Blue East, Black West?: This is how much the election changes the map of Germany

Germany has voted, the will of the voters is recoloring the map. How have the majorities shifted in the federal election compared to the 2021 election? A look at the new color distribution after the election.

The preliminary official result of the federal election not only confirms new majorities in parliament, but also reveals a political change across the country. The approximately 49.6 million voters have fundamentally shifted the country's political coloring with their decisions on the ballot paper.

How much has the will of the voters changed in the almost three and a half years since the last federal election? A look at the political map with the federal election results of 2021 and 2025 in comparison:

The direct comparison with the election result from autumn 2021, including the Berlin repeat election in February 2024, outlines the extent of the regional trends. The red of the SPD, which was able to win numerous constituencies in the north and west after the 2021 federal election, has disappeared from many regions. Instead, the south and west of Germany appear almost entirely black. In the five eastern German federal states, almost all constituencies went to the AfD - with very few exceptions.

In the autumn almost three and a half years ago, the Social Democrats had won the relative majority of second votes in 150 constituencies. In the election last Sunday, there were only 17 Social Democratic constituencies nationwide.

Voting Cards 2021 - 2025 interactive

The Union, which can rely on the regionally grown strength of its sister party CSU in Bavaria, the second most populous state, was able to secure the most votes in 217 constituencies in the 2025 federal election. Of these, 47 went to the CSU, which won the second vote majority in all constituencies in Bavaria.

For comparison: The AfD has been able to increase the number of constituency victories from 17 to 49 since 2021. Only two of these constituencies are west of the former inner-German border. There, the AfD received the most second votes in constituency no. 208 in Rhineland-Palatinate around Kaiserslautern and in constituency no. 122 Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia - the constituency with the highest unemployment rate nationwide .

The coloring of the 299 constituencies according to the second vote result also reveals where the remaining strongholds of the other parties are. For the SPD, these are, in addition to the south of Hamburg and parts of the Ruhr area, mainly Bremen and Hanover, as well as constituency no. 24 Aurich-Emden in the extreme northwest on the coast. In Braunschweig, the SPD crossed the finish line just ahead of the CDU this time.

Shifts also in the strongholds

Compared to the 2021 election result, the Greens have lost support, especially in the big cities. The constituencies in the inner cities of Munich and Berlin, where voters had mostly voted Green three and a half years ago, decided differently this time.

In the Bavarian capital, the CSU won the two-vote majority, while in Berlin even the Green stronghold constituency of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg went to the Left Party. Nationwide, only nine constituencies voted Green in the majority. That is 16 fewer constituencies for the Greens than in 2021. The party lost voters not only in Frankfurt's city center, but also in regions with larger universities such as Bonn or Heidelberg.

The shifts in the spectrum of political shades are even more evident on the Left. The late upturn in the election campaign led to a result that was in some cases far above the poll figures of some opinion research institutes . In the election in autumn 2021, not a single constituency went to the Left in the second vote.

Until a few weeks before the early election date, the Left Party's election campaign was still about securing at least three direct mandates in order to be able to enter the Bundestag even if the second vote result remained below the five percent threshold again, as in 2021. On February 23, however, 8.8 percent of voters lent their vote to the party with prominent candidates such as Jan van Aken, Gregor Gysi and Heidi Reichinnek.

On the map of Germany showing the majority of second votes in the 2025 federal election, the Left Party appears with a total of 7 constituencies. Six of these are within the city limits of Berlin. Otherwise, the Left Party only received the most second votes in constituency 152 "Leipzig II". The Left Party has not been able to record any second vote successes in the south, north or west of Germany.

The FDP, which was still part of the government until last autumn, does not appear at all in the map comparison. In 2021, the Liberals entered the Bundestag with 11.5 percent of second votes cast nationwide. Three and a half years later, only 4.3 percent of voters wanted to vote for the FDP with their second vote. This time, the FDP did not do better than being the fourth strongest party in 22 constituencies. For comparison: in 2021, the FDP had received the third most second votes of all parties in 36 constituencies and the fourth most in 203 constituencies.

The Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance, which campaigned for votes at the federal level for the first time with the party's founder and namesake as its top candidate, did not make it over the decisive threshold into the Bundestag in its first election - albeit very narrowly.

This makes it clear: Based on the shades of the 299 constituencies on the map, the political spectrum in Germany is distributed exclusively between the colors of the Union, the AfD, the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party when it comes to allocating first and second votes.

The figures mentioned are still only the provisional election results. The official final result of the 2025 federal election is still pending. The Federal Election Committee will probably not announce the final data until mid-March after the usual checking and review steps. A public session in the Bundestag has already been scheduled for March 14.