Habitats need to be assessed for each type of landscape planning. Our focus is on habitat characteristics that are important for animals. Assessment criteria can relate to species communities (e.g., number of species, biodiversity, trophic levels) or to the fitness of individual species. Problems with assessment according to the frequency or occurrence of animals are discussed. With long-term observations, we can break down changes in habitat characteristics (e.g., successions), and long-term monitoring can also be used to recognize the effects of climate change. The concept of target species is discussed in detail, focusing on selected species, followed by examples of how to analyze a population’s future development and viability. Animals can experience good conditions for reproduction in one type of habitat and poor conditions in another (source-sink habitats). Individual landscape structures are treated separately, such as hedges in the cultivated landscape, forest edges, and strips of land that are either excluded from cultivation or created in a planned manner. The manipulation of habitat components is also illustrated using mown meadows and leaf litter in forests.