Business parks are not glittering miles with shop windows, cafés and urban flair - on the contrary: they often appear functional, sober and sometimes even bleak. Functional buildings, wide streets and little quality of stay characterize the picture. The focus here is less on aesthetics and more on efficiency, accessibility and economic use.
Industrial estates are specially designated areas for the establishment of companies and businesses. They offer optimal conditions for economic activities, such as good transport connections, suitable infrastructure and flexible land use. By bundling businesses in one location, synergies are created that offer both companies and local authorities many advantages.
From the "Ostend" to a modern business park
At the beginning of industrialization, clearly defined districts with different social characteristics emerged in many cities. Often a wealthy "Westend" and an industrial "Ostend" emerged - influenced by the prevailing westerly winds, which kept smoke and pollutants away from the preferred residential areas. Today, this separation is less relevant, but commercial areas are still usually physically separated from residential areas in order to minimize noise and traffic pollution.
Commercial and industrial parks are specially designated areas with good infrastructure, a strategic location and optimal accessibility - for example via highways, rail connections and efficient supply networks. They make operations and logistics easier for companies, for example when transporting goods or connecting customers and employees.
The main difference between commercial and industrial areas lies in the permitted use: commercial areas usually accommodate office parks, craft businesses or smaller logistics sites, while industrial areas provide space for large-scale technical facilities such as refineries or chemical plants.
There are numerous important commercial and industrial areas in Germany that are economically influential due to their size, locational advantages and company density. The spatial concentration creates synergies from which both companies and municipalities benefit.
Two well-known and very large industrial estates in Germany are:
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Münchheide industrial estate (Willich, NRW): With an area of around 176 hectares, this is one of the largest contiguous industrial estates in Europe (map excerpt). Since 1978, around 750 companies with over 7,000 employees have settled there.
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Large industrial area Erfurter Kreuz (Thuringia): This area near Arnstadt is one of the largest industrial areas in eastern Germany (map section). It offers excellent transport connections and is home to numerous companies from various sectors. One highlight is a gigafactory for batteries (e-mobility).
Nexiga business parks: Facts and applications
Nexiga offers a comprehensive dataset on commercial areas that is ideal for geographical analyses. The basis is the Digital Landscape Model (Basis-DLM) of the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG), as of June 2024.
While the BKG only updates its data every three years, Nexiga carries out an annual update. Changes at municipal level (KGS8) are taken into account so that an up-to-date and precise database is always available.
The current release comprises over 185,000 polygons that precisely delimit the commercial areas. Larger areas are often subdivided into several sub-areas. Compared to 2020, this represents an increase of over 25 %, which enables a much more detailed representation. The total area of the commercial areas covered is around 6,600 km².
A practical example: Our map shows the distribution of Nexiga business parks in the Düsseldorf-Neuss area, including the well-known Münchheide area.
The geographical outlines (polygons) of business parks provide a valuable basis for numerous economic analyses and decisions. Some concrete application examples:
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Planning of fiber optic networks: The precise demarcation of commercial areas enables targeted and efficient infrastructure planning - especially for the optimal supply of corporate customers with high-performance broadband connections.
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Location analysis: Companies can evaluate the proximity to existing business parks and infrastructure in order to identify suitable locations for new branches or expansion projects.
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Real estate development: Investors and project developers use the area outlines to specifically identify attractive development locations. Aspects such as potential conflicts of use and long-term value development can also be better assessed in this way.
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Traffic and logistics planning: The exact outlines are crucial for optimizing traffic routes and connecting to logistics networks - e.g. to avoid bottlenecks and improve accessibility.
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Environmental management: The areas provide a precise basis for analysis and control when assessing potential environmental impacts and planning compensatory measures.
- In addition, geocoded company addresses (points of interest) can also be strategically evaluated in combination with the area data. In the B2B sector, careful environmental and market analysis is essential - for location or branch planning, for example. With the company addresses and market data from Nexiga, we provide all the relevant bases for decision-making in order to make economically sound and future-proof location decisions.
