[lampenrad]

It doesn't stop at the German border, though. And if you look at this map, the distinction between S and N is much less clear: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gross_domestic_pro...

Southern Germany, Western Austria, Northern Italy, Switzerland and parts of France: There's a big wealth cluster in the larger region around the Alps. Why? I don't know, but as a South German myself, I'm not too convinced by the claims of the article.

[treigerm]

I remember learning about the Blue Banana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana) in high school. You can see it pretty clearly on your map.

[mpweiher]

And it used to be the other way around, with Bavaria being very poor. Decades of Länderfinanzausgleich fixed that.

Now the industries of Northrine-Westfalia have been in decline for some time, so that's been dragging everything down. And Berlin lost a lot of its aid and most of the East is also somewhat northern.