Decibel Shield
UK cities › Northern Ireland › Belfast
How loud is Belfast?
In Belfast, most noise-exposed residents face average day-evening-night (Lden) transport noise of 55–75 dB, mostly from road traffic, dropping to 50–70 dB at night. The figures are official Northern Ireland statistics from the Round 4 strategic noise maps (2021–22).
Last updated:
| Daytime Lden range | 55–75 dB |
|---|---|
| Night Lnight range | 50–70 dB |
| vs. WHO guideline | ≈ 12 dB above the 53 dB Lden road-noise guideline (night guideline: 45 dB) |
| Dominant source | road traffic |
| Mapped area | Belfast (Northern Ireland) |
| Population | 614,094 |
| Data round | Round 4 (2021 situation) |
The numbers here are the government's own exposure statistics for Belfast, produced under the UK's environmental noise regulations.
Across the 614,094 residents of the mapped area, the bulk of those exposed to transport noise sit in the 55–75 dB Lden band by day-evening-night average and 50–70 dB Lnight at night, with road traffic the dominant source. The midpoint of that daytime range is roughly 12 dB above the WHO's 53 dB Lden road-noise guideline (the night guideline is 45 dB Lnight).
These statistics come from the Round 4 strategic noise maps (2021–22), published by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA). Because the devolved nations model their maps separately from England's Round 3 tables, Belfast is shown with its own figures rather than forced into the England ranking.
Environmental noise in Belfast, by the numbers
- Daytime (Lden) exposure band: 55–75 dB for the bulk of exposed residents
- Night (Lnight) exposure band: 50–70 dB
- Dominant noise source: road traffic
- Mapped-area population: 614,094
- Data: Round 4 (2021 situation), Northern Ireland strategic noise mapping
These are the official published exposure statistics from the UK's strategic noise mapping — see the methodology on the UK city ranking. Lden is the annual-average day-evening-night level; only residents above the 55 dB Lden threshold are reported.
License: Belfast's derived figures are published under CC BY 4.0 — reuse or republish with attribution to decibelshield.app. Contains public sector information from Defra, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and DAERA, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Download the full dataset (CSV · JSON).
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