Dog Parks per Capita in German Cities: the 2026 Comparison

The top 10: dog parks per 100,000 residents

The first two places are close. Just two areas fewer in Magdeburg would swap them, so we read the top as a group: Magdeburg, Cologne and Hamburg are clearly ahead of the rest, followed by Halle (Saale), Leipzig, Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf and Hanover with values between 6.1 and 7.5. Düsseldorf and Hanover are separated by less than 0.02 areas per 100,000 residents.

Hamburg stands out: it has the most areas in total but drops behind two smaller cities per capita because it has almost 1.9 million residents. That is why we calculate per 100,000 residents instead of just counting.

The full table: 21 cities with an official figure

Sorted by areas per 100,000 residents. The source column gives the term the city itself uses and the date of the figure. Cities with a guide link have their own Souldog city guide; the link on the city name leads to the places directory.

Together that is 538 designated areas for 10,179,636 residents, or 5.3 areas per 100,000 residents across all 21 cities. The median of the 21 cities is 4.0.

What the numbers show and what they do not

Ten cities reach more than 5 areas per 100,000 residents; eleven are below that. At the bottom are cities with very few areas: Braunschweig, Heidelberg, Mannheim and Stuttgart have three to five areas, and Freiburg im Breisgau lists a single designated dog meadow as a pilot project.

A high number does not automatically mean more space. A single area can be a park, a fenced circle or a stretch of path, and cities do not count them uniformly. Conversely, a city with few areas may have large forests where state law lets dogs run off leash. We do not count those because the cities do not designate them as dog meadows.

The figure also depends on a city's leash rules: where a leash is required almost everywhere, a designated area is the place for legal off-leash exercise. How the rules look in 31 cities is covered in the comparison of dog rules in German cities 2026.

Methodology: sources, counting, limits

What is counted. Every area a city designates on its own pages, in a brochure or in a council paper as a dog meadow, dog exercise area, off-leash area or exercise zone. Additionally designated paths, dog beaches and special permissions are not counted; this is noted per city in the table (Hamburg, Leipzig, Hanover, Bielefeld, Oldenburg).

Residents. Destatis, municipality directory, territorial status 31 Dec 2024, population based on the 2022 census. We calculate areas divided by residents times 100,000 and round to one decimal place. We use the residents of the municipality, not the region.

How cities count. Cities use different terms (dog meadow, off-leash area, exercise zone, exercise area) and count differently. Düsseldorf lists fenced dog run areas and unfenced off-leash areas separately; we add both (35 and 3). Cologne gives no total; we counted the table (95 rows, 94 distinct numbers because no. 27 is assigned twice). Stuttgart also gives no total; we counted the five listed locations. The metric measures number, not area in hectares.

Date of the figures. We checked the figures against the sources on 25 Oct 2026. For Karlsruhe (council paper 06/2022), Bremen (press release 02/2023) and Heidelberg (press release 06/2024) the official figure is older; areas may have been added since, in which case the value is too low. For Oldenburg and Wuppertal we could not read the city page automatically on 25 Oct 2026; the figures come from our research of August and October 2026 and cite the same city page as source.

Which cities are missing. Only cities with an official total are included. Berlin, Munich, Dortmund, Bonn, Münster, Duisburg, Dresden and Augsburg give no total on their pages or only examples; for Frankfurt am Main we could not find one; for Lübeck, Aachen and Potsdam we only have older council documents. That does not mean there are no areas there. This is not a full survey of all large cities, and we do not count places from maps or third-party directories.

What the list does not say. Nothing about the size, fencing, water, shade or cleanliness of an area, and nothing about the quality of dog life in a city. To find an area nearby, see our guide on finding a dog meadow near you and the dog-friendly places directory.

Frequently Asked Questions

Your turn

Look up your city in the dog-friendly places directory, open the matching city guide and check the signs on site, because only they are binding. In the Souldog app you can find dog meadows and confirmed places on the Discover map. For the leash rules in your city, see the comparison of dog rules in German cities 2026.