Saint-Benoît vs Saint-Leu
Two municipalities in La Réunion, France, side by side on the five things this site grades — climate & hazards, local vitality, services, affordability and property market. Every figure comes from official open data, and the ones that cannot honestly be compared are marked rather than quietly averaged.
Saint-Benoît
Saint-Leu
A provisional grade had at least one pillar filled with a neutral 50 rather than measured. Where one side is provisional and the other is not, the gap between the two grades may be partly made of that fill — treat the pillar rows below as the evidence, not the letters.
Pillar by pillar
| Pillar | Saint-Benoît | Saint-Leu |
|---|---|---|
| Climate & hazards | not measured | not measured |
| Local vitality | 35/100 | 45/100 ▲ |
| Services & access | 36/100 ▲ | 30/100 |
| Affordability | 11/100 ▲ | 3/100 |
| Property market | 37/100 ▲ | 30/100 |
Pillar scores are percentile ranks within each municipality's own country, so a 70 in Spain and a 70 in Italy each mean "ahead of 70% of this country's towns" — not that the two places are alike.
The underlying figures
| Indicator | Saint-Benoît | Saint-Leu |
|---|---|---|
| Population | 36,994 inhab. (2020) | 34,740 inhab. (2020) |
| Population trend (~10y) | -2.5% (2015→2020) declining — the key rural depopulation risk | +3.1% (2015→2020) growing / stable |
| Price (€/m²) | 2,866 €/m² ▲ 2020 data | 4,125 €/m² 2020 data |
| Price appreciation (~5y) | +4.3%/yr 2017→2023 | +4.4%/yr ▲ 2017→2023 |
| Gross rental yield | 4.8% ▲ est. from ANIL rent ÷ DVF price | 4.6% est. from ANIL rent ÷ DVF price |
| Tourism / short-let potential | 18.6 beds / 1,000 inhab. collective accommodation + second homes (INSEE bed equivalences) | 139.5 beds / 1,000 inhab. ▲ collective accommodation + second homes (INSEE bed equivalences) |
| Foreign residents | 1.1% (2021) ▲ | 0.68% (2021) |
| Everyday essentials | 0 of 4 in the municipality None mapped here | 0 of 4 in the municipality None mapped here |
| International airport | Réunion-Roland Garros (RUN) (26 km) | Réunion-Roland Garros (RUN) (37.8 km) |
Which way each is going
| Population momentum | Saint-Benoît | Saint-Leu |
|---|---|---|
| Annualised change | -0.51 %/yr 2015–2020 | +0.61 %/yr 2015–2020 |
Demographic momentum is an absolute rate and feeds no grade of its own — see the momentum pages.
How to read this
Grades are computed from official open data — statistics offices, hazard catalogues, land registries and OpenStreetMap — never from reviews, listings or opinion. Each indicator is ranked against the other municipalities of the same country, except the natural hazards, which are absolute 30-year probabilities and therefore mean the same thing everywhere.
That is why some rows above carry no comparison. Spain counts registered tourist dwellings where Italy counts every tourist bed place; each statistics office defines a foreign resident differently; the property-price vintages run from 2018 in Italy to 2025 in Portugal. Putting two such numbers side by side and calling the difference a finding would be inventing one, so the row states the reason instead.
Full method, sources and known gaps: the methodology page.