choropleth election map displaying the CDU dominant within the west and the AfD successful within the east
In my round-up of 2025 German Election Maps, I commented on the “stark distinction between the leads to former East Germany and the remainder of the nation.” It was instantly obvious to most observers of final week’s German election that there was a transparent voting cut up alongside the outdated East-West German border. Within the west, the Christian Democratic (CDU/CSU) celebration was triumphant, whereas within the jap a part of Germany, the far-right Various for Germany (AfD) was dominant.
Nevertheless, in line with Information Journalism Studio, this cut up will not be as clear-cut because it first seems on German election maps. In German Elections: Did the Jap Bloc Vote Radically? Not Precisely, the Information Journalism Studio makes use of a scrollytelling story map as an example how the precise outcomes had been extra nuanced than the easy east-west divide suggests.
cartogram map of the German election revealing an urban-rural political divide
By switching from a standard choropleth map to a cartogram view, the Information Journalism Studio demonstrates that German voting patterns had been influenced as a lot by inhabitants density as by the previous East-West divide. A cartogram, which represents every electoral district as a single hexagon, reveals this totally different perspective. This visualization reveals that in main jap cities like Berlin and Leipzig, voters really supported Die Linke fairly than the AfD.
Additional cartogram views, displaying celebration assist throughout Germany, reveal that whereas the AfD carried out properly within the rural areas of the east, they didn’t carry out properly within the largest cities. Moreover, a cartogram map highlighting the place the AfD gained votes because the earlier election means that the AfD gained new voters fairly evenly throughout all of Germany.
