Proximity to facilities; distances by car, sub-municipal data 2023

Table explanation


This table contains information about the average distances for residents of the Netherlands from their home address to the nearest facilities (e.g. school, GP or library). In addition, the table also includes information about the number of facilities located within a certain distance from the residential address. These data are calculated as an average over all persons in the area.
The data are available per municipality at district and neighbourhood level, as of 1 January.

From 2022, the calculation of distances from addresses to the (nearest) facilities has been improved: from then on, driving directions are taken into account when determining the routes and distances from addresses to the (nearest) facilities. In previous years, this did not happen or only to a limited extent.

Data available for 2023

Changes per October 2024
Data on the following themes were added for the year 2023:

Health and wellbeing
GP practices
GP post
Pharmacy
Hospital (incl. outpatient clinic)
Hospital (excl. outpatient clinic)

Retail
Department store

Education
Primary education
Secondary education total
Secondary education Vmbo
Secondary education HAVO/VWO

Traffic and transport
Main highway entrance
Train stations
Important transfer station

Leisure and culture
Artificial ice skating rink
Attraction
Museum
Performing arts
Pop music venue

Other
Fire station

In the current update, the preliminary figures on the proximity of cafeterias for 2023 have been temporarily withdrawn for further research. They will be added again in the next update (spring 2025).

When will new figures be released?
For reporting year 2023, new figures are expected in the spring of 2025.

Status of the figures:
The figures in this table are preliminary. Once all variables in a reporting year have been published as ‘preliminary’, they will be made final at the next publication moment.

Description topics

Regional designation
The municipalities in the Netherlands are subdivided into districts and neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods make up the lowest regional level. Districts are summations of one or more contiguous neighbourhoods. The municipality itself determines the division into districts and neighbourhoods. Statistics Netherlands coordinates this classification nationally.

District:
Part of a municipality in which a certain form of land use or construction predominates. For example: industrial area, residential area with high-rise or low-rise buildings. A district consists of one or more neighbourhoods.

Neighbourhood:
Part of a municipality that is homogeneously demarcated from a development point of view or socio-economic structure. Homogeneous means that one function is dominant, for example residential function (residential area), work function (industrial area) or recreational function (nature area). However, functions can also be mixed.
Municipality name
The name of the administrative municipality. This name follows the official spelling.
Region type
The selected region designation concerns: Municipality, District or Neighbourhood.
Encoding
Municipal code has 4 digits, preceded by 'GM'.
District code has 6 digits: municipality code (4) + district code (2), preceded by 'WK'.
Neighbourhood code has 8 digits: municipality code (4) + neighbourhood code (2) + neighbourhood code (2), preceded by 'BU'.
Change in district or neighbourhood
This indicator indicates for each district and neighbourhood whether the figures from this table can be easily linked to and compared with the figures from the previous year, or whether there are changes in the District and Neighbourhood classification that make this impossible. Detailed information about changes in the District and Neighbourhood classification can be obtained by comparing the district and neighbourhood maps of two consecutive years.

The indicator has three possible values:
1: The coding and demarcation of this district/neighbourhood is unchanged compared to the previous year. It is possible that a name change has taken place. The figures can be linked and compared with those of the previous year.
2: The coding of the district/neighbourhood has changed compared to the previous year. The demarcation is unchanged. In order to be able to link with figures from the previous year, the coding for the previous year needs to be found first. Once the link is successful, the figures can be compared.
3: The demarcation of the district/neighbourhood has changed compared to the previous year. This may have been accompanied by a change in coding. The figures cannot simply be compared with those of the previous year. Differences can, after all, be related to changes in the demarcation of the district or neighbourhood.

For a district or neighbourhood, a change in the demarcation is only detected when a boundary has been moved approximately 5 meters or more. Smaller boundary changes are not considered significant.
Health and well-being
General Practitioner's practice
Building or space in which one or more general practitioners work (together).

General practitioner:
The general practitioner is responsible for general medical care. He/she provides personal and continuous care to a fixed practice population.
Distance to GP practice
The average distance of all residents in an area to the nearest general practitioner, calculated by road.
As of the reporting year 2020, Statistics Netherlands receives the population of GP practices in a different form than before: the secondary addresses of GP practices are no longer part of the population. Due to this change in the source files, the results from reporting year 2020 are no longer comparable with those of previous years. An analysis for the reporting year 2019 into the effect of omitting the secondary addresses shows that the distance to the nearest general practitioner practice increases by 0.1 km on a national level. At neighbourhood level, the distance can be up to 7 km longer in certain regions.
Number of GP practices
The average number of GP practices within a fixed distance by road for all residents of an area.
Within 1 km
Within 3 km
Within 5 km
Distance to GP post
GP post
Place where general practitioners from the region provide evening, night and weekend shifts. A number of GP posts work with alternating shifts.

The average distance of all residents in an area to the nearest GP post, calculated by road.

The distance from a residential address to one of the GP posts in a cluster of alternating shifts is the average of the distances to all GP posts within that cluster.

Distance to pharmacy
The average distance of all residents in an area to the nearest pharmacy, calculated by road.

Pharmacy, including GP office with an in-house pharmacy.