The total number of places to sit and drink a beer in Germany sank from nearly 48,000 in 2001 to 36,000 in 2010.
The state of Hamburg lost 48.1 percent over that period and Lower Saxony lost 41.2 percent.
Berlin spectacularly bucked the trend, with the number of bars and pubs in Berlin nearly doubling with a 95.8 percent increase, while Baden-Württemberg also did better with a 15.3 percent rise.
Academics are warning that the social fabric on some particularly rural areas could be torn by the disappearance of the local pub.
“With the closure of the public house, an establishment with a high social and cultural worth is lost from the community,” said Florian Kohnle, cultural geographer at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
The figures show that around 500 Bavarian communities no longer have any kind of pub.
DAPD/The Local/hc
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