Glastonbury Festival's huge site is almost the same size as a British town

With just over a week until Glastonbury Festival, attendees are likely starting to pack their essentials for the five-day music extravaganza. For first-timers, ensuring you have the right footwear is crucial given the festival's vast size.

The scale of Glastonbury can be hard to comprehend, with the entire site covering 1,500 acres, including Worthy Farm and neighbouring fields used for the event. The expansive festival grounds stretch more than 1.5 miles at its widest point and are encircled by the "superfence", an eight-kilometre-long perimeter fence

To help fans grasp the enormity of the site, an interactive map has been created that compares the festival's size to villages, towns, and cities worldwide. The Glastonbury Map Overlay provides a clear visual representation of the festival's sheer size. Users simply enter a location into the search bar to see how it measures up against the festival site.

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However, this doesn't account for car parks, pre-erected camping areas, and campervan fields. In reality, when these are included, the festival is significantly larger,

Beyond the perimeter fence, there are numerous off-site camping zones, along with 61 separate, colour-coded car parking fields.

The festival site is home to more than 100 stages and tents, a vast number of toilets, including over 2,000 long drops, upwards of 1,300 compost toilets and more than 700 metres of urinals. Emily Eavis, co-organiser of Glastonbury Festival and daughter of founder Sir Michael Eavis, previously discussed the festival's purpose-built sewage system on a special episode of BBC's Sidetracked.

In addition to the multitude of toilets, there are over 100 bars and more than 500 food stalls. The festival's size, when viewed on a map, is comparable to that of nearby town Shepton Mallet, which had an estimated population of 10,800 in 2019.

The event draws around 200,000 attendees and employs thousands of people to construct and manage the festival site, boasting an official capacity of 210,000 individuals.

The festival site also covers a similar area to its namesake, spanning approximately 3.340 km2. However, its population is significantly smaller than the festival, with a population of just 8,297 as of 2021.