Type Your Station and See Where the Leash Comes Off
Berlin has had a citywide leash rule since 1 January 2019. The places where it stops are twelve forest areas of about 1,220 hectares and a few dozen small fenced runs, and they are spread very unevenly across the city. This map measures every one of them from your own S- or U-Bahn station.
Forest areas from Berliner Forsten, Hundeauslauf im Wald. Fenced runs and dog-ban zones in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Reinickendorf and Steglitz-Zehlendorf from the Berlin Geoportal Hundefreilauf dataset, last revised 17 July 2024, with sizes and fence heights. Runs in the other eight districts, the forest outlines and the station positions come from OpenStreetMap contributors, pulled on 10 September 2026. District borders from the Berlin Geoportal.
Type the station nearest your flat and the map pins it, draws 2 km and 5 km rings and ranks every forest area and fenced run by straight-line distance. Then say what the dog needs today. A fence, because the recall is not there yet: the tool keeps only the fenced runs and tells you the fence height where the district has published it, 1.40 m at Stralauer Platz, 0.80 m at Wriezener Park. Open forest, because the recall works: it keeps the twelve Berliner Forsten areas and measures to their nearest edge, with the station or bus that reaches them. Or simply whatever is closest before work. Red crosses mark the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg greens where a dog may not be taken in at all, and the note under the map repeats the rule that applies everywhere else: since 1 January 2019 the lead stays on unless you are inside one of these areas or hold a Bestandshund or Sachkunde exemption.
Why a fence and a forest are different answers
A forest area is unfenced by definition. Berliner Forsten expect the dog to stay within reach and come back when called, and if that is not guaranteed the lead rule applies inside the area too. A fenced run asks nothing of the recall but gives the dog between about 800 and 9,200 square metres. So the first question the tool asks after the station is not where, but which of those two the dog in front of you can actually use today.
What the open data adds
Four districts publish their fenced runs with sizes and, in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, fence heights. That is why the list can say that Stralauer Platz has 2,900 square metres and a 1.40 m fence marked as suitable for big dogs while Wriezener Park has 1,200 square metres behind 0.80 m. Reinickendorf lists eight Hundegärten and marks the one at Am Freibad as currently unusable; the tool greys it out. The other eight districts have runs too, but they come from OpenStreetMap contributors and are labelled as community-mapped, so read the sign at the gate.
What it cannot tell you
Distances are straight lines, not walking routes, so a forest area across the Havel can look closer than it is. Blankenfelde and Düppel are shown as approximate centres because the city publishes those two only as PDF maps. Fenced plots, nature reserves and summer bathing spots inside a forest area are excluded from it even though the map shows the whole area in green. And a run that exists on the map can still be closed for maintenance on the day; the district pages carry those notices.