Step outside in Hong Kong or Copenhagen and you’ll notice something right away: people are moving on their own two feet, weaving through markets, cutting across parks, climbing stairs to the metro. Step outside in parts of Texas or rural New Zealand, and the picture flips entirely. Sidewalks thin out, distances stretch, and the car becomes less a choice than a requirement.
These differences aren’t just about culture or climate, though both play a role. They reflect decades of urban planning decisions, transit investment, and geography that shape how far people can get without ever touching a steering wheel. Some nations have quietly built environments where walking is the default. Others have engineered daily life around the automobile so thoroughly that going car-free feels almost impossible.
1. Hong Kong
Hong Kong consistently tops global rankings for daily steps, and the numbers back it up. Hong Kong came first overall, averaging 6,880 steps a day. That’s not a coincidence of lifestyle alone; it’s baked into the city’s bones.
Averaging nearly 7,000 steps a day, its residents move constantly through one of the world’s most vertical and walkable cities, dense, efficient, and transit-powered. The territory’s extensive subway system, the MTR, means most trips start and end with a walk, and elevators or escalators do the heavy lifting on the hills.
2. China
China lands in second place among the world’s most active populations, and mainland cities show why. Step counts were highest in Hong Kong, followed by China, with 6,189 steps. Compact urban zones and packed public transit networks push residents toward incidental walking almost by default.
Public transport and compact urban zones encourage high movement, especially in megacities like Shanghai and Shenzhen. Even grocery runs or trips to a subway entrance add up to meaningful daily totals, something car-centric cities rarely replicate.
3. Ukraine
Ukraine’s step counts might surprise people unfamiliar with the country’s urban layout. Ukraine ranked third globally, with 6,107 steps. Despite economic pressures that have intensified in recent years, the walking culture there has proven resilient.
Despite economic hurdles, Ukraine maintains high mobility thanks to limited car ownership and a strong pedestrian culture in its urban areas. Cities built long before mass car ownership tend to keep their pedestrian bones intact, and Ukrainian cities are no exception.
4. Denmark
Denmark often gets credited for cycling, but walking numbers are just as impressive. A 2024 analysis found that Denmark is getting the most steps in, with an average daily step count of 6,633, nearly 14% more than the global average. That’s a meaningful gap above most European neighbors.
Copenhagen backs this up at the city level too. Copenhagen scores over 95% for 15-minute city coverage, home to Strøget, one of Europe’s longest pedestrian streets, plus harbor-front paths and cycle-friendly design. The combination of walking and cycling infrastructure means cars simply aren’t necessary for most daily errands.
5. Poland
Poland’s ranking near the top of recent step-count studies reflects a mix of dense older city centers and growing pedestrian investment. According to the 2024 PureGym research, Poland comes in second, with an average of 6,504 daily steps. That places it well ahead of countries with similar income levels but weaker walking infrastructure.
Cities like Kraków and Warsaw retain historic centers where narrow streets and market squares were never designed with cars in mind. Public transit remains affordable and widely used, which keeps foot traffic high even as car ownership rises across the country.
6. Japan
Japan blends dense urban design with a cultural expectation around walking, particularly around train stations. Historical data placed Japan close behind China at 6,019 steps a day. The country’s rail network does much of the work, since almost every train trip begins and ends on foot.
Kyoto stands out even by global standards. Kyoto, Japan is the most walkable non-European city on the list, coming in at 28th. Tokyo also performs well despite its enormous size, proving that scale doesn’t have to mean sprawl if the transit backbone is strong enough.
7. Italy
Italy’s cities were largely built centuries before the automobile, and it shows. Florence ranks as the world’s most walkable city in recent global rankings, with compact medieval layouts that make cars nearly pointless for daily errands. Milan performs just as well by different measures.
Milan tops the study, where the average Milanese only needs to walk for seven minutes to reach key amenities, and 98% of the population lives in a 15-minute neighborhood. Venice takes this even further, since cars are physically absent from most of the city, leaving walking and boats as the only real options.
8. Switzerland
Switzerland pairs one of the world’s best rail systems with a genuine walking culture, a combination that keeps daily step counts high despite relatively high car ownership. Earlier national pedometer studies found the Swiss taking on average 9,650 steps per day. That figure predates smartphone-based global studies but still reflects habits that persist today.
Mountainous terrain means many Swiss towns were built with steep, walkable streets long before cars existed, and public transit remains dense even in smaller communities. Switzerland combines one of the world’s strongest rail systems with high car ownership, a useful reminder that ownership and usage are not the same metric. People there own cars but often choose not to use them for everyday trips.
9. United States
The United States sits at the opposite end of the spectrum, and the commuting numbers make that clear. A staggering 92% of commuters in the U.S. and Canada choose to drive. Step counts reflect this pattern too, with Americans averaging far fewer daily steps than residents of Hong Kong or Denmark.
The majority of cities in the US have been designed with a strong reliance on cars for transportation, and while cities like New York City and Boulder have developed alternative mobility options, most cities in the US heavily depend on cars. Zoning laws that separate homes from shops and offices only reinforce the pattern, making a short errand into a multi-mile drive in many suburbs.
10. New Zealand
New Zealand consistently ranks as the most car-dependent country studied in global transport research. New Zealand relies the most on cars to get around, with a score of 8.48 out of 10, the most reliant for both efficiency and access to public transport. That’s a striking result for a developed, wealthy nation.
Part of the explanation lies in funding priorities. Transport funding in New Zealand is heavily skewed towards road projects rather than public transport. Auckland in particular has struggled with sprawl and limited rail coverage, though a large underground rail project is currently underway to address the imbalance.
11. Australia
Australia’s vast landmass and low population density make car dependency almost structural rather than cultural. Australia is the most car dependent by this measure, with just 0.1km of railway lines per 100km2 of this vast country. Outside the major coastal cities, rail simply doesn’t reach most places.
Even within cities, coverage is uneven. While the major cities in Australia have widespread commuter rail networks, services between cities and states are more limited. Car ownership figures reflect this reality, with Australia ranking among the highest in the world for vehicles per capita.
12. Canada
Canada shares many of the same geographic challenges as Australia, spread across enormous distances with pockets of dense population separated by long stretches of low-density land. Recent research placed Canada as the fourth most car-dependent country in the world. Rail usage tells much of the story.
Canada has the least used rail transport, with 45 passengers per capita. Outside a handful of dense urban cores like Toronto and Montreal, driving remains the default for nearly every errand, commute, and social trip.
13. Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia posts some of the lowest daily step counts recorded anywhere in the world, and the reasons go beyond simple preference. Saudi Arabia recorded some of the fewest average daily steps, with 3,807 steps. That’s roughly half the level seen in Hong Kong or Denmark.
Climate plays a significant role here that doesn’t apply to most other car-dependent nations. This figure highlights persistent low physical activity levels in the Kingdom, influenced by factors such as extreme heat that discourages outdoor movement and a car-dependent urban infrastructure that minimizes pedestrian travel. Sidewalks exist in many cities, but with summer temperatures regularly exceeding safe limits for extended outdoor activity, air-conditioned cars become the practical default rather than a lifestyle preference.
Looking across these thirteen countries, one pattern stands out clearly: walking-heavy nations tend to share dense urban layouts, strong public transit, and city centers built before cars existed. Car-dependent nations, by contrast, often combine vast geography with newer urban development shaped entirely around road networks. Neither pattern is inherently better, but they produce very different daily rhythms, different health outcomes, and different relationships between people and the spaces they live in.
