Number of week number 37 of September 8, 2020
WIESBADEN – Get together in the open air, meet friends, escape your apartment – during the Corona crisis, the green spaces in major German cities attracted a particularly large number of people. You are currently benefiting from the fact that the proportion of green spaces in the settlement and traffic area in most large cities has increased slightly over 22 years, both in absolute terms and per capita. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) for 2018, the 14 most populous cities in Germany with more than 500,000 inhabitants had an average of 25 square meters of green space per capita. In 1996 it was 18 square meters. During the same period, the proportion of green spaces in the settlement and traffic area in these metropolises rose from 7.7% to 10.9%. Green areas include parks, urban green areas, botanical gardens, playgrounds, but also allotments.
Trend towards more green spaces also in large cities with smaller populations
This stable trend can also be seen in large cities with a population between 250,000 and 500,000. In these cities, the proportion of green spaces in the settlement and traffic area increased by 2.6 percentage points to 9.7% between 1996 and 2018. Here, for every resident, there was an average of 27 square meters of green space. In cities with 100,000 to less than 250,000 inhabitants, the proportion rose to 9.2%. The area per capita was 31 square meters in 2018. Overall, the development shows the great importance attached to the functions of green spaces in urban areas.
In the metropolises, where the distance to the local recreation areas in the surrounding area is long and the need is particularly high, the proportion of green spaces is also above average. For comparison: Overall, the share of green spaces in settlement and traffic areas in Germany was recently 6%. The values of the individual cities can only be compared indirectly with one another due to topographical differences and significant historical developments. For example, cities in a basin such as Stuttgart have fewer spatial opportunities to expand their green spaces, while other large cities such as Hanover or Leipzig are on flat terrain and could expand more easily. Former royal cities like Munich or Berlin traditionally have representative and extensive parks, fortifications of former free imperial cities were often converted into green belts, as in Frankfurt am Main or Cologne.
Methodological note:
For the statistical evaluation of the figures on green spaces, the moving four-year average was used by adding up and averaging the values of the respective reporting year with the values of the three previous years. This compensates for any annual fluctuations that are associated with data collection in the cadastral system in order to be able to map the long-term trend of development.
Further information:
The basis of the official area statistics are the data of the official real estate cadastre information system (ALKIS), which is managed by the individual cadastral authorities. The data will be sent from there on December 31st. transmitted to the statistical offices in tabular form every year.
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