Fürth (dpa / lby) – The new use of land for settlements and transport routes has decreased slightly in Bavaria. Last year, 3,757 hectares of settlement and traffic areas were added, an increase of 0.4 percent. In the previous year, the new use of land for settlements and transport routes was still more than 4,200 hectares.

According to the State Office for Statistics in Fürth, 12.2 percent of the total area of ??the Free State is used in this way. At 46.1 percent, almost half of the total area in Bavaria was used for agriculture at the end of 2021. Another good third consists of forest (35.3 percent).

The daily land consumption in 2021 was an average of 10.3 hectares per day. In the previous year it was still 11.6 hectares a day.

The state office pointed out that settlement and traffic areas do not mean sealing at the same time – only about half of the settlement and traffic areas are built over.