Quiet areas in the European Directive 2002/49/EC are characterized with an acoustic level. But since 2002 some studies have shown that quiet areas can be characterized also with other parameters depending on personal or common representations: the meaning of the sound sources, the relative aspect, the visual environment, etc. The Q-methodology has been chosen to reveal the different groups of people who share the same representation of quiet areas. Consequently, a questionnaire has been developed on internet, where people were asked to evaluate their agreement in regard to 47 statements on a Likert scale. From 200 participants, 5 groups have been revealed. For the greatest group of persons, the presence of typical sources, such as water or birds, is the most important characteristic of quiet areas. This profile brings together persons who mostly live in town. Another group gathers people who seek to escape from the daily life. Another group of persons focuses on their psychological rest. These different points of view have to be taken into account by urban planners when they want to preserve or create some quiet areas in an urban context.