Delimitation of constituencies for the elections to the 16th German Bundestag

The territory of the Federal Republic of Germany is subdivided into 299 constituencies. The boundaries of these constituencies for the elections to the 16th German Bundestag have been specified in the Annex to the Seventeenth Law amending the Federal Electoral Law of 11 March 2005 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 674).

Compared with the demarcation of constituencies for the 2002 Bundestag Elections, the boundaries of 38 constituencies have been modified by the legislator through the Seventeenth Law amending the Federal Electoral Law. Bayern has received an additional constituency (45 constituencies instead of 44 as in the 2002 Bundestag Elections), and there is one constituency less in Thüringen (9 constituencies instead of 10 as in the 2002 Bundestag Elections).

These modifications became necessary, inter alia, because of the provisions of Article 3, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, Nos. 2, 3 and 5 of the Federal Electoral Law. They stipulate that the number of constituencies in each of the Länder correspond as closely as possible to a Land's share in the total population. Therefore, the population of a constituency must not deviate from the average population of the constituencies by more than 15 percent in either direction; if the deviation amounts to more than 25 percent, the constituency boundaries have to be redrawn. The German population is the decisive factor. Also, the boundaries of municipalities, administrative districts and towns not attached to an administrative district shall be adhered to where possible.

Pursuant to the Seventeenth Law amending the Federal Electoral Law, the 299 constituencies are distributed among the 16 Länder as follows (constituency numbers in brackets):

Baden-Württemberg (constituencies 259 to 295)	37
Bayern (constituencies 214 to 258)	45
Berlin (constituencies 76 to 87)	12
Brandenburg (constituencies 56 to 65)	10
Bremen (constituencies 54 and 55)	2
Hamburg (constituencies 19 to 24)	6
Hessen (constituencies 169 to 189)	21
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (constituencies 12 to 18)	7
Niedersachsen (constituencies 25 to 53)	29
Nordrhein-Westfalen (constituencies 88 to 151)	64
Rheinland-Pfalz (constituencies 199 to 213)	15
Saarland (constituencies 296 to 299)	4
Sachsen (constituencies 152 to 168)	17
Sachsen-Anhalt (constituencies 66 to 75)	10
Schleswig-Holstein (constituencies 1 to 11)	11
Thüringen (constituencies 190 to 198)	9

Cartographic presentation of the constituencies for downloading.

The description of the constituencies, last amended by the notification on the delimitation of constituencies for the elections to the German Bundestag of 21 July 2005 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 2180) is available here as a consolidated version for downloading, PDF, 212 KB.

A map of the constituencies of the 16th German Bundestag may be obtained from the publishers

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