The article presents the first results of a cadastral survey of adult education providers in Germany. The cadastre was developed as part of a study that deals with the qualifications, the conditions of employment and the competences of teaching staff in adult and continuing education. A recording of continuing education institutions is a necessary prerequisite for this as the teaching staff can only be reached through the employing organizations. Initially, the importance of a current and complete cadastre of adult education providers in Germany is devised against the background of the current state of research and its systematization. Previous efforts to delineate, record and categorize the population of organized continuing education are traced and the resulting desiderata are derived. Subsequently, the methodical procedure for the creation, verification, projection, and weighting of the cadastre is described. Based on these data, information on the number of adult education providers and employment relationships for teaching staff is first reported and then analysed in a differentiated manner, in particular with regard to their regional distribution. Finally, connections for organizational, professionalization and systems research of adult education are presented.