Monitoring of rural areas in Germany

Background and Objective

The official statistics already offer a wide range of data and indicators to analyse and depict living conditions in rural areas. Yet, rurality is characterized by highly diverse social, economic and structural conditions which so far can only hardly be portrayed. Our knowledge on how the inhabitants of rural areas perceive and assess their quality of life and service provision – and whether distinct assessments coincide with different types of rural areas – is still limited. The monitoring project both provides a differentiated picture of rural areas in Germany and involves the perceptions of the population.

Approach

The monitoring of rural areas consists of five components:

1. a typology of rural areas to give consideration to the diversity of rurality in Germany (will be updated in 2025),
2. a continuously expanded set of indicators that allows for the analysis and illustration of social, demographic and economic developments of rural areas as well as their land use and service accessibility,
3. a web-mapping application (Landatlas) to display the different indicators by means of interactive maps,
4. standardized questionnaire surveys and qualitative interviews on subjective assessments of rural quality of life,
5. secondary analyses of large German population surveys

Data and Methods

The monitoring builds, on the one hand, upon existing structural data that will be presented in interactive maps. To this end, we use small-scale data from official federal and state statistics (particularly the INKAR system of the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development BBSR) and create new indices in order to display the social, demographic, economic and land-use situation of rural areas in Germany as well as its changes over time.

On the other hand, we use a variety of data that relate to subjective assessments of rural living conditions. To that end, we conduct questionnaire surveys on our own and we also re-analyse data from regular Germany-wide surveys, such as SOEP and ALLBUS with our specific spatial focus. Our research interests centre on issues of subjective quality of life and well-being as well as on assessments of the availability, accessibility and quality of public and private services by rural residents.

Our Research Questions

• How can we analytically and meaningfully classify rural areas in Germany?
• How do distinct types of rural areas differ with respect to their social, demographic and economic situation as well as regarding the accessibility of public and private services?
• How does the population perceive the quality of life and provision of services in rural areas? Which differences do we find when comparing social and age groups, different types of rural areas as well as rural and non-rural areas? How can we explain these differences?

Preliminary Results

• In 2016, the socio-spatial typology of rural areas (so-called Thünen typology) was completed and published as a Thünen Working Paper. In 2025, a revised version is planned.
• The web mapping application Landatlas which is continuously enlarged and updated is to be found here: https://www.landatlas.de/
• Our research results concerning quality of life, well-being and subjective assessments of public and private services based on our own surveys as well as on secondary analyses are regularly published in journal papers, book chapters and Thünen reports.