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.