Where does half of Germany's population live?

Half of Germany's population lives on just 3.2% of its land.

Measured from the GHSL population grid (European Commission JRC, 2025) inside Natural Earth borders. How we measured this

  • The south-west side: half the population, on 31.8% of the land
  • The rest: the other half, on 68.2%

Taller columns mean more people. The dashed line is the most lopsided straight cut that still splits the population exactly in half. Data: GHSL population grid (European Commission JRC, 2025) inside Natural Earth borders.

The straight-line test

Draw one straight line across Germany so that exactly half the population is on each side. Of all the lines that do it, the most lopsided puts half of everyone on the south-west side, on just 31.8% of the land.

Now cut the land in half instead, at the same angle. That looks like the fair cut, but the south-west half ends up with 64.4% of the people. Both figures are our measurements from the GHSL population grid (European Commission JRC, 2025) inside Natural Earth borders.

That gap between how a country looks and where its people are is exactly what Slice is about.

Why Germany is spread so evenly

Germany's biggest cluster of people, Rhine-Ruhr in the west, isn't one giant city. It is a region of more than 10 million people where Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and their neighbours have grown into each other: many centres, not one.

Our own measure shows how even it is. Germany's most lopsided half-cut still needs almost a third of the land: far more than Japan, Australia or South Korea, where a much smaller corner holds half of everyone.

The east has been thinning out, though: about 1.7 million people, 12% of its population, have left the former East German states since the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to official figures. Germany is home to about 83.5 million people in all, the most of any country in the European Union.

Think you can do better? Try splitting Germany yourself.

Now you know where everyone lives, so this should be easy, right? In Slice you get one straight line to cut Germany's population exactly in half, and a second try if you need it. Then the country splits and the population rises in columns, to show how close you got.

Split Germany yourselfOr play today's puzzle: four new countries

Free, no sign-up. Practice never touches your daily score or streak.

Germany in Slice after a cut: the country split in two, its population rising in columns, with each side's share labelled.

How we measured this

Every figure on this page comes from the same data as the game: the GHSL population grid (European Commission JRC, 2025) inside Natural Earth borders, which estimates how many people live in each 1 km square. We draw the country on an equal-area map, so every square kilometre counts the same.

“3.2% of its land” counts the most crowded 1 km squares first, until they hold half the people. It measures how tightly people pack, which is why it comes out much smaller than maps that colour whole cities or counties. The straight-line figures test a cut at every angle, one degree apart.

Sources