How we research our study guides
Our guides to German states, cities and districts combine official statistics (Destatis, the German Weather Service) with researched, individually sourced information for students — housing, jobs, transport, culture — and are checked automatically before they are published.
1. Official numbers, straight from the source
Population, area and density come from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis, Gemeindeverzeichnis, 31 December 2024). Weather is the German Weather Service's (DWD) official 1991–2020 average at the station nearest each district. University and course numbers come from our own catalogue of every German university, the same one behind the map. None of these numbers is written by hand.
2. Researched, with a source for every claim
Each guide is researched individually from primary sources: city and district websites, the local Studierendenwerk, universities, transport associations, Deutsche Bahn and tourism boards. Every checkable statement — a rent, a timetable, an employer, an event — carries a link to where it was found, right next to the claim. Anything that couldn't be confirmed is left out rather than guessed.
3. Checked before it goes live
Before a guide is published, every source link is opened automatically, every photo's licence and author are read from Wikimedia Commons itself (only public-domain, CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA images are used), and guides with too few sources or no photo are kept out of search engines until they are improved.
4. Dated, and corrected when things change
Rents and prices change. Each guide shows when it was last updated, and we correct errors as soon as we hear about them — write to support@whereismy.group. Student experiences on each page are written by students and read by our team before they appear.
Maps: © GeoBasis-DE / BKG (dl-de/by-2-0). Weather: Deutscher Wetterdienst (CC BY 4.0). Statistics: Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, credited on each page. Rents: MLP Studentenwohnreport 2026 and the sources named on each page. Browse all guides.