Two screenshots from the data portal created by wetransform for the Landesentwicklungsplan of the German state of Baden-Württemberg are set against a yellow background. Top left shows six bar charts with municipality-level comparisons for population and housing between Stuttgart and Heidelberg, alongside a map where both places are outlined in yellow. This overlaps a larger map on the right, displaying the entirety of Baden-Württemberg. Inset on the bottom left is the text

Datenportal Landesplanung Baden-Württemberg – Understanding Regional Development

General Interest News Projects Data Accessibility Data Management Data Usefulness Environmental Data Geodata Projects
Moritz Bock
John Boudewijn
John Boudewijn
Thorsten Reitz
Thorsten Reitz
20 May 2026

A “Landesentwicklungsplan”, or state development plan, is the highest level in the hierarchy of German land-use planning. Since spatial planning and regional development affect our lives in many ways, relevant information on trends and existing regulations needs to be accessible and understandable for every citizen.

The state development plan is the overarching legal framework for spatial planning within one of Germany’s sixteen states. It guides regional planning, municipal land use, and sector-specific planning. That means the plan determines which areas are suitable for matters such as housing, shopping, industry, farming, infrastructure, and nature preservation.

Four pictures of Baden-Württemberg, centrally overlaid with a grey shape of the state, bearing the black over gold bi-color flag with the state's greater coat of arms in the middle. The four photos are of Heidelberg Old Town with the Neckar river, vineyards in the Rems Valley, a train on a brick railway bridge in the Black Forest's Ravenna Gorge, and the Johann-Kern-Sternwarte observatory by Wertheim.

From time to time, these plans are updated and adapted to changes that have occurred in the real world. In the case of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, the latest state development plan dated back to 2002. Time for an update!

A cornerstone of the creation of a new development plan is to involve the wider public, from NGOs, to other professionals and citizens alike. In order to inform all these stakeholder groups and to enable them to provide feedback and requirements, the state’s Ministry of Regional Development and Housing tasked wetransform with the creation of a comprehensive interactive portal. This portal enables citizens to actively participate in the process component, as well as to understand the many variables that are relevant to finding the best compromises.

A key part for the latter is the “data portal”. It presents data on the state’s spatial development since the year 2000 and shows current and potential future trends that could impact the region.

The Data & Mapping Portal

To support the process of defining the new development plan for Baden-Württemberg, wetransform has created a data and mapping tool for the exploration of spatiotemporal series.

This portal provides an overview of time series of spatial data within Baden-Württemberg and its sub-regions and displays these in a systematic, transparent, and user-oriented manner.

By using the portal, citizens and experts alike are able to analyse Baden-Württemberg's development over time. Categorised by several topics, they have access to interactive maps, consistent data, and comparative representations, with indicators ranging from average local temperatures to the number of cars.

Those indicators can be analysed in several ways:

  • The map provides a quick overview by visualising regions
  • The charts enable an efficiently view to trace the history of certain metrics
  • The portal allows for the direct comparison between two regions that are of particular interest
Screenshot from the geodata portal for Baden-Württemberg. To the left, it shows that the selected theme is "Traffic & Mobility", focused on Stuttgart. The first time series line graph underneath is only partially visible due to scrolling down, but the second one is labelled "Personenkraftwagen je 1000 Einwohner" and shows a slight rising line from a little under 500 in 2018 to roundabout 500 in 2025. Under this is a bar chart showing the absolute number of cars, again from 2018 to 2025, all floating around 300.000. To the right of these charts is a map of Baden-Württemberg that indicates the amount of cars per 1000 inhabitants, with a light-coloured Stuttgart circled in yellow, but many darker patches in more rural areas.

This screenshot shows that the amount of cars per 1000 inhabitants in Stuttgart did not change significantly over the last eight years. While Stuttgart is considered one of Germany's major car cities, the map visualisation suggests that the necessity of cars in rural counties of Baden-Württemberg is far greater than within the city limits.

screenshot from the data and mapping tool for Baden-Württemberg. To the left, the regions of Karlsruhe and Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg are being compared side-by-side under the thematic header "Climate & Environment". The indicators shown are a line graph for average temperatures from 2000 to 2025, annual hot days as a bar chart for the same time span, and finally another bar chart for days with over 20mm worth of rain. To the right is a map of the entirety of Baden-Württemberg, showing a heat map in two senses of the word by displaying the average temperature for 2025 across the state, with the two selected regions outlined in yellow.

Here, you can see a comparison between Baden-Württemberg's hottest and coldest regions (incl. their history) in the charts, while the map simultaneously provides an overview of average temperatures across the entire state.

As Ansgar Schmitz-Veltin, the Head of Spatial Observation at the Ministry of Regional Development and Housing for Baden-Württemberg, puts it:

"With our data and mapping tool, we are ushering in a fresh era of spatial observation in Baden-Württemberg. This portal provides continuous insights into the structure of our spaces and how they are developing – serving regional and state planning, as well as all other stakeholders involved in spatial planning in our region, and making this information accessible to the general public."

Going Beyond Baden-Württemberg

Beyond Baden-Württemberg, this type of data portal could be valuable to all public authorities that need to communicate complex regional developments that take place over time. Given challenges such as climate adaptation, the green transition, the creation of resilient regions and communities, and many others, improved spatial planning will be essential in the coming years. However, such plans will only be better if all stakeholders involved can view and understand the facts.

If you want to learn how your data could be communicated using the wetransform Data Portal, reach out to us!