Walking is the main form of animal locomotion on land, distinguished from running and crawling. When carried out in shallow waters, it is usually described as wading and when performed over a steeply rising object or an obstacle it becomes scrambling or climbing. The word walking is derived from the Old English walkan (to roll).
Walking is generally distinguished from running in that only one foot at a time leaves contact with the ground: for humans and other bipeds running begins when both feet are off the ground with each step. (This distinction has the status of a formal requirement in competitive walking events, often resulting in disqualification even at the Olympic level.) For horses and other quadrupedal species, the running gaits may be numerous, and walking keeps three feet at a time on the ground.
While not strictly bipedal, several primarily bipedal human gaits (where the long bones of the arms support at most a small fraction of the body's weight) are generally regarded as variants of walking. These include:
For humans, walking is the main form of transportation without a vehicle or riding animal. An average walking speed is about 5 km/h (3 mph), although this depends heavily on factors such as height, weight, age and terrain. A pedestrian is a walking person, in particular on a road (if available on the sidewalk/path/pavement).