The invention relates to a method for controlling a display device (2) of a motor vehicle (1) for displaying an environmental information relating to an environment of the motor vehicle (1), the environmental information is assigned at least one directional information which describes a detection direction of a detection device (10) used for determining the environmental information or a direction (14) to an object (13) described by the environmental information based on a reference point, in particular a sitting position of the driver inside the motor vehicle, wherein the display device (2) for displaying the environmental information which covers at least one angular range which lies in a horizontal plane is activated in a sub-range (15) of the angular range which is assigned to the directional information.