Where in Prague should I live?

Start from what you can't change: what you can pay, the rooms you need and the trip you'll make every day. The areas that pass all three are your real choice. The finder ranks them on what you care about, from quiet nights and green space to schools and nightlife, using the flats on offer today and Prague's own maps, and says why each area made the list.

How to use the finder

1. Rent or buy.
2. Budget. The most you'd pay a month in rent, without the charges, or the highest asking price. Only flats asking that or less count.
3. Rooms. Any, or one to four rooms or more, as Czech listings count them: 2+kk and 2+1 are both two rooms, and a studio is one.
4. Getting to. The city centre, the airport or another place in Prague, such as your office or your child's school, and the most minutes you'd spend getting there. Trips are timed by public transport and on foot, leaving at 8:00 on a weekday, on the timetables of Prague's public transport (PID).
5. What matters. Pick any of quiet nights, green space, good transit, schools nearby, shops and services, and bars and nightlife. Two or three give a sharper list than all six.

The results come as a list or a map, where a darker area fits better. Areas with nothing in your budget today are listed after the rest, with the cheapest asking price or rent there, so you can see how far off they are. If more areas are just over your trip limit, the list offers to allow a few more minutes. Your choices stay in the page's link, so you can send the list to whoever is moving with you.

Reading the list

Each area on the list shows:

• City part or neighbourhood. Prague's neighbourhoods, and the outer city parts that have none of their own.
• Flats that fit now, out of all the flats of your layout on offer there, and the median asking rent or price. “See the flats” opens them on the map.
• Why it's here. Up to three things the area is in the top quarter of the list for, such as the most flats in your budget, a quick trip, or quiet nights.
• Worth knowing. The things you picked that it's in the bottom quarter for. An area can still rank well with one of these, if it's strong on everything else.
• Facts. The trip in 15-minute bands, the transit and amenity scores, the share of homes with a park or a school nearby, the share where night noise is high, how much of the land is park or forest, and the bars and pubs.

“About” opens the area's page, with everything Bytky knows about it. Tick two areas and Compare puts them side by side in compare areas, row by row.

A worked example

The three areas here, A, B and C, are made up, and so is the rest. Your list comes from the flats on offer today.

A couple want to rent a two-room flat at up to 25,000 Kč a month without the charges. One of them works at Pankrác and wants to get there within 30 minutes. They pick quiet nights and green space. Say three areas pass the budget and the trip. On each thing that counts, the finder places them from worst to best, here 0, 1 and 2 points:

B comes first, though it's best at only one thing, because it's never the worst. A has the most flats but the noisiest nights, and C is the quietest but has the fewest flats and the least green. On a real list, C's “Why it's here” would name its quiet, and its “Worth knowing” the lack of green.

That's the finder's habit: it rewards an area that's good at everything you picked over one that's best at a single thing. If one thing matters far more than the rest, pick only that one. And the trip doesn't move an area up: one 10 minutes from Pankrác isn't ranked above one 25 minutes away when your limit is 30. If a short trip matters most, lower the limit instead.

Prague's market at a glance, live:

How the finder works

The areas. Prague's neighbourhoods, its cadastral areas (katastrální území), and the outer city parts that have none of their own: every part of the city, counted once.

The places. For each thing you pick, the areas on the list are placed from worst to best on one fact. Areas that tie share their place, and an area missing a fact counts as the middle, so a gap in the data neither lifts nor sinks it. The fit is the average of the places, with the flats in your budget always counting as one of them.

The facts.

• Flats in budget: how many flats of your layout ask your budget or less today, from every listing Bytky tracks.
• Quiet nights: the share of the homes on the market where night noise from roads, trams and trains reaches a set level on Prague's strategic noise map.
• Green space: the share of homes with a park of a hectare or more nearby, the WHO's guidance for green space, together with how much of the area's land is park or forest.
• Good transit and shops and services: the transit and amenity scores every listing shows, as the median of the homes on the market.
• Schools nearby: the share of homes with a school, and with a kindergarten, within a short walk.
• Bars and nightlife: the bars and pubs inside the area, from OpenStreetMap, against its size.

The method under the guide gives the distances and the noise level. The flats and their asking prices are updated every day, so the list changes as flats come and go.

Mistakes people make

• Putting the charges in the budget. The budget is the rent alone. If salary to rent gave you a rent with the charges, take the charges off first, or you'll see areas you can't afford once they're added.
• Picking everything. With all six picked, each counts for little, and the list leans towards the areas with the most flats. Pick what you'd really move for.
• Giving up on a short list. A list of three areas is an answer, not a failure. Raise the budget a little, allow more minutes, or try another layout, and watch which areas join.
• Reading one day's list as the market. A small area with two flats in your budget today may have none next week, and the reverse. Save the search on the map, and Bytky lets you know when a new flat fits.
• Forgetting the flat itself. The noise inside depends on the windows and which side the bedroom faces. A quiet area has loud streets, and a lively one has quiet courtyards.
• Not going there. Walk the street on a weekday morning and on a Friday night, and ask the people who live there.

What to do next

Moving to Brno? The Brno finder ranks Brno's neighbourhoods the same way, for now without trips or the noise maps. Compare areas puts any two places side by side, and our guide to Prague's neighbourhoods describes the best known in words. Before you sign, move-in costs adds up the cash you need on the day, and renting in Czechia as a foreigner covers the paperwork.