Bathing sites with excellent water quality by country

Share of bathing water sites in lakes or rivers that are of excellent quality. This means contamination levels of certain bacteria are below a strict threshold.

Countries reporting
25
Highest
100.0%
Romania
Lowest
33.3%
Albania
Median
79.7%
Years covered
34
1992–2025
Data points
710

What the numbers show

Bathing sites with excellent water quality is currently reported for 25 countries. The highest value is 100.0% in Romania; the lowest is 33.3% in Albania.

The median across all reporting countries is 79.7%, and the mean is 76.2%.

The gap between the highest and lowest reporting country is a factor of about 3.

Over the past decade 10 countries rose and 11 fell. The largest increase was in Croatia (up 269.6%), and the largest decrease in Estonia (down 16.1%).

Bathing sites with excellent water quality: full country ranking

#Country LatestYear 10-year changeTrend
1 Romania 100.0% 2025 unchanged volatile
1 Bulgaria 100.0% 2025 unchanged rising
1 Greece 100.0% 2025 unchanged rising
4 Austria 96.5% 2025 up 7.0% rising
5 Finland 94.7% 2025 up 5.0% rising
6 Denmark 94.3% 2025 down 1.2% rising
8 Germany 91.5% 2025 down 1.7% rising
9 Italy 87.7% 2025 down 4.0% rising
10 Lithuania 84.6% 2025 down 0.9% rising
11 Switzerland 84.4% 2025 up 67.2% rising
12 Sweden 82.1% 2025 up 18.4% rising
13 Latvia 80.8% 2025 up 26.9% rising
15 Czechia 79.7% 2025 up 0.8% rising
16 Estonia 71.4% 2025 down 16.1% rising
17 France 71.0% 2025 down 1.2% rising
18 Netherlands 70.4% 2025 down 4.9% rising
19 Belgium 70.0% 2025 down 14.3% rising
19 Slovakia 70.0% 2025 up 44.4% rising
21 Hungary 64.0% 2025 down 6.8% rising
22 Slovenia 57.1% 2025 up 23.8% rising
23 Portugal 56.9% 2025 down 10.1% volatile
24 Poland 56.7% 2025 down 12.6% rising
25 Croatia 54.8% 2025 up 269.6% volatile
26 Spain 53.1% 2025 up 2.4% rising
27 Albania 33.3% 2025 volatile

About this data

Indicator
Bathing sites with excellent water quality
Unit
%
Source
European Environment Agency (2026) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Licence
CC BY 4.0 (Our World in Data)
Coverage
27 places, 710 data points, 1992–2025
Last refreshed

Share of bathing water sites in lakes or rivers that are of excellent quality. This means contamination levels of certain bacteria are below a strict threshold.