How many kinds and Everyday needs, explained simply
Where can you do your daily errands on foot? Everyday needs counts how many of six kinds of place - grocery store, pharmacy, school, park, café, bakery - are within a 10-minute walk of each hex, from 0 of 6 to 6 of 6. Here is how How many kinds works, worked through in London.
Count the errands, not the shops. For every hex in London - one hexagon on the map, about 350 m across (roughly 0.1 km²) - MapBees checks six everyday kinds of place: a grocery store, a pharmacy, a school, a park, a café and a bakery. It asks how many of the six are within a 10-minute walk, and colors the hex from 0 of 6 to 6 of 6. Most of inner London has all six; the gaps open up toward the edges of the city, around the big parks and along the river to the east.
That reading is called How many kinds, and it is the third way the Variety map can measure a set of kinds of place. The ready-made question built on it is Everyday needs. The field calls the count richness: how many different kinds are present, however many of each.
How many kindsthe field's term: richness
How many of grocery store, pharmacy, school, park, café and bakery are within a 10-minute walk. Yellow is 6 of 6 - nearly all of inner London. Green, teal and purple hexes have fewer, and they gather toward the edges of the city.
The idea, in one sentence
How many of the kinds in the set are here? Each kind counts once if there is at least one of it within a 10-minute walk, and not at all if there is none. The answer is a whole number, from none of them to all of them.
6 of 6
Every one of the six errands can be done on foot within 10 minutes. Nothing on the list needs a bus or a car.
A second adds nothing
Seven cafés within reach still count as one café. The question is whether you can buy a coffee, not how many places will sell you one.
0 of 6 is an answer
A hex where every kind is known to be absent reads 0 of 6 - a real measurement, not missing data.
Where to click
The quickest way in is the Question Library. Press Questions & guides and pick Everyday needs: the map type, the six kinds and the walk are set for you.
Everyday needs in the Question Library. The tag says which map type it opens: Variety.
You can also build it by hand, with any set of two or more kinds - a different errand list, or the kinds that matter to the people you serve.
Where to click
Map type
Variety
Tick the six kinds
Measure as: How many kinds
Look at: Within a 10-minute walk
The Variety panel set up for Everyday needs. The coverage line says 31,902 of London's 40,253 hexes have an answer, and the small chart under it runs from 0 of 6 to 6 of 6.'Measure as' now has three answers: How mixed, How even and How many kinds.The badge names the reading in both registers, and the sentence under it lists exactly which kinds are being counted.
The walk is what makes this question honest. In London it covers the places you can reach on foot within 10 minutes, along streets and paths. On other maps nearer places count more (full weight under 3.5 min, 70% to 7 min, 40% to 10 min); here that makes no difference, because one pharmacy within reach is enough. The walk post explains the setting.
Reading the map
The legend has one color per whole number, so you can read a hex's answer straight off the map: purple is none of them, yellow is all of them.
Seven steps for seven possible answers, 0 to 6. The gray swatch is for hexes with no answer at all.
Hover a hex and the card gives the count as you would say it. Where something is missing, a second line names it - for example “Not within a 10-minute walk: School, Park” - so a 4 of 6 tells you which two errands need a longer trip.
A hex near Greenwich: 6 of 6, so there is no second line - nothing on the list is out of reach.
The math, honestly
For each kind in the set, ask one yes-or-no question: is there at least one within a 10-minute walk? Add up the yeses. The numbers below are illustrative.
One hex, six errands
Grocery stores within the walkcounts as 1
3 → yes
Pharmaciescounts as 1
1 → yes
Schoolscounts as 0
0 → no
Parkscounts as 1
2 → yes
Cafésseven cafés still count as 1
7 → yes
Bakeriescounts as 0
0 → no
How many kinds
4 of 6
The hover card would add: Not within a 10-minute walk: School, Bakery.
A kind the data knows nothing about for a hex counts as absent - it cannot be shown to be there, so the map never claims it is - and it is listed among the missing kinds. Only a hex where all six are unknown is left with no answer.
How it differs from How mixed and How even
All three readings live on the Variety map and all three take a set of kinds, but they answer different questions. A hex with thirty cafés and one bakery is a good way to see the difference.
How many kinds
Are they all here at all? Thirty cafés and one bakery is 2 of 2: both errands can be done.
How mixed
How likely are two places picked at random to be different kinds? Barely - nearly every pick is a café. See the How mixed post.
How even
Do the kinds share the places evenly? Far from it - one kind dominates. See the How even post.
The two indices care about shares, so a lot of one kind drags them down. How many kinds ignores shares entirely, which is exactly right for errands: nobody minds that their street has too many cafés, as long as there is also a pharmacy.
Not offered on the Score
How many kinds is drawn on its own map and never scored. A Score reads a factor's kinds as one total, so it would quietly rank the plain sum of the six instead - thirty cafés would beat a full set of errands. Rather than do that, the Score refuses it. To weigh errands inside a Score, add the kinds you care about as factors.
What it cannot tell you
Present is not the same as good
A kind counts if the map data holds at least one of it within the walk. The data cannot say whether the school has places, whether the park is a pocket of grass or a heath, or whether the grocery store is open when you need it. The places come from Overture Maps (release 2026-08-19), and a place missing from the data counts as missing here. Read the map as decision support, not a verdict: it shows where to look, and the street shows the rest.
Everyday needs asks: how many of grocery store, pharmacy, school, park, café and bakery are within a 10-minute walk?
How many kinds counts each kind once if at least one is within reach. 6 of 6 means every one; a second of the same kind adds nothing.
The legend has one color per answer, from None of them to All of them, and 0 of 6 is a real measurement.
Hover for the count, and for the kinds that are not within a 10-minute walk.
In London the walk follows streets and paths; one place within reach is enough, however far within it.
It is a Variety reading, not a Score factor: to weigh errands in a Score, add the kinds as factors.
Quick questions
What does How many kinds measure?
How many of the kinds in a set are present at all, counted once each. 6 of 6 means every kind is there; a second of the same kind adds nothing. The field calls this richness.
What is Everyday needs?
A ready-made question in the Question Library, 'Where can I do my daily errands on foot?'. It draws How many kinds over grocery store, pharmacy, school, park, café and bakery within a 10-minute walk.
How is it different from How mixed and How even?
How mixed and How even read the shares of each kind, so thirty cafés and one bakery score low. How many kinds only asks whether each kind is there, so the same hex reads 2 of 2.
Can I use How many kinds in a Score?
No. A Score reads a factor's kinds as one total and would rank the plain sum instead, so it refuses How many kinds; add the kinds as factors to weigh them in a Score.
Does a kind count if the place is far within the walk?
Yes. In London the walk follows streets and paths for 10 minutes, and one place anywhere within it is enough for that kind to count.
See it on a real map
The best way to understand the score is to play with it. The full app is on a Free Tier, with no sales call.
Builds MapBees's location-intelligence pipeline end to end — census and Overture Maps ingestion, H3 hex scoring, and the map interface — and writes the methodology behind every number on the site.
