Other divisions · Water
North Sea, Baltic or Black Sea
Rain falling on 76% of Germany ends up in the North Sea, 16% in the Black Sea via the Danube and 8% in the Baltic. 10.7 million people live in the 68 districts that drain mainly to the Black Sea.
| Zone | Districts | People | Share | Area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Sea Rhine, Meuse, Ems, Weser, Elbe and Eider basins | 318 | 70 m | 83.9% | 271,738 km² |
| Baltic Sea Oder, Schlei/Trave and Warnow/Peene basins | 15 | 2.7 m | 3.3% | 28,126 km² |
| Black Sea Danube basin | 68 | 10.7 m | 12.9% | 57,726 km² |
Germany's rivers drain to three seas. The Rhine, Meuse, Ems, Weser, Elbe and Eider carry water to the North Sea; together they cover 318 of 401 districts and 84% of the population. The Elbe basin alone is the main basin of 77 districts, the Rhine of 170.
South of the European main watershed, the Danube takes water east to the Black Sea. 60 of Bavaria's 96 districts and 8 in Baden-Württemberg drain mainly that way. Franconia, in Bavaria's north, belongs to the Rhine via the Main, so the divide runs right through the state, from the Allgäu north, south of Nuremberg, to the Fichtelgebirge.
Only a strip along the north-east coast and the Oder–Neisse border drains to the Baltic: 15 districts with 3% of the population. Berlin lies in the North Sea catchment: the Spree flows into the Havel and on into the Elbe.
This is a line older than any border on the site. It owes nothing to the 1949–1990 division: both East and West have North Sea and Baltic districts, and the Danube basin lies entirely in the former West.
Does the line still show?
Today's figures on each side, as population-weighted averages of the district values (our calculation from the live themes on this site).
| Indicator | North Sea | Baltic Sea | Black Sea |
|---|---|---|---|
| AfD vote 2025 | 20.4% | 28.3% | 19.3% |
| Green vote 2025 | 11.8% | 9.7% | 12.3% |
| Unemployment 2025 | 6.6% | 7.6% | 3.9% |
| Gross monthly salary € 31.12.2025 | 4,156 | 3,649 | 4,397 |
| Young people 31.12.2025 | 13.1% | 11.7% | 13.6% |
| Childcare 1 March 2025 | 39.2% | 54.5% | 31.2% |
| Foreign population 31.12.2025 | 16.8% | 9.4% | 19.2% |
How we drew the line
River basin districts (Flussgebietseinheiten) of the EU Water Framework Directive, German part, were intersected with the 401 districts in a Lambert equal-area projection (mapshaper). Each district is assigned to the sea whose catchment covers the largest share of its area: Danube → Black Sea; Rhine, Meuse, Ems, Weser, Elbe, Eider → North Sea; Oder, Schlei/Trave, Warnow/Peene → Baltic. The tooltip value is that share. Lines are the shared edges of the merged sea catchments, simplified to about 300 m. Population (31.12.2025) and area per zone are totals of whole districts.
- 31 districts straddle a divide (less than 90% of their area in one sea's catchment); they are shown in the majority sea.
- River basin districts are administrative units for water management. Coastal waters and a few small coastal catchments are allocated to the neighbouring basin, so the coastline areas follow the official FGE boundaries rather than a pure hydrological watershed.
- Some water is diverted across the divide (e.g. the Danube–Main Canal and the Franconian lake district transfer water north into the Main), which is not reflected here.