Our figure of the month for Christmas 2018: Santa Claus has to go to that many children in one night

14.12.2018

As in every year, in 2018 many children crave for the night when Santa Claus distributes the presents. But how many children does Santa has to go to in one night? As the number of Santa Claus skeptics increases with age, only the number of 0 to under 6 year olds will be taken into account and for 2016, with figures from the Federal Statistical Office, a total of 4,466,095 children will be in Germany.

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With so many gifts it seems no coincidence that Christmas is dated shortly after the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. In order to extend the time window further, it is advisable for Santa Claus to choose an east-west route with the starting point in Görlitz and the final point in Selfkant, the westernmost municipality in Germany. In this way the period between sunset and sunrise can be extended by nearly 40 minutes and reaches over 16 hours. Since in Berlin alone over 211,000 desires are to be fulfilled there is no real breather phase in the center of Germany: The number of children in the circles localized here is smaller, but these are distributed on a larger surface. The grand finale then takes place in the densely populated cities of North Rhine-Westphalia, where almost 10% of all children live in Germany.

It won't get any easier for Santa Claus. Since 2008 (4 063 506), the number of children has risen by 1.2% p.a. And also in 2017 many new wish lists were added by 780 901 newborns.

Other figures can be found here.

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