Representative Counties of Germany and Their Structural Data

Content

A dataset of counties that are representative for Germany with regard to

• the average disposable income,
• the quota of divorces,
• the respective quotas of employees working in the services (excluding logistics, security, and cleaning) and the MINT sectors,
• the proportions of age groups in the total proportion of the respective population, with age groups in five-year strata for the population aged between 30 and 65 and the population in the age range between 65 and 75 each considered separately for the calculation of representativeness.
• population density, if the benchmark is defined as the national average density weighted by county population. This value is calculated by averaging the population-per-square-kilometer figures of all German counties, weighted by the population size of each county. In contrast to a simple arithmetic mean of county-level densities, which would disproportionately reflect sparsely populated areas, this method reflects the actual density of the environments where people live. The resulting value for the selected counties falls within the 95% confidence interval of the national weighted average.

In addition, data from the four big cities Berlin, München (Munich), Hamburg, and Köln (Cologne) were collected and reflected in the dataset.

The dataset is based on the most recent data available at the time of the creation of the dataset, mainly deriving from 2022, as set out in detail in the readme.md file.

Method applied

The selection of the representative counties, as reflected in the dataset, was performed on the basis of official statistics with the aim of obtaining a confidence rate of 95%. The selection was based on a principal component analysis of the statistical data available for Germany and the addition of the regions with the lowest population density and the highest and lowest per capita disposable income. A check of the representativity of the selected counties was performed.

In the case of Leipzig, the city and the district had to be treated together, in deviation from the official territorial division, with respect to a specific use case of the data.