What are the 10 French cities ranked by pétanque players?

In order: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, La Madeleine, Annœullin, Saint-Denis (93), Tourcoing, Wattrelos, Marcq-en-Barœul, Viroflay, Roubaix and Aubervilliers.

What is the top 5 of French cities ranked by pétanque players?

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (0.1 / 1,000 inhab.), La Madeleine (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.), Annœullin (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.), Saint-Denis (93) (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.) and Tourcoing (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.).

Which city is 2nd in the ranking of French cities ranked by pétanque players?

La Madeleine, at 0.2 / 1,000 inhab., just behind Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (0.1 / 1,000 inhab.).

Is Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni really the French city ranked last on pétanque players?

Yes, at 0.1 / 1,000 inhab., ahead of La Madeleine (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.) and Annœullin (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.).

In which département is Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni?

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is in département 973, in the Guyane region.

What is the difference between Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni and La Madeleine?

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is at 0.1 / 1,000 inhab., La Madeleine at 0.2 / 1,000 inhab. The table gives the same figure for all 50 places, so any two of them can be compared the same way.

Which city is 10th in the ranking of French cities ranked by pétanque players?

Aubervilliers, at 0.4 / 1,000 inhab.

How many French cities does this ranking compare?

1,035, with the top 50 listed in full in the table below.

What are the French cities ranked by pétanque players in 2026?

This ranking uses the most recent official figures published as of 2026: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni leads with 0.1 / 1,000 inhab.

Is there a complete ranking of French cities ranked by pétanque players?

Yes, the table below: the top 50 of 1,035, each with its département and its region, and the exact method and scope stated underneath it.

In order: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (0.1 / 1,000 inhab.), La Madeleine (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.), Annœullin (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.), Saint-Denis (93) (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Tourcoing (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Wattrelos (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Marcq-en-Barœul (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Viroflay (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Roubaix (0.4 / 1,000 inhab.), Aubervilliers (0.4 / 1,000 inhab.).

Where does this figure come from?

Straight from Ministère des Sports, recensement des licences sportives, joined to each commune by its INSEE code and never retyped by hand. A commune the source does not cover is left out of the table rather than shown as a zero: an absence and a measured zero are different facts, and only one of them is safe to rank.

Le Bon Rang

Sport · Ministère des Sports, recensement des licences sportives

The French cities where pétanque is least played

Name: The French cities where pétanque is least played
Creator: Le Bon Rang
License: https://www.etalab.gouv.fr/licence-ouverte-open-licence/

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni comes last on pétanque players, with 0.1 / 1,000 inhabitants, ahead of La Madeleine (0.2 / 1,000 inhabitants) and Annœullin (0.2 / 1,000 inhabitants).

Could you put Boulogne-Billancourt, Neuilly-sur-Seine and Pantin in this ranking's order? Le Bon Rang is that game, every day. Play today's game

Pétanque players, 986 cities shown. The coloured surface estimates the local tendency from nearby ranked cities. Exact city values remain in the table. 49 ranked overseas cities are not plotted: they fall outside this map's frame. Projection: longitude compressed by cos(46.3°N), so east-west and north-south distances stay comparable. Source: Ministère des Sports, recensement des licences sportives · 2023.

Find your town

Top 50 of 1,035 cities
Rank	City	Pétanque players / 1,000 inhab.	Population	Region
1	973 Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni	0.1	54,429	Guyane
2	59 La Madeleine	0.2	21,790	Hauts-de-France
3	59 Annœullin	0.2	10,847	Hauts-de-France
4	93 Saint-Denis (93)	0.3	149,077	Île-de-France
5	59 Tourcoing	0.3	98,772	Hauts-de-France
6	59 Wattrelos	0.3	40,847	Hauts-de-France
7	59 Marcq-en-Barœul	0.3	40,184	Hauts-de-France
8	78 Viroflay	0.3	17,237	Île-de-France
9	59 Roubaix	0.4	98,286	Hauts-de-France
10	93 Aubervilliers	0.4	88,365	Île-de-France
11	92 Neuilly-sur-Seine	0.4	59,538	Île-de-France
12	62 Arras	0.4	42,875	Hauts-de-France
13	62 Lens	0.4	32,920	Hauts-de-France
14	59 Loos	0.4	22,567	Hauts-de-France
15	59 Mouvaux	0.4	13,369	Hauts-de-France
16	78 Croissy-sur-Seine	0.4	11,013	Île-de-France
17	59 Lille	0.5	238,246	Hauts-de-France
18	76 Rouen	0.5	117,662	Normandie
19	973 Cayenne	0.5	62,675	Guyane
20	62 Liévin	0.5	30,063	Hauts-de-France
21	95 Villiers-le-Bel	0.5	30,053	Île-de-France
22	78 Le Vésinet	0.5	15,554	Île-de-France
23	971 Pointe-à-Pitre	0.5	15,040	Guadeloupe
24	59 Lys-lez-Lannoy	0.5	14,050	Hauts-de-France
25	59 Saint-André-lez-Lille	0.5	13,233	Hauts-de-France
26	44 Nantes	0.6	327,734	Pays de la Loire
27	92 Boulogne-Billancourt	0.6	119,019	Île-de-France
28	78 Versailles	0.6	84,095	Île-de-France
29	95 Sarcelles	0.6	59,173	Île-de-France
30	93 La Courneuve	0.6	47,167	Île-de-France
31	78 Saint-Germain-en-Laye	0.6	45,931	Île-de-France
32	973 Matoury	0.6	36,512	Guyane
33	59 Lambersart	0.6	27,090	Hauts-de-France
34	92 Sèvres	0.6	22,303	Île-de-France
35	76 Mont-Saint-Aignan	0.6	20,165	Normandie
36	91 Juvisy-sur-Orge	0.6	19,292	Île-de-France
37	971 Morne-à-l'Eau	0.6	16,228	Guadeloupe
38	59 Roncq	0.6	14,075	Hauts-de-France
39	62 Bully-les-Mines	0.6	12,146	Hauts-de-France
40	95 Enghien-les-Bains	0.6	11,432	Île-de-France
41	78 Voisins-le-Bretonneux	0.6	10,624	Île-de-France
42	95 Cergy	0.7	70,906	Île-de-France
43	59 Villeneuve-d'Ascq	0.7	62,868	Hauts-de-France
44	93 Pantin	0.7	61,929	Île-de-France
45	93 Bobigny	0.7	56,927	Île-de-France
46	971 Les Abymes	0.7	51,055	Guadeloupe
47	95 Garges-lès-Gonesse	0.7	41,791	Île-de-France
48	67 Schiltigheim	0.7	34,708	Grand Est
49	93 Clichy-sous-Bois	0.7	29,354	Île-de-France
50	91 Grigny	0.7	26,842	Île-de-France

The table stops at 50. Search any of the 1,035 ranked towns ↑

The other end : The French cities with the most pétanque players

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Scope, method and sources

Scope: France, metropolitan and overseas, Corsica and the DROM included. This dataset holds every commune of 10,000 inhabitants or more, plus smaller communes famous enough to be household names, 1,131 in all. It is not the full list of 35,000 French communes, so a village can sit outside a ranking whose extreme it would otherwise hold. This particular ranking is a rate per inhabitant, so it covers towns of 10,000 people or more only: in a village of a hundred, three licence holders would read as thirty per thousand and outrank a town with a professional club, so no rate is published below that size rather than a meaningless one.

Method and sources: populations are the INSEE legal populations, boundaries and coordinates come from the IGN commune registry, both served by geo.api.gouv.fr. Density is the population divided by the commune's area; distances are measured as the crow flies from the commune's centre. Data read on August 28, 2026.

12 questions about this ranking

What are the 10 French cities ranked by pétanque players?: In order: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, La Madeleine, Annœullin, Saint-Denis (93), Tourcoing, Wattrelos, Marcq-en-Barœul, Viroflay, Roubaix and Aubervilliers.
What is the top 5 of French cities ranked by pétanque players?: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (0.1 / 1,000 inhab.), La Madeleine (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.), Annœullin (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.), Saint-Denis (93) (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.) and Tourcoing (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.).
Which city is 2nd in the ranking of French cities ranked by pétanque players?: La Madeleine, at 0.2 / 1,000 inhab., just behind Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (0.1 / 1,000 inhab.).
Is Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni really the French city ranked last on pétanque players?: Yes, at 0.1 / 1,000 inhab., ahead of La Madeleine (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.) and Annœullin (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.).
In which département is Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni?: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is in département 973, in the Guyane region.
What is the difference between Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni and La Madeleine?: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is at 0.1 / 1,000 inhab., La Madeleine at 0.2 / 1,000 inhab. The table gives the same figure for all 50 places, so any two of them can be compared the same way.
Which city is 10th in the ranking of French cities ranked by pétanque players?: Aubervilliers, at 0.4 / 1,000 inhab.
How many French cities does this ranking compare?: 1,035, with the top 50 listed in full in the table below.
What are the French cities ranked by pétanque players in 2026?: This ranking uses the most recent official figures published as of 2026: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni leads with 0.1 / 1,000 inhab.
Is there a complete ranking of French cities ranked by pétanque players?: Yes, the table below: the top 50 of 1,035, each with its département and its region, and the exact method and scope stated underneath it.
What are the top 10?: In order: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (0.1 / 1,000 inhab.), La Madeleine (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.), Annœullin (0.2 / 1,000 inhab.), Saint-Denis (93) (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Tourcoing (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Wattrelos (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Marcq-en-Barœul (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Viroflay (0.3 / 1,000 inhab.), Roubaix (0.4 / 1,000 inhab.), Aubervilliers (0.4 / 1,000 inhab.).
Where does this figure come from?: Straight from Ministère des Sports, recensement des licences sportives, joined to each commune by its INSEE code and never retyped by hand. A commune the source does not cover is left out of the table rather than shown as a zero: an absence and a measured zero are different facts, and only one of them is safe to rank.

The table below ranks the top 50 of the 1,035 cities in the dataset, each with its département, its region and the figure it is ranked on (pétanque players), so you can see not just the order but how far apart the places are. The numbers are official public data: INSEE legal populations and the IGN commune registry, with the exact method and the exact scope stated under the table rather than left to be guessed at.

The same data answers neighbouring questions too: see The French cities where golf is least played and The French cities where hiking is least popular, or all rankings for the full list. All of it comes from Le Bon Rang, a free daily game that gives you five French cities and one of these statistics and asks you for the order.