GERDA: German Election Database
Election results for Germany at the municipality and constituency level: federal, state, local, European, mayoral, Landrat, and county elections since 1945, plus subnational public opinion estimates for 43 policy issues.
Datasets
Federal Elections
Turnout and vote shares for all parties, with harmonized datasets mapped to 2021 and 2025 boundaries.
Usage notesState Elections
State election results with three harmonization versions (2021, 2023, 2025 boundaries).
Usage notesConstituency Elections
Results by Wahlkreis: all 299 Bundestag constituencies and the Landtag constituencies of all 16 states, with first and second votes.
Usage notesMunicipal Elections
Local election results across all German municipalities with turnout and party vote shares.
Usage notesEuropean Elections
European Parliament election results at the municipality level across four elections, harmonized to 2021 boundaries.
Usage notesMayoral Elections
Election results, candidates, and a mayor panel that follows individuals across terms.
Usage notesLandrat Elections
Direct elections of the heads of Landkreise and equivalent regions, with election and candidate data.
Usage notesMeinungsbild
Subnational public opinion estimates across states, electoral districts, and counties based on ~118,000 survey responses.
DetailsHarmonization
Harmonized versions map results onto fixed municipal boundaries with population-weighted crosswalks.
Usage notesAuthors
- Vincent Heddesheimer (vincent.heddesheimer@princeton.edu)
- Hanno Hilbig (hhilbig@ucdavis.edu)
- Florian Sichart (fsichart@princeton.edu)
- Andreas Wiedemann (awiedemann@princeton.edu)
Citation
Please cite the accompanying paper when using this dataset:
Heddesheimer, Vincent, Hanno Hilbig, Florian Sichart, & Andreas Wiedemann. 2025. GERDA: German Election Database. Nature: Scientific Data, 12: 618.
@article{Heddesheimer2025GERDA,
author = {Vincent Heddesheimer and Hanno Hilbig and Florian Sichart and Andreas Wiedemann},
doi = {10.1038/s41597-025-04811-5},
issn = {2052-4463},
issue = {1},
journal = {Scientific Data},
month = {4},
pages = {618},
title = {GERDA: The German Election Database},
volume = {12},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-025-04811-5},
year = {2025}
}
Contributing
The database is maintained and extended regularly. For suggestions, data issues, or contributions, open an issue on GitHub or email us.