BOAT-COMPARATOR Guide
How Many Marinas Are There in France? The 2026 Count
1,320 named marinas in France on OpenStreetMap, out of 3,349 recorded across 8 countries. What the 2026 count reveals: coastlines, capacities, and why a ranking by département is impossible.
How many marinas does France have? The question sounds simple; the answer is less so. Working from OpenStreetMap (ODbL) data extracted in July 2026, we counted 1,320 named marinas in France — sea, lakes and inland waterways combined — out of a total of 3,349 across the 8 countries covered by our marina directory.
France leads our count
Across the 8 countries studied (France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Malta, Turkey), France comes out clearly on top with 1,320 named marinas, ahead of Italy (850) and Spain (453) — the full country-by-country breakdown gets its own comparison. The figure reflects both a reality (three sea coasts — Channel, Atlantic, Mediterranean — plus Alpine lakes and a vast river network) and a known bias: France is one of the best-mapped countries in OpenStreetMap, and the count depends on what contributors have recorded.
Every kind of shore, not just the sea
The count includes lake and river marinas, and that is far from anecdotal. Among the 15 largest capacities recorded across all 8 countries, 9 ports are French — and every type of shoreline is represented:
| Marina | Shore | Berths (OSM) |
|---|---|---|
| Port des Minimes (La Rochelle) | Atlantic | 5,100 |
| Port du Cap d'Agde | Mediterranean | 3,300 |
| Port de Santa-Lucia (Saint-Raphaël) | Mediterranean | 1,500 |
| Bas-du-Fort (Guadeloupe) | Caribbean | 1,250 |
| Halte fluviale municipale | River | 1,010 |
| Port-Médoc (Le Verdon) | Atlantic | 950 |
| Port des Mouettes (Évian-les-Bains) | Lake Geneva | 866 |
| Port d'Armor (Saint-Quay-Portrieux) | Channel | 825 |
| Port Ripaille (Thonon-les-Bains) | Lake Geneva | 800 |
Two Lake Geneva marinas in the French top list: boating is not just a coastal affair. At sea, the contrast between coasts remains sharp — Brittany lines up a multitude of mid-sized tidal harbours, while the French Riviera and Languedoc concentrate the very large marinas built from the 1960s onwards.
Why a ranking by département is impossible (honestly)
We would have loved to publish a league table of the best-equipped French départements. But in OpenStreetMap, a full address (with postcode) is recorded on only a tiny minority of French entries — about thirty out of 1,320. Within that minuscule subset, Haute-Savoie dominates (12 recorded marinas, courtesy of Lake Geneva and Lake Annecy), but turning that into a national ranking would be dishonest: it would measure contributors' data entry, not port geography. We would rather say so than publish a fake ranking.
What researchers say
Geographer Nicolas Bernard, author of the reference work on French marinas, shows they were built at a sustained pace for forty years and now form "structuring facilities" of the coastline: real estate, nautical services and the local tourism economy all reorganise themselves around the marina (Bernard, Les ports de plaisance : équipements structurants de l'espace littoral, L'Harmattan, 2000, see the book on Google Scholar). The 1,320 figure is therefore more than a statistic: it is the backbone of an entire coastal economy.
An open, verifiable, reusable count
Why rely on OpenStreetMap rather than an official figure? Because no consolidated public register of marinas covers sea, lakes and rivers at once, and because OSM data is open: anyone can verify our count, redo it, correct it — and an error reported on openstreetmap.org benefits everyone. That is also the exercise's limit: this total of 1,320 shifts slightly with every contribution. So we date the extraction precisely (July 2026) and will republish the count when the picture has significantly changed, just as we do every night for rental prices.
Explore the data, marina by marina
Every recorded marina has its own page (town, coordinates, capacity and services where recorded) in our marina directory, with hubs per destination — for instance marinas near La Rochelle. And to get from the dock to the water, Boat-Comparator compares live rental offers from the major platforms across 183 destinations.
Source: data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL licence), extracted July 2026. Count: named marinas, including lake harbours and river stops.
Free checklist
Rent a boat with no nasty surprises
Deposit, insurance, check-in inspection, fuel, navigation areas, weather: our checklist covers everything to verify before booking and on departure day. Sign up to access it and receive our tips by email.
Thank you! Your checklist is ready: Rent a boat with no nasty surprises →