Rügen is the tourist magnet among the German islands. More than 1.2 million guests visited the largest German island last year, as reported by the statistical offices of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein on Tuesday. Usedom followed with a good one million tourists and Sylt with around 762,000 visitors.
In contrast, Spiekeroog recorded the most overnight stays per inhabitant – the so-called tourism intensity. Last year there were around 483 guest overnight stays for one reported person on the East Frisian island. There were similarly high values on the two western islands of Baltrum and Langeoog (433 and 423 overnight stays per inhabitant). The North Frisian island of Pellworm had the lowest value of all islands with 92 overnight stays per inhabitant. With 97 overnight stays per inhabitant, Rügen ranked second to last.
According to the statisticians, most of the residents live on Rügen, where almost 64,000 people are registered. Rügen is also the largest German island in terms of area. With 960 square kilometers, Rügen is almost three times the size of second-placed Usedom (368 km2). Fehmarn (186 km2) and Fischland-Darss-Zingst (174 km2) are in third and fourth place. Both Sylt and Föhr (5th and 6th place) already cover less than 100 square kilometers. At 5.0 and 4.2 square kilometers respectively, Wangerooge and Heligoland are the smallest islands reported in the statistics.
The highest population densities were in Helgoland, Wangerooge and Norderney, each with more than 200 inhabitants per square kilometer. Less than 50 people shared a square kilometer on Spiekeroog (46) and Pellworm (33). With eleven people per square kilometer, the Hallig Langeness is the most sparsely populated island.
