The heat supply in municipalities must be transformed when considering the background of climate protection goals. In the future, fossil heating systems have to be replaced by green district heating networks or heat pumps, for example. Existing approaches to thermal energy planning are mostly based on a few criteria tailored to district heating networks, such as heat consumption density. A more far-reaching multi-criteria thermal energy planning would enable a systematic and technologyopen approach with the aim of optimally distributing the existing heat supply options in planning areas. Various other criteria are required for this, such as the decentralisation of buildings or the heat line density based on heat grid length. This article shows how GIS analyses can be used for these criteria so that they can be incorporated into a comprehensive multi-criteria thermal energy planning.