Rent follows the singles: who lives where in Germany's 14 largest cities (census 2022)

7 November 2026

In 12 of Germany's 14 largest cities, the districts where most households are one person pay more rent than the districts where families and couples dominate. The typical gap is 16%, and it is widest in Frankfurt (32%). That is the clearest pattern in the 2022 census grid across 566 districts; age, ownership and building age matter much less once you compare districts inside the same city.

Rent in the districts with the most vs the fewest one-person households

The 14 cities side by side

Leipzig has the fewest owner-occupiers (11.2% of homes), Stuttgart the most (29.0%). Leipzig and Dresden have the oldest building stock: about half of their residential buildings date from before 1949.

The 10 youngest districts

The 10 districts with the most one-person households

How we did it

Rents are the average net cold rent per m² from the 2022 census (Destatis, 100 m grid), weighted by the number of rented flats in each grid cell and summed up to the district boundaries used on this site (OpenStreetMap). Population, age, household and building figures come from the same census grid, aggregated the same way. Districts with fewer than 300 rented flats are left out of the comparisons. Correlation is not cause: districts full of singles tend to be central, close to jobs and nightlife, and that is what the rent pays for.

Every district page now shows these census figures next to the city value, and each city has lists such as the districts with the most children or the newest buildings, plus an area finder. Berlin area finder →

Source: Destatis – Zensus 2022, Gitterzellen · OpenStreetMap.