The R package bonn provides functions to retrieve data from the INKAR database maintained by the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBSR) in Bonn. The package uses an undocumented JSON API.

Installation

You can install the package from Github using:

remotes::install_github("sumtxt/bonn", force=TRUE)

Usage

The main data-retrieving function is get_data(). It requires to specify which variable to retrieve and for which geography. By default this function retrieves the data for all available time points and for all available units of a named geography.

For a list of available geographies (municipalities, disricts etc.), call get_geographies(). Then use get_themes() with the appropriate geography identifier to obtain a list of themes for which variables are available. Then call get_variables() for a list of available variables. Not all variables are available for every geography. Use the variable and geography identifier to call get_data(). To obtain a detailed description of a variable, call get_metadata.

List available themes for districts (Kreise):

head( get_themes(geography="KRE") ) 
#>    ID          Bereich                  Unterbereich
#> 1 000    Absolutzahlen                 Absolutzahlen
#> 2 011 Arbeitslosigkeit                     Allgemein
#> 3 013 Arbeitslosigkeit                 Altersgruppen
#> 4 012 Arbeitslosigkeit                      Struktur
#> 5 021 Bauen und Wohnen Baulandmarkt und Bautätigkeit
#> 6 022 Bauen und Wohnen  Gebäude- und Wohnungsbestand

Indicators for theme “unemployment”:

head( get_variables(theme="011", geography="KRE") ) 
#>               KurznamePlus Bereich Gruppe  BU EU Zeitreihe
#> 1        Arbeitslosenquote     011     12 KRE           23
#> 2 Arbeitslosenquote Frauen     011     13 KRE           13
#> 3 Arbeitslosenquote Männer     011     14 KRE           13
#> 4       Arbeitslose Frauen     011     15 KRE           26
#> 5       Arbeitslose Männer     011     16 KRE           26

Retrieve data and metadata on the unemployment variable:

head( get_data(variable='12', geography="KRE") ) 
#>   Schlüssel Raumbezug Indikator  Wert Zeit
#> 1     01001       KRE        12 14.60 1998
#> 2     06533       KRE        12  7.85 1998
#> 3     03404       KRE        12 11.66 1998
#> 4     09276       KRE        12  7.29 1998
#> 5     03101       KRE        12 13.36 1998
#> 6     08221       KRE        12  7.87 1998

Notes

Complementary Packages

  • The R package wiesbaden github.com/sumtxt/wiesbaden provides functions to directly retrieve data from databases maintained by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany (DESTATIS) in Wiesbaden

  • The R package AGS github.com/sumtxt/ags provides functions to work with the Amtlicher Gemeindeschlüssel (AGS), e.g. construct time series of statistics for Germany’s municipalities and districts.