Smart City Index 2023: Top 10 has been determined

The Smart City Index remains on the move: Ulm (Baden-Württemberg) has made it into the top ten smartest cities in Germany for the first time. Also back in the top 10 are Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg) and Osnabrück (Lower Saxony). Last year, Karlsruhe was still in 14th place, Osnabrück in 15th and Ulm in 16th. Conversely, Bochum and Düsseldorf (both North Rhine-Westphalia) as well as Darmstadt (Hesse) missed out on making it into the top 10 this year. The Bitkom Smart City Index is the digital ranking that compares all 81 major German cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants with a view to the state of digitization in almost 160 points. The basis for this index is a comprehensive analysis of more than 12,700 data points, which is almost 2,000 more than in previous years.

The following cities made it into the top 10. One of them will top the 2023 Smart City Index. Here they are in alphabetical order:

• Aachen
• Dresden
• Hamburg
• Karlsruhe
• Cologne
• Munich
• Nuremberg
• Osnabrück
• Stuttgart
• Ulm

The full results and rankings of all cities will be announced on October 12, 2023. The winner of the Smart City Index will be awarded at the Smart Country Convention on November 7.

Dr. Ralf Wintergerst, President of Bitkom, says of the current development, "In the fifth year of the Smart City Index, we continue to see a lot of movement - not only among the top placers, but across the board. With our ranking, we want to make visible the successes in digitization, behind which stand a great many committed people in a wide variety of positions in cities. A slightly lower score in the ranking does not mean that cities are less digital than they used to be. Rather, it shows that others are currently doing even more and are even faster. We are experiencing tremendous momentum around the smart city, the gaps are getting smaller, and we see time and again: keeping at it can pay off."

Data basis for better digital transformation measures

The aim of the Smart City Index is to provide cities with a basis for comparison of their own digital activities, highlight success stories and support all cities in their digitalization efforts.

The Smart City Index analyzes and evaluates major German cities in five main categories: Administration, IT and Communication, Energy and Environment, Mobility, and for the first time Society and Education. A total of 157 parameters were examined for each city, 20 more than in previous years. These parameters range from online citizen services and sharing offers for mobility to smart traffic lights and broadband internet availability. The index calculates index scores for each city in the five categories, which are used to determine the overall rank. The Smart City Index is supported by Visa, PwC and Uber.

Smart Country Convention puts focus on digitization of cities and regions

The digitization of cities and regions is also one of the central themes of the Smart Country Convention, which Bitkom is organizing together with Messe Berlin from November 7 to 9, 2023 in Berlin. Prominent speakers such as Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, Federal Minister of Transport and Digitalisation Volker Wissing, Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir, Federal Minister of Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann, Federal Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz and the Governing Mayor of Berlin Kai Wegner will be on the SCCON stages.
Representatives from the federal, state and local governments will meet experts from the digital economy.

Tickets for the Smart Country Convention are available here.