ORTWIN - Community Directory and Locality Research
Research towns, postal codes, dialling codes in Germany

•  Detailed Description of the current Version
•  User Interface Details
•  Prices ORTWIN
•  Download  Place order

ORTWIN is a program for the country-wide inquiry of the localities in Germany to find cities and towns, urban districts, postal zip codes, dialling codes, coordinates and elevations, landscape and climatic data and to perform perimeter searches and distance calculations.

ORTWIN - Version 17.03 - Last update on 20 February 2021
The latest important changes  History of Changes and Supplements

1. Program is faster and more stable using a new development system.
2. All databases actualized on 1st. January 2021.
3. Territorial Reform in Thuringia of the year 2019 implemented.
4. View of localities in OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, Google Earth.
5. Determining the wind load zones and snow load zones.
6. Determining the travel areas and the solar radiation.

Community Directory and Locality Research of the Federal Republic of Germany

Determining location data by different criteria

Determining location data

Radius search on postal codes

Postal radius search

Nationwide overview with Federal States

Nationwide overview

ORTWIN is a program for the country-wide inquiry of the cities and towns, localities, postal codes and dialling codes in Germany. It finds postal zip codes, dialling codes, coordinates and ground level elevations. The program determines municipal codes, local center points, car license codes, topographic maps, Unlocodes and much more. It arranges localities hierarchically into the structures Federal State, Administrative District, Rural District, town, municipality, local quarter and domicile. The program performs perimeter searches and distance calculations. It finds landscapes on different levels, natural units and climatic data like snow- and wind load zones and solar irradiations of all localities.

ORTWIN - Detailed Program Description
A program for the research of the German cities, municipalities and urban districts with postal codes, telephone codes and coordinates

In a radius around a localitie or around a postal code area covered localities and postal areas can be clearly represented by a comfortable perimeter search. They can also be arranged in a list, stored as a file and printed.
For the local inquiries and perimeter searches a data base with more than 125.000 geocoded localities is available. The program represents local data, determined by local inquiries and perimeter searches, in graphic overviews and data lists.
The program supports conversions between different Coordinate Systems and the distance calculation between localities. It calculates with Gauss Krueger coordinates referring to the Potsdam Datum (Bessel ellipsoid, Rauenberg) and with Geographic Coordinates on the geodetic datum WGS84. It also works with UTM coordinates, which refer to the datum ETRS89 (GRS80, geocentric).
Towns and town quarters can be determined by entering already known data in the input fields of the data window, by clicking on overview maps or by selecting from sorted lists. For the calculation, the values listed here can be entered directly in the input fields of the program:

1. Gauss-Kruger coordinates (also from the "wrong" meridian strip)
2. Geographical coordinates in DMS notation
3. Geographical coordinates in decimal notation
4. UTM coordinates
5. Place names or quater names
6. Community ID (8-digit municipality key)
7. New postal code
8. Old postal code
9. Telephone pre-selection
10. Two place names for distance calculation

For selection from separate windows are available:

1. Nationwide graphical overview map
2. List with place names sorted by Federal States
3. List with place names sorted by Administrative Regions
4. List with place names sorted by Rural Districts
5. Overview map with locations and place names in the location window
6. Radial search map of places and quarters in close range
7. Radial search map of places in the far range
8. Radial search map of the postal delivery areas and postcodes

In addition, the program offers the services listed here:

1. High precision coordinate transformations
2. Searching places using leading characters or using sting-in-string search
3. Determining the center coordinates of localities
4. Finding the nearest locality to the current coordinates
5. Finding a place adjacent to the current location
6. Determining the old and new postal codes
7. Determining the telephone pre-selections and the telephone book numbers
8. Determining the exact distance between localities
9. Determining the appropriate topographic map TK25 of the locality
10. Determining the political hierarchy (town quarter / municipality part, town / municipality, Rural District, Administrative District, Federal Atate)
11. File output and printing of the various radial search lists
12. Printing all characteristic values belonging to the current location
13. Printing all graphically views
14. File output of all window contents in GIF and BMP files
15. Electronic help file manual
16. At any time case-related help from the electronic manual
17. etc.

Network ability

ORTWIN can be run on most common networks. The client installations works automatically. It is possible to use Terminal Services on WINDOWS Servers like e.g. "Citrix Terminal Server".

Hardware and operating system requirements

Because the program ORTWIN is a quite complex database application, some requirements to the hardware are to be fulfilled for its perfect working. To ensure stable performance it should be installed on a personal computer with the processor class Pentium or higher and at least 32 MB RAM available. The program will run under Microsoft WINDOWS 2000 / XP / NT / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10 and compatible operating systems.

Pricing, ordering and licensing

Pricing and ordering information can be found in the  Price list. For available licensing options have a look to the  License page. Order the program with the electronic  Order Form.

Download of the test version

The free test version of the program with a detailed user manual can be  downloaded as ZIP packed file by the Internet.

Use of an illegal program version

Managing Director Fred Killet explains why you should never use an  illegal version of our geodetic program ORTWIN.