Evidence #002

Wolfsburg's GDP per capita is 4.4 times the German district median — the widest such gap of any country in the dataset

🇩🇪 Germany·July 2026·Eurostat nama_10r_3gdp, 2023·independently verified

1 Observation

In 2023, GDP per capita in Wolfsburg (Kreisfreie Stadt, NUTS-3 code DE913) was €185,100 — against a median of €42,000 across the 399 German NUTS-3 districts that have a value that year. That is a ratio of 4.41: the single richest district produces four and a half times the middle district's output per head. Compute the same "top district ÷ national median" ratio for every country in the dataset, and Germany's is the widest of all. And it is not a one-year fluke — Wolfsburg recorded Germany's highest district value in nine of the ten years 2014–2023.

2 Evidence

Across the 399 German NUTS-3 districts with 2023 GDP data (Eurostat, nominal € per inhabitant):

	District	NUTS-3	GDP per capita 2023
Highest	Wolfsburg	DE913	€185,100
2nd	Ingolstadt	DE211	€164,200
Median	middle of 399 districts	—	€42,000
Lowest	Südwestpfalz	DEB3K	€20,800

Wolfsburg is 4.41× the median and 8.9× the lowest German district. The top-to-median ratio by country (units ≥ 5, 2023):

Country	Top district	Top ÷ median
🇩🇪 Germany	Wolfsburg	4.41×
🇷🇴 Romania	Bucureşti	3.87×
🇵🇱 Poland	Warsaw	3.53×
🇧🇬 Bulgaria	Sofia	3.52×
🇮🇪 Ireland	South-West (Cork)	3.20×

Across the decade, Wolfsburg held Germany's highest district value every year from 2014 to 2023 except 2015, when Ingolstadt (€132,900) edged ahead of a temporarily dipped Wolfsburg (€113,600). Its own range over the decade ran from that €113,600 low to a €193,400 peak in 2019.

3 Verification

Against the original source. Open Eurostat dataset nama_10r_3gdp (GDP at current market prices by NUTS-3 region), unit EUR_HAB (euro per inhabitant), year 2023, filter German regions (codes starting DE). Wolfsburg (DE913) is the maximum at €185,100; Südwestpfalz (DEB3K) the minimum at €20,800.
Against our warehouse. The same numbers sit in our open comparison layer: -- 399 rows; median, max, min SELECT n.name, n.nuts_code, f.value FROM fact_eu_observation f JOIN dim_eu_metric m ON m.id = f.metric_id JOIN dim_eu_nuts3 n ON n.id = f.nuts3_id WHERE n.country = 'DE' AND m.code = 'gdp_pc' AND f.year = 2023 ORDER BY f.value DESC; Median = €42,000; max ÷ median = 185,100 / 42,000 = 4.41. Repeat per country (≥ 5 units) and take max(value)/median(value): Germany 4.41 is the largest, ahead of Romania 3.87 and Poland 3.53.
On the map. Open the live map, Germany, GDP-per-capita layer — one small district north of Braunschweig burns brightest on the whole national scale.

Every figure here was re-derived against the live database immediately before publication; the district count (399) and median (€42,000) are the current values, which differ slightly from an earlier draft as more districts gained 2023 data.

4 Official sources

Eurostat, nama_10r_3gdp — Gross domestic product (GDP) at current market prices by NUTS-3 region, euro per inhabitant, 2023 vintage. Reused under the European Commission's reuse policy (attribution). Our per-metric provenance: sky-mind.com/provenance.

5 What the data cannot tell us

GDP is booked where value is produced, not where people live. Wolfsburg is Volkswagen's home; a single very large employer in a district of ~125,000 people lifts output-per-resident far above what residents actually earn. This number is not a measure of local income or wealth.
It cannot attribute the swings to any company or event. Wolfsburg's fall from €193,400 (2019) to €143,400 (2021) and rebound to €185,100 (2023) is visible in the data, but the data alone cannot say why — production cycles, accounting, and the pandemic are plausible, none provable from this table.
Two of 401 German districts have no 2023 value (a boundary change in Thuringia); statements cover the 399 with data.
Nominal euros, one year, administrative boundaries. The cross-country ratios are within-country and so unaffected by exchange rates, but absolute levels across countries are not price-adjusted (no PPS), and a different year or boundary set can reorder neighbouring rows.
A wide top-to-median ratio is not itself "inequality." It reflects one workplace-based indicator with one extreme outlier; household-income distributions tell a different, and differently-shaped, story.

Series note. Every Evidence issue follows the same protocol — Observation → Evidence → Verification → Official Sources → What the data cannot tell us — and is published only after every number has been independently re-derived. If we discover an error, we correct it publicly and keep the history. Descriptive comparison, never a forecast. Methodology · All issues

How to cite.

SkyMind (2026). Wolfsburg is 4.4x the German district median (SkyMind Evidence No. 002). SkyMind Regional Reference Database. https://sky-mind.com/evidence/002

@techreport{skymind_evidence_002,
  author      = {{SkyMind}},
  title       = {Wolfsburg is 4.4x the German district median},
  institution = {SkyMind},
  type        = {SkyMind Evidence},
  number      = {002},
  year        = {2026},
  url         = {https://sky-mind.com/evidence/002}
}

Published 2026-07-03 · every number re-derived from official sources before publication · full lineage: provenance · revision log · dispute a number · data: SkyMind Regional Reference Database, doi:10.5281/zenodo.21388012

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