Climate adaptation · Map series · as of 10 September 2026 · Deutsch
Europe heat-resilient
106 maps currently show, street by street, where heat builds up in public space, where shade is missing and where there is room to act — in towns and cities across Germany, in 44 other European countries as well as in Beijing, Baku, Ankara, Washington, D.C. and New York City. They range from Beijing with 11.0 million down to Bernried am Starnberger See with 2,421 inhabitants.
This project is produced entirely independently, with full documentation of method and data for every location. It does not replace an official climate analysis; it translates existing data into the practical question every municipality increasingly has to answer: where can we act first, and at what cost?
Meerbusch, the freely accessible example map of the series. The heat load comes from the state's urban climate model on a 25 m grid (Klimaanalyse NRW 2026, LANUK, FITNAH 3D) — not a satellite estimate. The tree crowns are derived from Geobasis NRW's 50 cm surface model and, unlike a tree cadastre, cover private land as well; buildings and land use come parcel-accurate from the cadastre. Red marks the places where a planting takes effect first. The search areas are areas to examine, not tree sites: whether a tree can stand there depends on utility lines, emergency access and the parking spaces that would go — and the map shows those spaces. Every layer can be switched and clicked separately, every source documented with date and licence.
9.4 %crown cover over street space24.6 %of the heat-loaded street area with no tree within 17 metres850individually assessed public places
Where maps and analyses exist so far
place with a map in this overview
outside the map view — marker at the edge
Every place name leads straight into a password-protected area. Clicking Germany opens the overview of all maps in that country. Outline and state borders: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0). For maps outside the map view, direction and distance are measured from the centre of the area shown. The map shows one capital per country; 56 further maps in the series are counted and reachable through the place selector, but are not drawn here.Position in the European context, in addition to the detailed map above: highlighted are the 49 countries with maps in this series — every one of the 27 EU member states is now represented by at least one map. Outline: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0), retrieved on 4 August 2026.
What the maps show
All maps answer the following questions for the entire municipal area:
Where does heat build up at night, and where does it develop during the day? That comes from the respective state's climate analysis or climate model, for day and night separately wherever both exist — a tropical night is more dangerous than a hot afternoon.
Where does shade fall, and where is it missing? The computation covers tree canopies above street space, taken from a tree cadastre or from aerial imagery and surface models, combined with the parcels of the cadastre.
Where would a tree help most, and how do specific public places — schools, playgrounds, bus stops, care homes — fare? The search runs where both come together: a severely heat-stressed street surface with no canopy nearby. Public places also get a shading figure of their own.
What stands in the way, how much ground does it take, and where would the conflict over space be greatest? A tree needs room, and street space is already allocated: parking bays, utility lines, driveways. The maps report the parking spaces affected instead of passing over the question.
What these maps are not
Not an official statement, not grounds for deciding any individual case, and not a ranking of the towns and cities included.
The 51 maps outside Germany follow the same method but rest on the data their own country provides — from official cadastres to OpenStreetMap throughout. Which source a map rests on, and what that means for its figures, is stated in its own methodology.
A map for your municipality
In its basic version the method works at every scale and needs no input from the town hall. Besides the practical reason there is a statutory one. Germany's federal Climate Adaptation Act (KAnG, in force since July 2024) obliges the federal states to ensure that climate adaptation plans are drawn up for municipalities and districts on the basis of climate risk analyses. These maps supply the spatial groundwork for the heat component: street by street, with documented sources.
A complete map of the municipal area. Street by street, interactive, in a separate password-protected area for your administration. On request also on your own server.
Priority sites for action. Where severe heat stress coincides with a lack of shade, including the surfaces and parking spaces that stand in the way of planting.
Shading figures for public places. Schools, playgrounds, bus stops and care homes, each assessed individually.
Methodology that holds up. Every source documented with its issuing body, date and licence, the central figure independently cross-checked, citable for committee papers and funding applications.
If you are interested, you can view the example map — a complete map from the series, freely accessible. Meerbusch →
