In our research project -- supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) - 35 key indicators were developed in an ongoing process in co-operation with 10 East German cities, which are all members in the German cities healthy network. With these indicators the cities should take up integrated sustainability - oriented health reporting, from which actions and projects for health promotion and prevention can be derived. The conceptual background for the research project and the reports to be made by the project in co-operation with the cities, are the three policy programmes that to be realised on a county level: Healthy Cities, Local Agenda 21 and the German city development programme "Soziale Stadt (socially oriented city)". The common goal of these programmes is the sustainable improvement of the quality of life in the counties. The project is part of the BMBF-supported research field "problem - oriented regional reporting systems", in which other projects are involved which are mainly being conducted in the newly-formed East German "Lander". In this article we describe the co-operative process of the development of the indicators. A synopsis of already applied or proposed sets of indicators for municipal reporting was the basis for the development of the project's set of 35 key indicators. The set of indicators is presented according to its usefulness for planning and realisation of actions for health promotion on county level. For each of the 35 indicators a meta - data description was made to support the counties and cities in our project for health reporting. These indicator profiles are also helpful and supportive for all counties and citiesaiming at such health reporting. The project started in May 2002 and lasts till Mai 2005, so that most reports should be completed in the spring of 2005.
