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General practitioners (GPs) are among the specialists who prescribe the highest number of medication. Therefore the improvement of pharmacological competencies is an important part of the GP specialist training. The self-concept of general practice stating that GPs are the first contact persons for all health problems makes it challenging to define and acquire competencies for specialist training. While the "Competence-based Curriculum" developed by the German College of General Practitioners and Family Physicians defines diagnoses, reasons for counselling and competencies which are essential for general practice, a similar orientation guide is lacking for the pharmacological field. The aim of this study is to define and characterize pharmacological substances which every GP should know so well that he or she is able to conduct counselling and monitoring.We analysed private and public health insurance prescriptions of all general practices participating in the CONTENT project in the period from 2009 to 2014. The analysis was limited to substances with oral application which were prescribed at least once by at least 25 % (n = 11) of the practices. While the 100 most frequent prescriptions were included due to their frequency, less frequently prescribed substances were assessed concerning their relevance for general practice in a rating procedure. The substances included were classified by diagnoses and reasons for counselling.We analysed 1,912,896 prescriptions from 44 practices and 112,535 patients on the basis of the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification system. After applying the inclusion criteria, 453 substances were left, 302 of which were considered relevant for general practice and could be assigned to 45 diagnoses / reasons for counselling.The result of this study could be considered a working draft for a pharmacological curriculum for general practice, which may complement the "Competence-based Curriculum" in the medium term.