Which are the most and least walkable countries?

In a recent study by researchers at Stanford University, Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous nation, came in last among 46 countries and territories for the number of walking steps its citizens take, averaging only 3,513 a day.

By comparison, Hong Kong was first with 6,880, and China second with 6,189. Ukraine, Japan and Russia rounded out the top five. The study tracked 717,000 people in 111 countries, who voluntarily monitored 68 million days of activity using an app on their smartphones and watch devices that was designed by Stanford researchers — the largest such tracking study ever, the researchers said. Each place needed to have at least 1,000 participants to be ranked in the report.

Jakarta, an urban sprawl of approximately 10 million people, with a metropolitan region of about 30 million, is the poster child of the nation’s walking woes.

Only 7 percent of the capital’s 4,500 miles of road have sidewalks, according to local government data.

That is from Joe Cochrane at the NYT.  Those results are consistent with my intuitions, noting that I sometimes find India difficult to walk in. By the way, the two countries with the highest “Activity Inequality” are the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Here are data on the walkability of various American cities.  The estimable Chug refers me to this short piece on the walkability of the Jersey shore.

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