From miniature urban parks to vast suburban heaths: London's greens spaces oxygenate both lungs & hearts.
"The streets of town were paved with stars / It was such a romantic affair / And, as we kissed and said 'goodnight' / A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square" (Preferably the Vera Lynn rendition)
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For the second contributor to our aggregate "leafiness" metric, we take each of the 2,915 hexagons (into which we have divided London) and calculate the total percentage of each hexagon's square acreage that is composed of publicly accessible green spaces. These green spaces range from the tiny (but perfectly formed) Manchester Square to the vast, misty, expanses of Hampstead Heath and Richmond Park, all of whose contours are meticulously delineated by the wonderful OpenStreetMap initiative.
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When interrogating the map shown above, it is worth understanding the universe of land formations​ that fall under our rubric of "publicly accessible green spaces". This category includes the following: forests, parks, meadows, nature reserves, recreation grounds and orchards. But it does not include private golf courses which (somewhat surprisingly) account for a not insignificant proportion of London's green space.