Actual Use of Built-up Areas / Inventory of Green and Open Spaces 1990

Map Description

The City of Berlin covers an area of 889 km². Of this, 55% is built up, and 45% is green and/or open space (cf. Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Land Use in Berlin by Comparison with Other Cities

The share of the city’s area taken up by built-up areas, including roadways, 55 %, is high in comparison with other cities. Similar relationships between built-up and non-built-up area are to be found in the cities of Munich (57 % built-up area) and Bochum (58 % built-up area). In other cities, the open space share is over 50 %, with especially high shares in the cities of Frankfurt-on-Main (61 %) and Augsburg (66 %).

Map 06.01 ”Actual Use of Built-Up Areas”

Map 06.01 ”Actual Use of Built-Up Areas” shows the different use categories by their shares of the built-up area of Berlin and their distribution throughout the city area. Figure 2 elucidates the distribution of the use shares further.

Fig. 2: Shares of the Various Use Categories of the Total Built-Up Area of Berlin

More than the half of the built-up area of Berlin is used for housing. Small-Business and Industrial Areas and Public Facilities account for 14 % and 16 %, respectively – still a relatively large part of the built-up area of Berlin. The Traffic Areas are next, including the roadways, which are not shown as traffic areas, with 8 %, and then the Mixed Areas I and II with together 6 %. Very little space is taken up by the Core Areas, Utilities Areas, Traffic Areas, Weekend Cottage Areas and Construction Sites.

In the distribution of the use categories of the built-up areas within the urban area, characteristic structures can be recognized. Thus, purely residential and small business areas exist in the outskirts area much more frequently than within the City Rail Circle Line; there the Mixed and Core Area use categories are more heavily represented. Particularly, Small Business Areas are concentrated along from waterways and railroad lines, due to the more favorable transport conditions. One often finds Mixed Areas and scattered Core Areas in the old village centers in the different parts of town, as a consequence of the well-developed structures. Striking is the concentration of the Core Areas in both city center areas, of West and East Berlin, i.e., around Kurfürstendamm / Tauentzienstrasse and around the area of Alexanderplatz / Friedrichsstrasse, respectively. Public Facilities Areas are distributed throughout the entire urban area relatively evenly. Utilities Areas occur mainly in the outskirts, frequently in the neighborhood of Small Business Areas.

The described structures are also reflected in a comparison of the distribution of the land use categories within the individual boroughs (cf. Fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Proportions of Selected Use Categories in the Built-Up Areas of All Berlin Boroughs

Examples for the characteristic use distribution in the outskirts area are the boroughs of Tempelhof and Pankow, with 52 % and 50 % residential use and 18 % and 15 % industrial use, respectively, while in the borough of Mitte, with only 23 % Residential Areas, but 15 % Core Area use and a high share of Public Facilities (39 %), the central functions which have existed for centuries are reflected. This function is not shown so clearly for the West Berlin center around Kurfürstendamm / Tauentzienstrasse, which has a Core Area share of only 3 % or less, since the core area is distributed among the three boroughs of Charlottenburg, Tiergarten and Schöneberg. The inner city boroughs of Kreuzberg and Tiergarten have, with 30 %, a relatively low share of living space. In turn, the share of commercially-used area is very high, with 30 % and 20 %, respectively. Kreuzberg and Mitte are the boroughs with the largest Mixed Area shares (18 %). The originally available use mixture can still be recognized most clearly in the boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg.

Zehlendorf (63 % residential use) and Hellersdorf (76 % residential use) stand out as neighborhoods with slight industrial use (2 and 5 %, respectively).

Map 06.02 ”Inventory of Green and Open Spaces”

Map 06.02 ”Inventory of Green and Open Spaces,” shows the different use categories in their shares of the non-built-up areas of Berlin, as well as their distribution throughout the city.

The largest part of the inventory of green and open spaces lies in the outskirts area. The large wooded areas of the Grunewald and the Düppel forests in the southwest, the Spandau and Tegel forests in the northwest and the large forest areas in the borough Köpenick in the southeast of Berlin stand out particularly. Forests account for 38 % of all Green and Open Spaces (cf. Fig. 4).

Fig. 4: Shares of the Various Use Categories of the Total Inventory of Green and Open Space of Berlin

Agriculturally-used areas, which account for 11 % of the inventory of open space, are found particularly in the northeastern area (Pankow and Weissensee). Other agricultural areas are located in the eastern, southern and western outskirts. Allotment Gardens, which account for an additional 11 % of the open space inventory, are found almost. exclusively outside the City Rail Circle Line, in the outer boroughs. Often, they are located near canals, rivers and railroad lines. The currently unused Vacant Areas are distributed throughout the entire urban area, particularly along railroad lines and bodies of water as well as on the airfields. Tree Nurseries and Horticulture areas are found only in the outskirts area, while Sports Facilities, Cemeteries, and Parks and Green Spaces are located throughout the entire urban area. The area sizes of the individual open spaces increases as one moves from the inner city area toward the outskirts. In the inner city boroughs, the open space inventory consists mainly of smaller parks – with the exception of the Tiergarten, while Sports Facilities, Cemeteries, Vacant Areas and City Squares and Promenades. In the outer areas, the different open-space categories appear frequently in association with one another, e.g. Green Spaces, Allotment Gardens and Sports Areas; or Tree Nurseries, Vacant Areas and Allotment Gardens; or Forests, Meadow and Pastureland and Farmland, while the various open spaces in the inner city area usually occur in isolation, and are surrounded by built-up areas.