Written documents nowadays cannot provide one final and overall applicable definition of the term “Rural Germany”. It is not easy to wholly define an area with rural character. According to the Federal Planning Law of Germany, this geographical term characterizes all those areas which cannot be described as urban centers and where farming characterizes the physiognomy of both the landscape and its settlements.

There are various definitions for the term rural, but seldom are these rural definitions in agreement. For some, rural is a subjective state of mind. For others, rural is an objective quantitative measure.

Take for instance Bad Kohlgrub, a rural spa town so small it doesn’t appear on most maps. Compact and picturesque, set in luminous green fields, its white-walled houses feature intricate pictures of saints and pastoral scenes. Wooden shutters thrown open to the summer air are underlined by red geraniums spilling out of window boxes. One can spend an afternoon an gazing in awe at its opulence. One establishment have rooms that are filled with a bewildering display of gilded ornaments, paintings, silver and precious tapestries. Given this setting, would you agree that this is indeed part of the rural Germany?

The truth is large parts of Germany are urbanised and only few are rural and lower densed. In West Germany these regions are small and extremely dispersed. Only in North Eastern Germany, larger parts of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern & Brandenburg consist of
Communities that are rural in nature.