France protected forest
Désert de Retz
Rémih · CC BY-SA 4.0
63% trees around it and 1,229 species recorded.
- trees within 3 km63%
- wild within 10 km60%
- species recorded1,229
- Altitude122 m
The forest around
63% trees.
Read like the rings of a cut trunk: from the centre out, the land within 1, 3, 6 and 10 km, coloured by what covers it.
Trees, ring by ring
- 0–1 km80%
- 1–3 km61%
- 3–6 km52%
- 6–10 km43%
What covers the land (1–3 km)
- Trees61%
- Grassland13%
- Water0%
- Bare ground1%
- Cropland17%
- Built-up8%
ESA WorldCover 2021 (10 m, from Sentinel satellites), sampled every 120 m. A clearing, a road or a lake counts as what it is.
Who lives here
1,229 species recorded.
The plants, fungi, birds and mammals people have recorded here most often.
NT
NT
Open records within 5 km (GBIF, licensed for any use). Busy places are better recorded than remote ones.
In numbers
The forest, measured.
Our own rating, from open data only: tree cover (40 points), wildness (20), species recorded (30) and protection or heritage (10).
- 63%Treesof the land within 3 km
- 60%Wildno towns or farmland within 10 km
- 1,229Speciesrecorded more than once within 5 km
- 122 mAltitudeabove the sea
When to walk
Best for walking in May.
How good each month is for a walk: mild days and little rain make the bar taller.
- Jan0°56 mm
- Feb0°50 mm
- Mar2°54 mm
- Apr5°40 mm
- May8°64 mm
- Jun12°58 mm
- Jul13°55 mm
- Aug13°58 mm
- Sep10°42 mm
- Oct7°61 mm
- Nov4°64 mm
- Dec1°71 mm
- Bar: walking comfort; the number on top is the average maximum.
- Below: average minimum (NASA, 1991–2020).
- Rain: monthly total.
The place
Désert de Retz.
Garden
Désert de Retz is a protected forest in France.
Seen from space, 63% of the land within 3 km is trees, and 60% of the land within 10 km has no towns or farmland.
1,229 species have been recorded around it: 1,000 plants, 13 fungi, 183 birds and 33 mammals.
The most recorded plants are: Ash, Ground-ivy and Common Ivy.
The best time to walk is in May.
Get there and walk
- Official informationAccess, hours and rules from those who manage the place.Official site↗
- Les Renardièrescampsite · 6.7 km · 5 within 10 km
- Le moulin d'Orgevalplace to stay · 4.4 km · 87 within 10 km
- Chambourcynearest town · 2.4 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in ChambourcyBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Paris-Orly Airport (ORY)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 31 km in a straight lineCar hire at ORY airport (Paris)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided walk, a bed nearby, a car.
Guided forest walks and tours near Désert de RetzGetYourGuideSee prices Cabins and stays near Désert de RetzBooking.comSee prices Car hire at ORY airport (Paris)Discover CarsSee prices
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The forest and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the place, with the trails, notable trees, picnic sites and huts that OpenStreetMap shows.
Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 11marked trails within 5 kmDe Villennes-sur-Seine à Villers-sur-Mer, La boucle de Feucherolles, Accès tour de Paris and 8 more
- 2named and notable trees within 6 kmPyrus calleryana
- 28picnic sites within 4 km
- 80shelters and huts within 6 kmSchapper and 79 more
- 6viewpoints within 5 kmDésert de Retz, La Croix Saint-Michel and 4 more
- 5visitor centres within 6 kmOffice de tourisme Boucles de Seine, Office du tourisme, Office de tourisme de Poissy and 2 more
- 86car parks within 3 km
- 5campsites within 10 kmLes Renardières, L'ïle du Roi, Les 4 arpents and 2 more
- 87places to stay within 10 kmLe moulin d'Orgeval, Hôtel Ibis, Hôtel du Parc and 84 more
- 21restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
Around Désert de Retz.
The mountains, lakes, rivers, waterfalls and canyons around this forest, the viewpoints above it, the birds and the night sky, in the family's atlases.
Peakyas5 mountains within 25 kmMount Valérien161 m · 15 kmbutte Mortemart55 m · 18 kmButte des Moulins24 kmMontmartre130 m · 24 kmMontagne Sainte-Geneviève61 m · 25 km
Lakeyas2 lakes within 15 kmGrand Canal of Versailles0.3 km² · 10 kmÉtang de Saint-Quentin1.1 km² · 12 km
Darkskyas4 dark-sky places within 30 kmVersailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines ObservatoryBortle 8 · 13 km↗Paris Observatory, PSL UniversityBortle 9 · 19 km↗Globe CélesteBortle 9 · 21 kmAstronomy tower of the SorbonneBortle 9 · 24 km
Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The forest, as people saw it.
Other forests nearby.
Désert de Retz
France
- 67Forestyas Score
- 63%Trees
- 60%Wild
- 1,229Species
Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
France · 8 km
- 73Forestyas Score
- 82%Trees
- 62%Wild
- 1,244Species
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q1270698) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Land cover | ESA WorldCover 10 m 2021 v200 · © ESA WorldCover project / Copernicus Sentinel data · CC BY 4.0 |
| Species | 63,926 open records within 5 km (GBIF, CC0 and CC BY 4.0 only) |
| See these records | gbif.org |
| Names and photos | Wikidata (CC0); GBIF Backbone Taxonomy · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Temperature and rain | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Lakeyas, Darkskyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
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