

Schools:

This concerns 6405 school locations in Belgium, based on recognised educational establishments [ordinary basic education (pre-primary and primary education) and ordinary secondary education] in Flanders, Brussels, Wallonia and the German-speaking Community.

Senior care facilities

This concerns 1539 senior care facilities in Belgium, based on rest homes and nursing homes of the Agentschap Zorg en Gezondheid Vlaanderen, Wallonia AVIQ: familles santé handicap, Brussels Iriscare and Ostbelgien Live: Wohn- und Pflegezentren für Senioren.

Stations and stops of public transport:

It concerns 69,616 stations and stops of public transport (bus, tram, metro) in Belgium based on the active stations, i.e. stations with travellers counts (figures travellers on board (counts October 2020) - SNCB), and the stops in Flanders (stops from the Flemish transport company De Lijn, situation on 20/06/2020), Brussels (location of stops (stations) of the STIB) and Wallonia (Walloonia TEC GTFS data set).

Buffers of 200 m, 500 m and 1000 m were created around the points of public transport stations and stops.