Berlin

Berlin
State of Germany
Clockwise:Charlottenburg Palace, Fernsehturm Berlin, Reichstag building, Berlin Cathedral, Alte Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburg Gate.
Flag Coat of arms
Location within European Union and Germany
Coordinates: 52°31′N 13°23′E / 52.517°N 13.383°E / 52.517; 13.383Coordinates: 52°31′N 13°23′E / 52.517°N 13.383°E / 52.517; 13.383
Country	Germany
Government
• Governing Mayor	Klaus Wowereit (SPD)
• Governing parties	SPD / CDU
• Votes in Bundesrat	4 (of 69)
Area
• City	891.85 km2 (344.35 sq mi)
Elevation	34 m (112 ft)
Population (31 August 2013)[1]
• City	3,401,147
• Density	3,800/km2 (9,900/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code(s)	10115–14199
Area code(s)	030
ISO 3166 code	DE-BE
Vehicle registration	B (for earlier signs see note)[2]
GDP/ Nominal	€101.4 billion (2011) [3]
NUTS Region	DE3
Website	berlin.de

Berlin (/bərˈlɪn/; German pronunciation: [bɛɐ̯ˈliːn] ( listen)) is the capital city of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million people,^[1] Berlin is Germany's largest city and is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union.^[4] Located in northeastern Germany on the River Spree, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which has about 4½ million residents from over 180 nations.^[5][6][7][8] Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.^[9]

First documented in the 13th century, Berlin became the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–33) and the Third Reich (1933–45).^[10] Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world.^[11] After World War II, the city, along with the German state, was divided - into East Berlin — capital of the German Democratic Republic, colloquially identified in English as East Germany — and West Berlin, a political exclave (surrounded by the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989)^[12] and a de facto (although not de jure) state of the Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially in English as West Germany from 1949 to 1990. Following German reunification in 1990, the city was once more designated as the capital of all Germany.

Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media, and science, hosting 147 foreign embassies.^{[13][14][15][16][17]} Its economy is primarily based on high-tech industries and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations, and convention venues. Berlin also serves as a continental hub for air and rail transport^[18][19] and is a popular tourist destination.^[20] Significant industries include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, biotechnology, electronics, traffic engineering, and renewable energy.

Berlin is home to renowned universities, research institutes, orchestras, museums, and celebrities and is host to many sporting events.^[21] Its urban setting and historical legacy have made it a popular location for international film productions.^[22] The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts, public transportation networks, and an extremely high quality of living.^[23]

Etymology

The origin of the name Berlin is uncertain, but it may have its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of today's Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl- ("swamp").^[24] Folk etymology connects the name to the German word for bear, Bär. A bear also appears in the coat of arms of the city.

History

12th to 16th centuries

The earliest evidence of settlements in the area of today's Berlin are a wooden rod dated from approximately 1192^[25] and leftovers of wooden houseparts dated to 1174 found in a 2012 digging in Berlin Mitte.^[26] The first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920.^[27] The central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document, and Berlin, across the Spree in what is now called the Nikolaiviertel, is referenced in a document from 1244.^[25] The former (1237) is considered to be the founding date of the city.^[28] The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties. In 1307 they formed an alliance with a common external policy, their internal administrations still being separated.^[29][30]

In 1415, Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440.^[31] During the 15th century his successors would establish Berlin-Cölln as capital of the margraviate, and subsequent members of the Hohenzollern family ruled until 1918 in Berlin, first as electors of Brandenburg, then as kings of Prussia, and eventually as German emperors. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new royal palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln. The protests of the town citizens against the building culminated in 1448, in the "Berlin Indignation" ("Berliner Unwille").^[32][33] This protest was not successful, however, and the citizenry lost many of its political and economic privileges. After the royal palace was finished in 1451, it gradually came into use. From 1470, with the new elector Albrecht III Achilles, Berlin-Cölln became the new royal residence.^[30] Officially, the Berlin-Cölln palace became permanent residence of the Brandenburg electors of the Hohenzollerns from 1486, when John Cicero came to power.^[34] Berlin-Cölln, however, had to give up its status as a free Hanseatic city. In 1539, the electors and the city officially became Lutheran.^[35]

17th to 19th centuries

The Thirty Years' War between 1618 and 1648 devastated Berlin. One third of its houses were damaged or destroyed, and the city lost half of its population.^[36] Frederick William, known as the "Great Elector", who had succeeded his father George William as ruler in 1640, initiated a policy of promoting immigration and religious tolerance. With the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, Frederick William offered asylum to the French Huguenots. More than 15,000 Huguenots went to Brandenburg, of whom 6,000 settled in Berlin. By 1700, approximately 20 percent of Berlin's residents were French, and their cultural influence on the city was immense.^{[citation needed]} Many other immigrants came from Bohemia, Poland, and Salzburg.

Since 1618, the Margraviate of Brandenburg had been in personal union with the Duchy of Prussia. In 1701, however, the dual state formed the Kingdom of Prussia, as Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg now crowned himself as king Frederick I in Prussia. Berlin became the capital of the new Kingdom. This was a successful attempt to centralize the capital in the very outspread state, and it was the first time the city began to grow.^{[citation needed]} In 1709 Berlin merged with the four cities of Cölln, Friedrichswerfer, Friedrichstadt and Dorotheenstadt under the name Berlin, ”Haupt- und Residenzstadt Berlin".^[29]

In 1740, Frederick II, known as Frederick the Great (1740–1786), came to power. Under the rule of Frederick II, Berlin became a center of the Enlightenment.^{[citation needed]} Following France's victory in the War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon Bonaparte marched into Berlin in 1806, but granted self-government to the city. In 1815, the city became part of the new Province of Brandenburg.

The Industrial Revolution transformed Berlin during the 19th century; the city's economy and population expanded dramatically, and it became the main rail hub and economic center of Germany.^{[citation needed]} Additional suburbs soon developed and increased the area and population of Berlin. In 1861, neighboring suburbs including Wedding, Moabit, and several others were incorporated into Berlin.

In 1871, Berlin became capital of the newly founded German Empire. On 1 April 1881, it became a city district separate from Brandenburg.

20th century

At the end of World War I in 1918, a republic was proclaimed in Berlin. In 1920, the Greater Berlin Act incorporated dozens of suburban cities, villages, and estates around Berlin into an expanded city. This new area encompassed Spandau and Charlottenburg in the west, as well as several other areas that are now major municipalities. After this expansion, Berlin had a population of around four million. During the Weimar era, Berlin became internationally renowned as a center of cultural transformation, at the heart of the Roaring Twenties.

On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. Nazi rule effectively destroyed Berlin's Jewish community, which had numbered 160,000 in 1933, representing one-third of all Jews in Germany. Berlin's Jewish population fell to about 80,000 as a result of emigration from Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1939. After Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's Jews were imprisoned in the nearby Sachsenhausen concentration camp or, starting in early 1943, were shipped to death camps, such as Auschwitz.^[37] During World War II, large parts of Berlin were destroyed in the 1943–45 air raids and during the Battle of Berlin. Among the hundreds of thousands who died during the Battle of Berlin, an estimated 125,000 were civilians.^[38] After the end of the war in Europe in 1945, Berlin received large numbers of refugees from the Eastern provinces. The victorious powers divided the city into four sectors, analogous to the occupation zones into which Germany was divided. The sectors of the Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom and France) formed West Berlin, while the Soviet sector formed East Berlin.^[39]

All four Allies shared administrative responsibilities for Berlin. However, in 1948, when the Western Allies extended the currency reform in the Western zones of Germany to the three western sectors of Berlin, the Soviet Union imposed a blockade on the access routes to and from West Berlin, which lay entirely inside Soviet-controlled territory. The Berlin airlift, conducted by the three western Allies, overcame this blockade by supplying food and other supplies to the city from 24 June 1948 to 11 May 1949.^[40] In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in West Germany and eventually included all of the American, British, and French zones, excluding those three countries' zones in Berlin, while the Marxist-Leninist German Democratic Republic was proclaimed in East Germany. West Berlin officially remained an occupied city, but as a corpus separatum it politically was very closely aligned with the Federal Republic of Germany despite Berlin's geographic location within East Germany. West Berlin issued its own postage stamps, which were often the same as West German postage stamps but with the additional word "Berlin" added. Airline service to West Berlin was granted only to American, British, and French airlines.

The founding of the two German states increased Cold War tensions. West Berlin was surrounded by East German territory, and East Germany proclaimed East Berlin (described as "Berlin") as its capital, a move that was not recognized by the western powers. Although only half the size and population of West Berlin, East Berlin included most of the historic center of the city. The West German government, meanwhile, established itself provisionally in Bonn.^[41]

As a result of the political and economical tensions brought on by the Cold War, on 13 August 1961, East Germany began the building of the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin and similar barriers around West Berlin, and events escalated to a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie on 27 October 1961. West Berlin was now de facto a part of West Germany with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of East Germany.

Berlin was completely divided. Although it was possible for Westerners to pass from one to the other (but only through strictly controlled checkpoints), for most Easterners travel to West Berlin or West Germany was no longer possible. In 1971, a Four-Power agreement guaranteed access to and from West Berlin by car or train through East Germany and ended the potential for harassment or closure of the routes.^[42]

In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and pressure from the East German population, the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November and was subsequently mostly demolished, with little of its physical structure remaining today; the East Side Gallery in Friedrichshain near the Oberbaumbrücke over the Spree preserves a portion of the Wall.

On 3 October 1990, the two parts of Germany were reunified as the Federal Republic of Germany, and Berlin again became the official German capital. In June 1991, the German Parliament, the Bundestag, voted the Hauptstadtbeschluss to move the seat of the (West) German capital back from Bonn to Berlin, which was completed in 1999.

Geography

Berlin is situated in northeastern Germany, approximately 60 km (37 mi) west of the Polish border, in an area of low-lying marshy woodlands with a mainly flat topography, part of the vast Northern European Plain which stretches all the way from northern France to western Russia. The Berliner Urstromtal (an ice age glacial valley), between the low Barnim Plateau to the north and the Teltow Plateau to the south, was formed by meltwater flowing from ice sheets at the end of the last Weichselian glaciation. The Spree follows this valley now. In Spandau, Berlin's westernmost borough, the Spree empties into the river Havel, which flows from north to south through western Berlin. The course of the Havel is more like a chain of lakes, the largest being the Tegeler See and Großer Wannsee. A series of lakes also feeds into the upper Spree, which flows through the Großer Müggelsee in eastern Berlin.^[43]

Substantial parts of present-day Berlin extend onto the low plateaus on both sides of the Spree Valley. Large parts of the boroughs Reinickendorf and Pankow lie on the Barnim Plateau, while most of the boroughs of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Tempelhof-Schöneberg, and Neukölln lie on the Teltow Plateau.

The borough of Spandau lies partly within the Berlin Glacial Valley and partly on the Nauen Plain, which stretches to the west of Berlin. The highest elevations in Berlin are the Teufelsberg and the Müggelberge in the city's outskirts, and in the center the Kreuzberg. While the latter measures 66 m (217 ft) above sea level, the former both have an elevation of about 115 m (377 ft). The Teufelsberg is in fact an artificial hill composed of a pile of rubble from the ruins of World War II.

Climate

Berlin has a temperate oceanic climate (Cfb) according to the Köppen climate classification system.

Summers are warm and sometimes humid with average high temperatures of 22–25 °C (72–77 °F) and lows of 12–14 °C (54–57 °F). Winters are relatively cold with average high temperatures of 3 °C (37 °F) and lows of −2 to 0 °C (28 to 32 °F). Spring and autumn are generally chilly to mild. Berlin's built-up area creates a microclimate, with heat stored by the city's buildings. Temperatures can be 4 °C (7 °F) higher in the city than in the surrounding areas.^[44]

Annual precipitation is 570 millimeters (22 in) with moderate rainfall throughout the year. Light snowfall mainly occurs from December through March, but snow cover does not usually remain for long. The recent winter of 2009/2010 was an exception since there was a permanent snow cover from late December till early March.^[45]

Climate data for Berlin
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Record high °C (°F)	15.0 (59)	17.0 (62.6)	23.0 (73.4)	30.0 (86)	33.0 (91.4)	36.0 (96.8)	38.8 (101.8)	35.0 (95)	32.0 (89.6)	25.0 (77)	18.0 (64.4)	15.0 (59)	38.8 (101.8)
Average high °C (°F)	2.9 (37.2)	4.2 (39.6)	8.5 (47.3)	13.2 (55.8)	18.9 (66)	21.8 (71.2)	24.0 (75.2)	23.6 (74.5)	18.8 (65.8)	13.4 (56.1)	7.1 (44.8)	4.4 (39.9)	13.4 (56.1)
Daily mean °C (°F)	0.5 (32.9)	1.3 (34.3)	4.9 (40.8)	8.7 (47.7)	14.0 (57.2)	17.0 (62.6)	19.0 (66.2)	18.9 (66)	14.7 (58.5)	9.9 (49.8)	4.7 (40.5)	2.0 (35.6)	9.6 (49.3)
Average low °C (°F)	−1.5 (29.3)	−1.6 (29.1)	1.3 (34.3)	4.2 (39.6)	9.0 (48.2)	12.3 (54.1)	14.7 (58.5)	14.1 (57.4)	10.6 (51.1)	6.4 (43.5)	2.2 (36)	−0.4 (31.3)	5.9 (42.6)
Record low °C (°F)	−26.1 (−15)	−25.0 (−13)	−13.0 (8.6)	−4.0 (24.8)	−1.0 (30.2)	4.0 (39.2)	7.0 (44.6)	7.0 (44.6)	0.0 (32)	−7.0 (19.4)	−9.0 (15.8)	−24.0 (−11.2)	−26.1 (−15)
Rainfall mm (inches)	42.3 (1.665)	33.3 (1.311)	40.5 (1.594)	37.1 (1.461)	53.8 (2.118)	68.7 (2.705)	55.5 (2.185)	58.2 (2.291)	45.1 (1.776)	37.3 (1.469)	43.6 (1.717)	55.3 (2.177)	570.7 (22.469)
Avg. rainy days (≥ 1.0 mm)	10.0	8.0	9.1	7.8	8.9	7.0	7.0	7.0	7.8	7.6	9.6	11.4	101.2
Mean monthly sunshine hours	46.5	73.5	120.9	159.0	220.1	222.0	217.0	210.8	156.0	111.6	51.0	37.2	1,625.6
Source: World Meteorological Organization (UN),[46] HKO[47]

Cityscape

Berlin's history has left the city with a highly eclectic array of architecture and buildings. The city's appearance today is predominantly shaped by the key role it played in Germany's history in the 20th century. Each of the national governments based in Berlin—the 1871 German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany, and now the reunified Germany—initiated ambitious (re-) construction programs, with each adding its own distinctive style to the city's architecture. Berlin was devastated by bombing raids during World War II, and many of the buildings that had remained after the war were demolished in the 1950s and 1960s in both West and East Berlin. Much of this demolition was initiated by municipal architecture programs to build new residential or business quarters and main roads.

The eastern parts of Berlin have many Plattenbauten, reminders of Eastern Bloc ambitions to create complete residential areas that had fixed ratios of shops, kindergartens, and schools to the number of inhabitants.

Architecture

The Fernsehturm (TV tower) at Alexanderplatz in Mitte is among the tallest structures in the European Union at 368 m (1,207 ft). Built in 1969, it is visible throughout most of the central districts of Berlin. The city can be viewed from its 204 m (669 ft) high observation floor. Starting here the Karl-Marx-Allee heads east, an avenue lined by monumental residential buildings, designed in the Socialist Classicism style of the Joseph Stalin era. Adjacent to this area is the Rotes Rathaus (City Hall), with its distinctive red-brick architecture. In front of it is the Neptunbrunnen, a fountain featuring a mythological group of Tritons, personifications of the four main Prussian rivers and Neptune on top of it.

The East Side Gallery is an open-air exhibition of art painted directly on the last existing portions of the Berlin Wall. It is the largest remaining evidence of the city's historical division. It has recently undergone a restoration.

The Brandenburg Gate is an iconic landmark of Berlin and Germany. It also appears on German euro coins (10 cent, 20 cent, and 50 cent). The Reichstag building is the traditional seat of the German Parliament, renovated in the 1950s after severe World War II damage. The building was again remodeled by British architect Norman Foster in the 1990s and features a glass dome over the session area, which allows free public access to the parliamentary proceedings and magnificent views of the city.

The Gendarmenmarkt, a neoclassical square in Berlin whose name dates back to the quarters of the famous Gens d'armes regiment located here in the 18th century, is bordered by two similarly designed cathedrals, the Französischer Dom with its observation platform and the Deutscher Dom. The Konzerthaus (Concert Hall), home of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, stands between the two cathedrals.

The Museum Island in the River Spree houses five museums built from 1830 to 1930 and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Restoration and the construction of a main entrance to all museums, as well as the reconstruction of the Stadtschloss on the same island^[48] has cost over 2 billion Euros since reunification.^[49] Also located on the island and adjacent to the Lustgarten and palace is Berlin Cathedral, emperor William II's ambitious attempt to create a Protestant counterpart to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A large crypt houses the remains of some of the earlier Prussian royal family. The church is now owned by the Protestant umbrella Union of Evangelical Churches (UEK). Like many other buildings, it suffered extensive damage during the Second World War and had to be restored. Berlin's best preserved medieval Church of St. Mary's is the 1^st preaching venue – Memorial Church being the 2^nd – of the Bishop of the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO), a Protestant regional church body. St. Hedwig's Cathedral is Berlin's Roman Catholic cathedral.

Unter den Linden is a tree-lined east–west avenue from the Brandenburg Gate to the site of the former Berliner Stadtschloss, and was once Berlin's premier promenade. Many Classical buildings line the street and part of Humboldt University is located there. Friedrichstraße was Berlin's legendary street during the Roaring Twenties. It combines 20th-century traditions with the modern architecture of today's Berlin.

Potsdamer Platz is an entire quarter built from scratch after 1995 after the Wall came down.^[50] To the west of Potsdamer Platz is the Kulturforum, which houses the Gemäldegalerie, and is flanked by the Neue Nationalgalerie and the Berliner Philharmonie. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a Holocaust memorial, is situated to the north.^[51]

The area around Hackescher Markt is home to the fashionable culture, with countless clothing outlets, clubs, bars, and galleries. This includes the Hackesche Höfe, a conglomeration of buildings around several courtyards, reconstructed around 1996. Oranienburger Straße and the nearby New Synagogue were the center of Jewish culture before 1933. Although the New Synagogue is still an anchor for Jewish history and culture, Oranienburger straße and surrounding areas are increasingly known for the shopping and nightlife.

The Straße des 17. Juni, connecting the Brandenburg Gate and Ernst-Reuter-Platz, serves as the central East-West-Axis. Its name commemorates the uprisings in East Berlin of 17 June 1953. Approximately half-way from the Brandenburg Gate is the Großer Stern, a circular traffic island on which the Siegessäule (Victory Column) is situated. This monument, built to commemorate Prussia's victories, was relocated 1938–39 from its previous position in front of the Reichstag.

The Kurfürstendamm is home to some of Berlin's luxurious stores with the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at its eastern end on Breitscheidplatz. The church was destroyed in the Second World War and left in ruins. Nearby on Tauentzienstraße is KaDeWe, claimed to be continental Europe's largest department store. The Rathaus Schöneberg, where John F. Kennedy made his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner!" speech, is situated in Tempelhof-Schöneberg.

West of the center, Schloss Bellevue is the residence of the German President. Schloss Charlottenburg, which was burnt out in the Second World War and largely destroyed, has been rebuilt and is the largest surviving historical palace in Berlin.

The Funkturm Berlin is a 150 m (490 ft) tall lattice radio tower at the fair area, built between 1924 and 1926. It is the only observation tower which stands on insulators and has a restaurant 55 m (180 ft) and an observation deck 126 m (413 ft) above ground, which is reachable by a windowed elevator.

Gallery of Berlin sights and attractions

• 

  Brandenburg Gate

• 

  Berlin TV Tower (Fernsehturm)

• 

  Reichstag building

• 

  Reichstag dome _(inside)

• 

  Bundeskanzleramt

• 

  View of the Regierungsviertel _{(Government area)}

• 

  Berlin Cathedral (Dom)

• 

  St. Hedwig's Cathedral

• 

  Şehitlik mosque

• 

  Bode Museum on Museum Island

• 

  Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall)

• 

  New Synagogue

• 

  Gendarmenmarkt

• 

  Former armory, now museum on Unter den Linden boulevard

• 

  View over Potsdamer Platz

• 

  Inside the Sony Center

• 

  Alexanderplatz

• 

  Leipziger Platz

• 

  Pariser Platz with Brandenburg Gate

• 

  Berlin Victory Column in the Tiergarten

• 

  View over Großer Tiergarten

• 

  Soviet War Memorial

• 

  Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

• 

  Charlottenburg Palace

• 

  Bellevue Palace

• 

  Entrance to Berlin Zoo

• 

  Olympic Stadium

• 

  Kurfürstendamm (shopping street)

• 

  Oberbaum Bridge

• 

  Section of the Cold War Berlin Wall

• 

  The Kaufhaus des Westens department store

• 

  Berliner Philharmonie

• 

  Inside the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

• 

  Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

• 

  Pergamon Museum

• 

  Haus der Kulturen der Welt

• 

  Alte Nationalgalerie

• 

  Zoofenster

• 

  Debis-Haus is part of the Daimler-Complex

• 

  Humboldt Box

• 

  Friedrichstadt-Palast

• 

  View over Mediaspree with Treptowers

• 

  Neue Wache

• 

  Inside the Hackesche Höfe

• 

  View over Nikolaiviertel (Nicholas' Quarter) with St. Nicholas' Church

• 

  Großer Wannsee

• 

  Teufelsberg

• 

  View over Europacity quarter (under construction) with Berlin Central Station at center

• 

  Berlin City Palace, demolished in 1950, three façades scheduled for reconstruction

• 

  Former Prussian Landtag, Niederkirchnerstr. 5, Berlin, Germany

• 

  The UNESCO World Heritage Site Berlin Modernism Housing Estates

Politics

Capital city

Berlin is the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. The President of Germany, whose functions are mainly ceremonial under the German constitution, has his official residence in Schloss Bellevue.^[52] Berlin is the seat of the German executive, housed in the Chancellery, the Bundeskanzleramt.

Facing the Chancellery is the Bundestag, the German Parliament, housed in the renovated Reichstag building since the government moved back to Berlin in 1998. The Bundesrat ("federal council", performing the function of an upper house) is the representation of the Federal States (Bundesländer) of Germany and has its seat at the former Prussian House of Lords. Though most of the ministries are seated in Berlin, some of them, as well as some minor departments, are seated in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. Discussions to move the remaining branches continue.^[53]

City state

The city and state parliament is the House of Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus), which currently has 141 seats. Berlin's executive body is the Senate of Berlin (Senat von Berlin). The Senate of Berlin consists of the Governing Mayor (Regierender Bürgermeister) and up to eight senators holding ministerial positions, one of them holding the official title "Mayor" (Bürgermeister) as deputy to the Governing Mayor. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and The Left (Die Linke) took control of the city government after the 2001 state election and won another term in the 2006 state election.^[54] Since the 2011 state election, there has been a coalition of the Social Democratic Party with the Christian Democratic Union, and for the first time ever, the Pirate Party won seats in a state parliament in Germany when its Berlin chapter received 8.9% of the vote.

The Governing Mayor is simultaneously Lord Mayor of the city (Oberbürgermeister der Stadt) and Prime Minister of the Federal State (Ministerpräsident des Bundeslandes). The office of Berlin's Governing Mayor is in the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall). Since 2001 this office has been held by Klaus Wowereit of the SPD.^[55]

The total annual state budget of Berlin in 2007 exceeded €20.5 ($28.7) billion including a budget surplus of €80 ($112) million. The figures indicate the first surplus in the history of the city state.^[56] Due to increasing growth rates and tax revenues, the Senate of Berlin calculates an increasing budget surplus in 2008. The total budget includes an estimated amount of €5.5 ($7.7) bn, which is directly financed by either the German government or the German Bundesländer.^[57] Mainly due to reunification-related expenditures, Berlin as a German state has accumulated more debt than any other city in Germany, with the most current estimate being €60 ($84)bn in December 2007.^[58] In 2011, the very high level of public sector debt prompted the Stabilitätsrat von Bund und Ländern (Council for Fiscal Stability of the Federal and Local States) to declare a possible fiscal emergency for the city.^[59]

Since the reunification on 3 October 1990, Berlin has been one of the three city states in Germany, together with Hamburg and the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, among the present 16 states of Germany.

Boroughs

Berlin is subdivided into twelve boroughs (Bezirke), down from 23 boroughs before Berlin's 2001 administrative reform. Each borough contains a number of localities (Ortsteile), which often have historic roots in older municipalities that predate the formation of Greater Berlin on 1 October 1920 and became urbanized and incorporated into the city. Many residents strongly identify with their localities or boroughs. At present Berlin consists of 96 localities, which are commonly made up of several city neighborhoods—called Kiez in the Berlin dialect—representing small residential areas.

Each borough is governed by a borough council (Bezirksamt) consisting of five councilors (Bezirksstadträte) and a borough mayor (Bezirksbürgermeister). The borough council is elected by the borough assembly (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung). The boroughs of Berlin are not independent municipalities, however. The power of borough governments is limited and subordinate to the Senate of Berlin. The borough mayors form the council of mayors (Rat der Bürgermeister), led by the city's governing mayor, which advises the senate.

The localities have no local government bodies, and the administrative duties of the former locality representative, the Ortsvorsteher, were taken over by the borough mayors.

Twin towns – Sister cities

Berlin maintains official partnerships with 17 cities.^[60] Town twinning between Berlin and other cities began with sister city Los Angeles in 1967. East Berlin's partnerships were canceled at the time of German reunification and later partially reestablished. West Berlin's partnerships had previously been restricted to the borough level. During the Cold War era, the partnerships had reflected the different power blocs, with West Berlin partnering with capitals in the West, and East Berlin mostly partnering with cities from the Warsaw Pact and its allies.

There are several joint projects with many other cities, such as Beirut, Belgrade, São Paulo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Oslo, Shanghai, Seoul, Sofia, Sydney, New York City and Vienna. Berlin participates in international city associations such as the Union of the Capitals of the European Union, Eurocities, Network of European Cities of Culture, Metropolis, Summit Conference of the World's Major Cities, and Conference of the World's Capital Cities. Berlin's official sister cities are:^[60]

1967  Los Angeles, United States 1987  Paris, France 1988  Madrid, Spain 1989  Istanbul, Turkey 1991  Warsaw, Poland[61] 1991  Moscow, Russia

1991  Budapest, Hungary[62] 1992  Brussels, Belgium 1993  Jakarta, Indonesia 1993 Tashkent, Uzbekistan 1993  Mexico City, Mexico 1994  Beijing, China

1994 Tokyo, Japan 1994  Buenos Aires, Argentina 1995  Prague, Czech Republic[63] 2000  Windhoek, Namibia 2000  London, United Kingdom

Economy

In 2009, the nominal GDP of the citystate Berlin experienced a growth rate of 1.7% (−3.5% in Germany) and totaled €90.1 (~$117) billion.^[64] Berlin's economy is dominated by the service sector, with around 80% of all companies doing business in services. The unemployment rate reached a 15-year low in September 2011 and stood at 12.7% (German average: 6.6%).^[65]

Fast-growing economic sectors in Berlin include communications, life sciences, and transportation, ^{[citation needed]} particularly services that use information and communication technologies, as well as media and music, advertising and design, biotechnology, environmental services, and medical engineering.^[66]

The Science and Business Park of Berlin-Adlershof is among the 15 largest technology parks worldwide. Research and development have high economic significance for the city, and the Berlin–Brandenburg region ranks among the top-three innovative regions in the EU.^[67]

Companies

Many German and international companies have business or service centers in the city. For years Berlin is recognised as a centre of business startup in Europe. Among the 20 largest employers in Berlin are the Deutsche Bahn, the hospital provider, Charité, the local public transport provider, BVG, and the service provider, Dussmann and the Piepenbrock Group. Daimler manufactures cars, and BMW builds motorcycles in Berlin. Bayer Health Care and Berlin Chemie are major pharmaceutical companies headquartered in the city. The second largest German airline Air Berlin is also headquartered in Berlin.^[68]

Siemens, a Fortune Global 500 company and one of the 30 German DAX companies, is headquartered in Berlin. The national railway operator, Deutsche Bahn, has its headquarters in Berlin as well.^[69] Berlin has a cluster of rail technology companies and is headquarter or site to Bombardier Transportation,^[70] Siemens Mobility,^[71] Stadler Rail and Thales Transportation.^[72]

Tourism

Berlin had 781 hotels with over 125 thousand beds at June 2012.^[73] The city recorded 20.8 million overnight hotel stays and 9.1 million hotel guests in 2010.^[20] In the first half of 2012, there was an increase of over 10% compared to the same period the year before.^[73] Berlin has a yearly total of about 135 million day visitors, which puts it in third place among the most-visited city destinations in the European Union.

Conventions

Berlin is among the top three convention cities in the world and is home to Europe's biggest convention center, the Internationales Congress Centrum (ICC) at the Messe.^[18] Several large-scale trade fairs like the consumer electronics trade fair IFA, the ILA Berlin Air Show, Berlin Fashion Week, Green Week ("Grüne Woche"), the transport fair InnoTrans, the adult fair Venus, the music fair Popkomm and the tourism fair ITB are held annually in the city, attracting a significant number of business visitors.

Creative industries

Industries that do business in the creative arts and entertainment are an important and sizable sector of the economy of Berlin. The creative arts sector comprises music, film, advertising, architecture, art, design, fashion, performing arts, publishing, R&D, software,^[74] TV, radio, and video games. Around 22,600 creative enterprises, predominantly SMEs, generated over 18,6 billion Euro in total revenue. Berlin's creative industries have contributed an estimated 20% of Berlin's gross domestic product in 2005.^[75]

Infrastructure

Transport

Berlin's transport infrastructure is highly complex, providing a diverse range of urban mobility.^[76] A total of 979 bridges cross 197 km (122 mi) of inner-city waterways. 5,334 km (3,314 mi) of roads run through Berlin, of which 73 km (45 mi) are motorways ("Autobahn").^[67] In 2006, 1.416 million motor vehicles were registered in the city.^[77] With 358 cars per 1000 residents in 2008 (570/1000 in Germany), Berlin as a German state and as a major European city has one of the lowest numbers of cars per capita.^[78]

Long-distance rail lines connect Berlin with all of the major cities of Germany and with many cities in neighboring European countries. Regional rail lines provide access to the surrounding regions of Brandenburg and to the Baltic Sea. The Berlin Hauptbahnhof is the largest grade-separated railway station in Europe.^[79] Deutsche Bahn runs trains to domestic destinations like Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and others. It also runs an airport express rail service, as well as trains to several international destinations.

The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe and the Deutsche Bahn manage several dense urban public transport systems.^[80]

System	Stations/ Lines/ Net length	Passengers per year	Operator/ Notes
S-Bahn	166 / 15 / 331 km (206 mi)	376 million	DB/ Mainly overground rail system. Some suburban stops.
U-Bahn	173 / 10 / 147 km (91 mi)	457 million	BVG/ Mainly underground rail system. 24hour-service on weekends.
Tram	398 / 22 / 192 km (119 mi)	171 million	BVG/ Operates predominantly in eastern boroughs.
Bus	2627 / 147 / 1,626 km (1,010 mi)	407 million	BVG/ Extensive services in all boroughs. 46 Night Lines
Ferry	6 lines		BVG/ All modes of transport can be accessed with the same ticket.[81]

Airports

Berlin has two commercial airports. Berlin Tegel Airport (TXL), which lies within the city limits, and Schönefeld Airport (SXF), which is situated just outside Berlin's south-eastern border in the state of Brandenburg. Both airports together handled 24 million passengers in 2011. In 2011, 88 airlines served 164 destinations in 54 countries from Berlin.^[82] Tegel Airport is an important hub for Air Berlin as well as a focus city for Lufthansa, whereas Schönefeld services mainly low-cost and leisure airlines, most notably easyJet.

Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) will replace Tegel and Schönefeld as single commercial airport of Berlin.^[83] Originally planned to be opened in 2011, the new airport has been delayed several times due to poor construction management and technical difficulties.^[84] As of January 2013, it is not known when BER will become operational.^[85]

Cycling

Berlin is well known for its highly developed bicycle lane system.^[86] It is estimated that Berlin has 710 bicycles per 1000 residents. Around 500,000 daily bike riders accounted for 13% of total traffic in 2009.^[87] Cyclists have access to 620 km (385 mi) of bicycle paths including approximately 150 km (93 mi) of mandatory bicycle paths, 190 km (118 mi) (120 miles) of off-road bicycle routes, 60 km (37 mi) of bicycle lanes on roads, 70 km (43 mi) of shared bus lanes which are also open to cyclists, 100 km (62 mi) of combined pedestrian/bike paths and 50 km (31 mi) of marked bicycle lanes on roadside pavements (or sidewalks).^[88]

Energy

Berlin's energy is mainly supplied by the Swedish firm Vattenfall, which relies more heavily than other electricity producers on lignite as an energy source. Because burning lignite produces harmful emissions, Vattenfall has announced its commitment to transitioning to cleaner sources, such as renewable energy.^[89] In the former West Berlin, electricity was supplied chiefly by thermal power stations. To facilitate buffering during load peaks, accumulators were installed during the 1980s at some of these power stations. These were connected by static inverters to the power grid and were loaded during times of low energy consumption and unloaded during periods of high consumption.

In 1993 the power grid connections to the surrounding areas, which had been cut in 1951, were restored. In the western districts of Berlin, nearly all power lines are underground cables; only a 380 kV and a 110 kV line, which run from Reuter substation to the urban Autobahn, use overhead lines. The Berlin 380-kV electric line was built when West Berlin's electrical grid was not connected to those of East or West Germany. This has now become the backbone of the city's energy grid.

The car maker Daimler AG and the electric utility RWE AG are going to begin a joint electric car and charging station test project in Berlin called "E-Mobility Berlin."^[90]

Health

Berlin has a rich history of discoveries in medicine and innovations in medical technology.^[91] The modern history of medicine has been significantly influenced by scientists from Berlin. Rudolf Virchow was the founder of cellular pathology, while Robert Koch developed vaccines for anthrax, cholera, and tuberculosis.^[92]

The Charité hospital complex is the largest university hospital in Europe, tracing back its origins to the year 1710. The Charité is spread over four sites and comprises 3,300 beds, around 14,000 staff, 7,000 students, and more than 60 operating theaters, and has a turnover of over one billion euros annually.^[93] After the merger in 2003, the Charité is now a joint institution of the Freie Universität Berlin and the Humboldt University of Berlin, including a wide range of institutes and specialized medical centers.

Among them are the German Heart Center, one of the most renowned transplantation centers, the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine and the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics. The scientific research at these institutions is complemented by many research departments of companies such as Siemens, Schering and Debis.

Demographics

Significant foreign born populations[94]
Country of Birth	Population (2012)
Turkey	101,061
Poland	46,945
Italy	19,771
Serbia	18,544
Russia	17,596
Bulgaria	15,933
France	15,253
United States	14,395
Vietnam	13,959
United Kingdom	11,480
Spain	11,473
Greece	10,953
Bosnia and Herzegovina	10,680
Unknown Citizenship	10,325
Austria	10,058
Croatia	10,025
Romania	8,843
Ukraine	8,791
Lebanon	7,094
China	6,084
Thailand	4,975
Macedonia	4,960
Netherlands	4,911
Iran	4,192
Sweden	3,519
Portugal	3,405
Hungary	3,317
Israel	3,302
Brazil	3,231
South Korea	3,195
Latvia	3,152
Japan	2,987
Denmark	2,979
Republic of Kosovo	2,957
India	2,739
Syria	2,471

On 31 December 2011, the city-state of Berlin had a population of 3.5 million registered inhabitants^[95] in an area of 891.82 km² (344.33 sq mi).^[81] The city's population density was 3,848 inhabitants per km² (9,966/sq mi). The urban area of Berlin stretches beyond the city limits and comprises about 3.7 million people, while the metropolitan area of the Berlin-Brandenburg region is home to about 4.5 million in an area of 5,370 km² (2,070 sq mi). In 2004, The Larger Urban Zone was home to over 4.9 million people in an area of 17,385 km² (6,712 sq mi).^[8] The entire Berlin-Brandenburg region has a population then of 6 million.^[96]

Berlin is the second most populous city proper and the ninth most populous urban area in the European Union.^[4]

National and international migration into the city has a long history. In 1685, following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France, the city responded with the Edict of Potsdam, which guaranteed religious freedom and tax-free status to French Huguenot refugees for ten years. The Greater Berlin Act in 1920 incorporated many suburbs and surrounding cities of Berlin. It formed most of the territory that comprises modern Berlin. The act increased the area of Berlin from 66 km² (25 sq mi) to 883 km² (341 sq mi) and the population from 1.9 million to 4 million.
Active immigration and asylum politics in West Berlin triggered waves of immigration in the 1960s and 1970s. Currently, Berlin is home to about 250,000 Turks (especially in Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Wedding, a locality in the borough of Mitte),^[97] making it the largest Turkish community outside of Turkey.

In the 1990s the Aussiedlergesetze enabled immigration to Germany of some residents from the former Soviet Union. Today ethnic Germans from countries of the former Soviet Union make up the largest portion of the Russian-speaking community.^[98] The current decade experiences an increasing influx from various Western countries. Especially young EU-Europeans are settling in the city. Additionally, Berlin has seen a rise of African immigrants during the last two decades.^[99]

In December 2010, 457,806 residents (13.5% of the population) were of foreign nationality, originating from 190 different countries.^[100] The largest groups of foreign nationals are those from Turkey (104,556), Poland (40,988), Serbia (19,230), Italy (15,842), Russia (15,332), France (13,262), Vietnam (13,199), the United States (12,733), Bosnia and Herzegovina (10,198), the United Kingdom (10,191), Croatia (10,104), Bulgaria (9,988), Greece (9,301), and Austria (9,246).^[100] An estimated 394,000 citizens (12.2%) are descendants of international migrants and have either become naturalized German citizens or obtained citizenship by virtue of birth in Germany.^[101] All in all, about 25%–30% of the population is of foreign origin^[102]

The Berlin Senate estimates that Berlin’s population will grow modestly to 3.75 million inhabitants in 2030. The greatest increase will be 20 percent for 6- to 18-year-olds. The average age will rise slightly though to over 44 due to longer life expectancies.^[95]

Religion

More than 60% of Berlin residents have no registered religious affiliation and Berlin has been described as the atheist capital of Europe.^[103] The largest denominations in 2010 were the Protestant regional church body of the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO) (a church of united administration comprising mostly Lutheran, and few Reformed and United Protestant congregations; EKBO is a member of the umbrellas Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and Union Evangelischer Kirchen (UEK)) with 18.7% of the population,^[104] and the Roman Catholic Church with 9.1% of registered members.^[104] About 2.7% of the population identify with other Christian denominations (mostly Eastern Orthodox)^[105] and 8.1% are Muslims.^[106] 0.9% of Berliners belong to other religions.^[107] Approximately 80% of the 12,000 registered Jews, 0.3%^[105] now residing in Berlin have come from the former Soviet Union.

Berlin is the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Berlin and EKBO's elected chairperson is titled bishop of EKBO. Furthermore, Berlin is the seat of many Orthodox cathedrals, such as the Cathedral of St. Boris the Baptist, one of the two seats of the Bulgarian Orthodox Diocese of Western and Central Europe, and the Resurrection of Christ Cathedral of the Diocese of Berlin (Patriarchate of Moscow).

The faithful of the different religions and denominations maintain many places of worship in Berlin. The Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church has eight parishes of different sizes in Berlin.^[108] There are 36 Baptist congregations (within Union of Evangelical Free Church Congregations in Germany), 29 New Apostolic Churches, 15 United Methodist churches, eight Free Evangelical Congregations, six congregations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an Old Catholic church, and an Anglican church in Berlin.

Berlin has 76 mosques, eleven synagogues, and two Buddhist temples, in addition to a number of humanist and atheist groups.

Education

Berlin has 878 schools that teach 340,658 children in 13,727 classes and 56,787 trainees in businesses and elsewhere.^[67] The city has a six-year primary education program. After completing primary school, students progress to the Sekundarschule (a comprehensive school) or Gymnasium (college preparatory school). Berlin has a special bilingual school program embedded in the "Europaschule". At participating schools, children are taught the curriculum in German and also in a foreign language, starting in primary school and continuing in high school. Throughout nearly all boroughs, nine major European languages can be chosen as foreign languages in 29 schools.^[109]

The Französisches Gymnasium Berlin, which was founded in 1689 to teach the children of Huguenot refugees, offers (German/French) instruction.^[110] The John F. Kennedy School, a bilingual German–American public school located in Zehlendorf, is particularly popular with children of diplomats and the English-speaking expatriate community. In addition, four schools ("Humanistische Gymnasien") teach Latin and Classical Greek. Two of them are state schools (Steglitzer Gymnasium in Steglitz and Goethe-Gymnasium in Wilmersdorf), one is Protestant (Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster in Wilmersdorf), and one is Jesuit (Canisius-Kolleg in the "Embassy Quarter" in Tiergarten).

Higher education

The Berlin-Brandenburg capital region is one of the most prolific centers of higher education and research in the European Union. The city has four public research universities and 27 private, professional and technical colleges (Hochschulen), offering a wide range of disciplines.^[111] Over 160,000 students were enrolled in the winter term of 2012/13.^[112] The three largest universities combined have approximately 100,000 enrolled students. They are the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin) with 34,000 students, the Freie Universität Berlin (Free University of Berlin, FU Berlin) with about 34,500 students, and the Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) with 30,000 students. The Universität der Künste (UdK) has about 4,000 students and the Berlin School of Economics and Law has enrollment of about 9,000 students.

The city has a high density of research institutions, such as the Fraunhofer Society, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community and the Max Planck Society, which are independent of, or only loosely connected to its universities. A total number of 62,000 scientists are working in research and development.^[67] The city is one of the centers of knowledge and innovation communities (Future Information and Communication Society and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation) of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).^[113]

In addition to libraries that are affiliated with the various universities, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is a major research library. Its two main locations are near Potsdamer Platz on Potsdamer Straße and on Unter den Linden. There are also 108 public libraries in the city.^[67]

Culture

Berlin is noted for its numerous cultural institutions, many of which enjoy international reputation.^[21][114] The diversity and vivacity of the Zeitgeist Metropolis led to a trendsetting image among major cities.^[115] The city has a very diverse art scene and is home to around 420 art galleries.^[116]

Many young people and international artists continue to settle in the city, and Berlin has established itself as a center of youth and popular culture in Europe.^[117]

The expanding cultural role of Berlin is underscored by the 2003 announcement that the Popkomm, Europe's largest annual music industry convention—previously hosted for 15 years by Cologne—would move to Berlin.^[118] Shortly thereafter, the Universal Music Group and MTV also decided to move their European headquarters and main studios to the banks of the River Spree in Friedrichshain.^[119] In 2005, Berlin was awarded the title of "City of Design" by UNESCO.^[19]

Media

Berlin is home to many international and regional television and radio stations.^[120] The public broadcaster RBB has its headquarters in Berlin as well as the commercial broadcasters MTV Europe, VIVA, and N24. German international public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has its TV production unit in Berlin, and most national German broadcasters have a studio in the city including ZDF and RTL. American radio programming from National Public Radio is also broadcast on the FM dial.

Berlin has Germany's largest number of daily newspapers, with numerous local broadsheets (Berliner Morgenpost, Berliner Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel), and three major tabloids, as well as national dailies of varying sizes, each with a different political affiliation, such as Die Welt, Junge Welt, Neues Deutschland, and Die Tageszeitung. The Exberliner, a monthly magazine, is Berlin's English-language periodical focusing on arts and entertainment. Berlin is also the headquarter of the two major German-language publishing houses Walter de Gruyter and Springer, each of which publish books, periodicals, and multimedia products.

Berlin is an important center in the European and German film industry.^[121] It is home to more than 1000 film and television production companies, 270 movie theaters, and around 300 national and international co-productions are filmed in the region every year.^[67] The historic Babelsberg Studios and the production company UFA are located outside Berlin in Potsdam. The city is also home of the European Film Academy and the German Film Academy, and hosts the annual Berlin Film Festival. Founded in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978. With over 430,000 admissions it is the largest publicly attended film festival in the world.^[122][123]

Nightlife and festivals

Berlin's nightlife is one of the most diverse and vibrant of its kind in Europe.^[124] Throughout the 1990s, people in their twenties from many countries, particularly those in Eastern and Central Europe, made Berlin's club scene the premier nightlife destination of Europe. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many historic buildings in Mitte, the former city center of East Berlin, were illegally occupied and re-built by young squatters and became a fertile ground for underground and counterculture gatherings. Mitte and surrounding boroughs are also home to many nightclubs, including techno clubs Tresor, WMF, Ufo, E-Werk, KitKatClub and Berghain. The techno-music club, Linientreu, near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, has been in business since the late 1980s.

Berlin is notable for its diverse partyscene. Clubs are not required to close at a fixed time on the weekends, and many parties last well into the morning, or all weekend. Berghain features the Panorama Bar, so named because the bar opens its shades at daybreak, allowing party-goers a panorama view of Berlin after dancing through the night.

The SO36 in Kreuzberg originally focused largely on punk music but today has become a popular venue for many dances and parties. SOUND, located from 1971 to 1988 in Tiergarten and today in Charlottenburg, gained notoriety in the late 1970s for its popularity with heroin users and other drug addicts as described in Christiane F.'s book Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo.^[125]

The Karneval der Kulturen, a multi-ethnic street parade celebrated every Pentecost weekend,^[126] and the Christopher Street Day are both supported by the city's government.^[127] Berlin is also well known for the cultural festival, Berliner Festspiele, which include the jazz festival JazzFest Berlin. Several technology and media art festivals and conferences are held in the city, including Transmediale and Chaos Communication Congress.

• 

  Berghain

• 

  French Cathedral at the Festival of Lights (Berlin)

• 

  The Berlinale is the largest spectator film festival in the world.

Gay life

Berlin has a long history of gay culture and influence on popular entertainment, and according to some authors, in the 1920s the city was the Gay Capital of Europe.^[128] Today, the city has a huge number of gay clubs and festivals, such as Easter fetish week Easter in Berlin, Berlin Pride (Christopher Street Day)—central Europe's largest gay-lesbian pride event celebrated on the last weekend of June—Folsom Europe and Hustlaball. Berlin is also leading Europe in the number of fetish clubs. Easter in Berlin and Folsom Europe Berlin are the biggest gay fetish festivals in Europe.^[129] Annual gay highlights in Berlin are also the gay and lesbian street festival in Berlin-Schöneberg (Lesbisch-schwules Stadtfest) and Kreuzberg Pride in June. The largest gay areas in Berlin are located in Schöneberg close to Nollendorfplatz, in Prenzlauer Berg at the Schönhauser Allee subway station and the street Mehringdamm.^[130][131]

Galleries and museums

Berlin is home to 153 museums.^[67] The ensemble on the Museum Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is situated in the northern part of the Spree Island between the Spree and the Kupfergraben.^[21] As early as 1841 it was designated a "district dedicated to art and antiquities" by a royal decree. Subsequently, the Altes Museum (Old Museum) was built in the Lustgarten. The Neues Museum (New Museum), which displays the bust of Queen Nefertiti,^[132] Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery), Pergamon Museum, and Bode Museum were built there. While these buildings once housed distinct collections, the names of the buildings no longer necessarily correspond to the names of their collections.

Apart from the Museum Island, there are many additional museums in the city. The Gemäldegalerie (Painting Gallery) focuses on the paintings of the "old masters" from the 13th to the 18th centuries, while the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) specializes in 20th-century European painting. The Hamburger Bahnhof, located in Moabit, exhibits a major collection of modern and contemporary art. In spring 2006, the expanded Deutsches Historisches Museum re-opened in the Zeughaus with an overview of German history through the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Bauhaus Archive is an architecture museum.

The Jewish Museum has a standing exhibition on two millennia of German-Jewish history.^[133] The German Museum of Technology in Kreuzberg has a large collection of historical technical artifacts. The Museum für Naturkunde exhibits natural history near Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It has the largest mounted dinosaur in the world (a brachiosaurus), and a preserved specimen of the early bird Archaeopteryx.^[134]

In Dahlem, there are several museums of world art and culture, such as the Museum of Asian Art, the Ethnological Museum, the Museum of European Cultures, as well as the Allied Museum (a museum of the Cold War) and the Brücke Museum (an art museum). In Lichtenberg, on the grounds of the former East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi), is the Stasi Museum. The site of Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most renowned crossing points of the Berlin Wall, is still preserved and also has a museum, a private venture which exhibits comprehensive documentation of detailed plans and strategies devised by people who tried to flee from the East. The Beate Uhse Erotic Museum near Zoo Station claims to be the world's largest erotic museum.^[135]

Performing arts

Berlin is home to more than 50 theaters.^[67] The Deutsches Theater in Mitte was built in 1849–50 and has operated continuously since then, except for a one-year break (1944–45) due to the Second World War. The Volksbühne at Rosa Luxemburg Platz was built in 1913–14, though the company had been founded in 1890. The Berliner Ensemble, famous for performing the works of Bertolt Brecht, was established in 1949, not far from the Deutsches Theater. The Schaubühne was founded in 1962 in a building in Kreuzberg, but in 1981 moved to the building of the former Universum Cinema on Kurfürstendamm.

Berlin has three major opera houses: the Deutsche Oper, the Berlin State Opera, and the Komische Oper. The Berlin State Opera on Unter den Linden opened in 1742 and is the oldest of the three. Its current musical director is Daniel Barenboim. The Komische Oper has traditionally specialized in operettas and is located at Unter den Linden as well. The Deutsche Oper opened in 1912 in Charlottenburg. During the division of the city from 1961 to 1989 it was the only major opera house in West Berlin. The city's main venue for musical theater performances is the Theater des Westens (built 1895).

There are seven symphony orchestras in Berlin. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world;^[136] it is housed in the Berliner Philharmonie near Potsdamer Platz on a street named for the orchestra's longest-serving conductor, Herbert von Karajan.^[137] The current principal conductor is Simon Rattle.^[138] The Konzerthausorchester Berlin was founded in 1952 as the orchestra for East Berlin, since the Philharmonic was based in West Berlin. Its current principal conductor is Ivan Fischer. The Haus der Kulturen der Welt presents various exhibitions dealing with intercultural issues and stages world music and conferences.^[139]

Cuisine

Berlin is home to a diverse gastronomy scene reflecting the immigrant history of the city. Twelve restaurants in Berlin have been included into the Michelin guide, which ranks the city at the top for the number of its restaurants having this distinction in Germany.^[140] Apart from that, Berlin is well known for its vast offering of vegetarian, vegan and otherwise sustainability-oriented food, such as fair trade goods or organic food. Berlin is one of the cities with the most vegetarian and vegan restaurants in the world.^[141]

Many local foods originated from north German culinary traditions and include rustic and hearty dishes with pork, goose, fish, peas, beans, cucumbers, or potatoes. Typical Berliner fares include Currywurst, invented in 1949,^[142] Eisbein, the Berliner known in Berlin as a Pfannkuchen, and Leber Berliner Art (Berlin-style liver).^[143]

Turkish and Arab immigrant workers brought their culinary traditions to the city, such as the döner kebab, falafel, and lahmacun, which have become common fast food staples. The modern fast food version of the döner was invented in Berlin in 1971.^[144]

Recreation

Zoologischer Garten Berlin, the older of two zoos in the city, was founded in 1844, and presents the most diverse range of species in the world.^[145] It was the home of the captive-born celebrity polar bear Knut,^[146] born in December 2006.^[147] The city's other zoo is Tierpark Friedrichsfelde, founded in 1955 on the grounds of Schloss Friedrichsfelde in the Borough of Lichtenberg.

Berlin's Botanischer Garten includes the Botanic Museum Berlin. With an area of 43 hectares (110 acres) and around 22,000 different plant species it is one of the largest and most diverse gardens in the world.^{[citation needed]} Other gardens in the city include the Britzer Garten, site of the 1985 Bundesgartenschau, and the Erholungspark Marzahn, promoted under the name Gardens of the world.^[148]

The Tiergarten is Berlin's largest park located in Mitte and was designed by Peter Joseph Lenné.^[149] In Kreuzberg the Viktoriapark provides a good viewing point over the southern part of inner city Berlin. Treptower Park beside the Spree in Treptow has a monument honoring the Soviet soldiers killed in the 1945 Battle of Berlin. The Volkspark in Friedrichshain, which opened in 1848, is the oldest park in the city. Its summit is man-made and covers a Second World War bunker and rubble from the ruins of the city; at its foot is Germany's main memorial to Polish soldiers.

Berlin is known for its numerous beach bars along the river Spree. Together with the countless cafés, restaurants and green spaces in all districts, they create an important source of recreation and leisure time.^[150]

Sports

Berlin has established a high-profile reputation as a host city of international sporting events.^[151] Berlin hosted the 1936 Olympics and was the host city for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final.^[152] The IAAF World Championships in Athletics were held in the Olympiastadion in August 2009.^[153] The annual Berlin Marathon and the annual ÅF Golden League event ISTAF for athletics are also held here.^[154] The FIVB World Tour has chosen an inner-city site near Alexanderplatz to present a beach volleyball Grand Slam every year.

Open Air gatherings of several hundred thousands spectators have become popular during international football competitions, like the World Cup or the UEFA European Football Championship. Many fans and viewers come together to watch the matches on huge video screens. The event is known as the Fan Mile and takes place at the Brandenburg Gate every two years.^[155]

Several major clubs representing the most popular spectator sports in Germany have their base in Berlin.

Club	Sport	Founded	League	Venue	Head Coach
Hertha BSC[156]	Football	1892	Bundesliga	Olympiastadion	J. Luhukay
1. FC Union Berlin[157]	Football	1966	2. Bundesliga	Alte Försterei	U. Neuhaus
ALBA Berlin[158]	Basketball	1991	BBL	O2 World	Sasa Obradovic
Eisbären Berlin[159]	Ice hockey	1954	DEL	O2 World	D. Jackson
Füchse Berlin[160]	Handball	1891	HBL	Max-Schmeling-Halle	D. Sigurdsson
ECC Preussen Berlin[161]	Ice Hockey	1893	Regionalliga Ost	Eissporthalle Charlottenburg	Stefan Mann
Berlin Adler	American Football	1979	GFL North	Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark	Wanja Mueller
Berlin Recycling Volleys[162]	Volleyball	1911	DVL[163]	Max-Schmeling-Halle	Mark Lebedew

Notable people

• 

  Marlene Dietrich

• 

  Alexander von Humboldt

• 

  Alice Salomon

• 

  Karl Liebknecht

• 

  Walter Gropius

• 

  Nelly Sachs

• 

  Richard von Weizsäcker

• 

  Franziska van Almsick to the right

• 

  Gregor Gysi

• 

  Claudia Pechstein

• 

  Kevin-Prince Boateng

• 

  Jérôme Boateng

• 

  Jeanette Biedermann

• 

  Matthias Schweighöfer

See also

• Berlinerisch dialect
• Berolina, personification of the city
• List of quotes featuring Berlin
• List of sights in Berlin

Notes

References

• Chandler, Tertius (1987). Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census. Edwin Mellen Pr. ISBN 0-88946-207-0. 
• Gill, Anton (1993). A Dance Between Flames: Berlin Between the Wars. John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-4986-8. 
• Gross, Leonard (1999). The Last Jews in Berlin. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-0687-2. 
• Large, David Clay (2001). Berlin. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02632-X. 
• Read, Anthony; David Fisher (1994). Berlin Rising: Biography of a City. W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-03606-5.  Cite uses deprecated parameters (help)
• Ribbe, Wolfgang (2002). Geschichte Berlins. Bwv – Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag. ISBN 3-8305-0166-8. 
• Roth, Joseph (2004). What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920–33. Granta Books. ISBN 1-86207-636-7. 
• Taylor, Frederick (2007). The Berlin Wall: 13 August 1961 – 9 November 1989. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 0-06-078614-0. 
• Maclean, Rory (2014). Berlin: Imagine a City. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-84803-5. 

External links

Find more about Berlin at Wikipedia's sister projects
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
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	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
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	Travel guide from Wikivoyage
	Learning resources from Wikiversity

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Berlin.

• Geographic data related to Berlin at OpenStreetMap
• Berlin.de—Official Website
• Exberliner - Monthly English-language magazine for Berlin
• English-language city guide for Berlin

Links to related articles v t e Berlin topics Administration Politics Constitution Coat of arms Flag Subdivisions Elections Referendums Parliament Senate Governing Mayor Police Society History Geography Culture Dialect Demographics (statistics) Economy Education Transport People Sports Football Religion Other topics Metro Region Architecture Sights Castles Museums Places of worship Venues Universities Parks and forests Cemeteries Main category Berlin portal v t e Boroughs and localities of Berlin Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Charlottenburg Charlottenburg-Nord Grunewald Halensee Schmargendorf Westend Wilmersdorf Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Friedrichshain Kreuzberg Lichtenberg Alt-Hohenschönhausen Falkenberg Fennpfuhl Friedrichsfelde Karlshorst Lichtenberg Malchow Neu-Hohenschönhausen Rummelsburg Wartenberg Marzahn-Hellersdorf Biesdorf Hellersdorf Kaulsdorf Mahlsdorf Marzahn Mitte Gesundbrunnen Hansaviertel Mitte Moabit Tiergarten Wedding Neukölln Britz Buckow Gropiusstadt Neukölln Rudow Pankow Blankenburg Blankenfelde Buch Französisch Buchholz Heinersdorf Karow Niederschönhausen Pankow Prenzlauer Berg Rosenthal Stadtrandsiedlung Malchow Weißensee Wilhelmsruh Reinickendorf Borsigwalde Frohnau Heiligensee Hermsdorf Konradshöhe Lübars Märkisches Viertel Reinickendorf Tegel Waidmannslust Wittenau Spandau Falkenhagener Feld Gatow Hakenfelde Haselhorst Kladow Siemensstadt Spandau Staaken Wilhelmstadt Steglitz-Zehlendorf Dahlem Lankwitz Lichterfelde Nikolassee Steglitz Wannsee Zehlendorf Tempelhof-Schöneberg Friedenau Lichtenrade Mariendorf Marienfelde Schöneberg Tempelhof Treptow-Köpenick Adlershof Alt-Treptow Altglienicke Baumschulenweg Bohnsdorf Friedrichshagen Grünau Johannisthal Köpenick Müggelheim Niederschöneweide Oberschöneweide Plänterwald Rahnsdorf Schmöckwitz Districts > Localities > Zones Greater Berlin Act Former boroughs v t e Cities in Germany by population 1,000,000+ Berlin Cologne Hamburg Munich 500,000+ Bremen Dortmund Dresden Düsseldorf Essen Frankfurt Hanover Leipzig Nuremberg Stuttgart 200,000+ Aachen Augsburg Bielefeld Bochum Bonn Braunschweig Chemnitz Duisburg Erfurt Freiburg im Breisgau Gelsenkirchen Halle (Saale) Karlsruhe Kiel Krefeld Lübeck Magdeburg Mainz Mannheim Münster Mönchengladbach Oberhausen Rostock Wiesbaden Wuppertal 100,000+ Bergisch Gladbach Bottrop Bremerhaven Cottbus Darmstadt Erlangen Fürth Göttingen Hagen Hamm Heidelberg Heilbronn Herne Hildesheim Ingolstadt Jena Kassel Koblenz Leverkusen Ludwigshafen Moers Mülheim an der Ruhr Neuss Offenbach am Main Oldenburg Osnabrück Paderborn Pforzheim Potsdam Recklinghausen Regensburg Remscheid Reutlingen Saarbrücken Salzgitter Siegen Solingen Trier Ulm Wolfsburg Würzburg complete list municipalities metropolitan regions cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants v t e States of the Federal Republic of Germany States   Baden-Württemberg (since 1952)   Bavaria (since 1949)   Brandenburg (since 1990)   Hesse (since 1949)   Lower Saxony (since 1949)   Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (since 1990)   North Rhine-Westphalia (since 1949)   Rhineland-Palatinate (since 1949)   Saarland (since 1957)   Saxony (since 1990)   Saxony-Anhalt (since 1990)   Schleswig-Holstein (since 1949)   Thuringia (since 1990) City-states   Berlin (since 1990)   Bremen (since 1949)   Hamburg (since 1949) Former states   Baden (south) (1949–1952)   Württemberg-Baden (1949–1952)   Württemberg-Hohenzollern (1949–1952) v t e Capitals of states of the Federal Republic of Germany Capitals of area states Dresden (Saxony) Düsseldorf (North Rhine-Westphalia) Erfurt (Thuringia) Hanover (Lower Saxony) Kiel (Schleswig-Holstein) Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt) Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) Munich (Bavaria) Potsdam (Brandenburg) Saarbrücken (Saarland) Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) Stuttgart (Baden-Württemberg) Wiesbaden (Hesse) City-states1 Berlin City of Bremen (State of Bremen) Hamburg Capitals of former states Freiburg im Breisgau (South Baden, 1949–1952) Stuttgart (Württemberg-Baden, 1949–1952) Tübingen (Württemberg-Hohenzollern, 1949–1952) 1 Unlike the mono-city states Berlin and Hamburg, the State of Bremen consists of two cities, thus state and capital are not identical. v t e Capital cities of the member states of the European Union   Amsterdam   Athens   Berlin   Bratislava   Bucharest   Budapest   City of Brussels   Copenhagen   Dublin   Helsinki   Lisbon   Ljubljana   London   Luxembourg   Madrid   Nicosia   Paris   Prague   Riga   Rome   Sofia   Stockholm   Tallinn   Valletta   Vienna   Vilnius   Warsaw   Zagreb v t e Capitals of European states and territories Capitals of dependent territories and states whose sovereignty is disputed shown in italics. Western Amsterdam, Netherlands1 Andorra la Vella, Andorra Brussels, Belgium2 Douglas, Isle of Man (UK) Dublin, Ireland London, United Kingdom Paris, France Saint Helier, Jersey (UK) Saint Peter Port, Guernsey (UK) Northern Copenhagen, Denmark Helsinki, Finland Longyearbyen, Svalbard (Norway) Mariehamn, Åland Islands (Finland) Olonkinbyen, Jan Mayen (Norway) Oslo, Norway Reykjavík, Iceland Riga, Latvia Stockholm, Sweden Tallinn, Estonia Tórshavn, Faroe Islands (Denmark) Vilnius, Lithuania Central Berlin, Germany Bern, Switzerland Bratislava, Slovakia Budapest, Hungary Ljubljana, Slovenia Luxembourg, Luxembourg Prague, Czech Republic Vaduz, Liechtenstein Vienna, Austria Warsaw, Poland Southern Ankara, Turkey3 Athens, Greece Belgrade, Serbia Bucharest, Romania Gibraltar, Gibraltar (UK) Lisbon, Portugal Madrid, Spain Monaco, Monaco Nicosia, Cyprus4 North Nicosia, Northern Cyprus4, 5 Podgorica, Montenegro Pristina, Kosovo5 Rome, Italy San Marino, San Marino Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Skopje, Macedonia Sofia, Bulgaria Tirana, Albania Valletta, Malta Vatican City, Vatican City Zagreb, Croatia Eastern Astana, Kazakhstan3 Baku, Azerbaijan3 Chișinău, Moldova Kiev, Ukraine Minsk, Belarus Moscow, Russia3 Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh4, 5 Sukhumi, Abkhazia3, 5 Tbilisi, Georgia3 Tiraspol, Transnistria5 Tskhinvali, South Ossetia3, 5 Yerevan, Armenia4 1 Also the capital of the Kingdom of the Netherlands 2 Also the seat of the European Union, see Location of European Union institutions and Brussels and the European Union 3 Transcontinental country 4 Entirely in Southwest Asia but having socio-political connections with Europe 5 Partially recognised country v t e European Capitals of Culture 1985 Athens 1986 Florence 1987 Amsterdam 1988 West Berlin 1989 Paris 1990 Glasgow 1991 Dublin 1992 Madrid 1993 Antwerp 1994 Lisbon 1995 Luxembourg City 1996 Copenhagen 1997 Thessaloniki 1998 Stockholm 1999 Weimar 2000 Reykjavík Bergen Helsinki Brussels Prague Kraków Santiago de Compostela Avignon Bologna 2001 Rotterdam Porto 2002 Bruges Salamanca 2003 Graz 2004 Genoa Lille 2005 Cork 2006 Patras 2007 Luxembourg City and Greater Region Sibiu 2008 Liverpool Stavanger 2009 Linz Vilnius 2010 Ruhr Istanbul Pécs 2011 Turku Tallinn 2012 Maribor Guimarães 2013 Košice Marseille 2014 Umeå Riga 2015 Mons Plzeň 2016 San Sebastián Wrocław 2017 Aarhus Paphos 2018 Valletta Leeuwarden v t e Summer Olympic Games host cities 1896: Athens 1900: Paris 1904: St. Louis 1908: London 1912: Stockholm 1916: none[c1] 1920: Antwerp 1924: Paris 1928: Amsterdam 1932: Los Angeles 1936: Berlin 1940: none[c2] 1944: none[c2] 1948: London 1952: Helsinki 1956: Melbourne 1960: Rome 1964: Tokyo 1968: Mexico City 1972: Munich 1976: Montreal 1980: Moscow 1984: Los Angeles 1988: Seoul 1992: Barcelona 1996: Atlanta 2000: Sydney 2004: Athens 2008: Beijing 2012: London 2016: Rio de Janeiro 2020: Tokyo [c1] Cancelled due to World War I; [c2] Cancelled due to World War II v t e IAAF World Championships in Athletics host cities 1983: Helsinki 1987: Rome 1991: Tokyo 1993: Stuttgart 1995: Gothenburg 1997: Athens 1999: Seville 2001: Edmonton 2003: Saint-Denis 2005: Helsinki 2007: Osaka 2009: Berlin 2011: Daegu 2013: Moscow 2015: Beijing 2017: London v t e Members of the Hanseatic League by Quarter Chief cities shown in smallcaps. Free Imperial Cities of the Holy Roman Empire shown in italics. Wendish Lübeck Anklam Demmin Greifswald Hamburg Kolberg (Kołobrzeg) Lüneburg Rostock Rügenwalde (Darłowo) Stettin (Szczecin) Stolp (Słupsk) Stockholm Stralsund Visby Wismar Saxon Brunswick Magdeburg Berlin Bremen Erfurt Frankfurt an der Oder Goslar Mühlhausen Nordhausen Baltic Danzig (Gdańsk) Breslau (Wrocław) Dorpat (Tartu) Elbing (Elbląg) Königsberg (Kaliningrad) Cracow (Kraków) Reval (Tallinn) Riga (Rīga) Thorn (Toruń) Westphalian Cologne 1 Dortmund 1 Deventer Groningen Kampen Münster Osnabrück Soest Kontore Principal Bryggen (Bergen) Hanzekantoor Bruges Antwerp2  Steelyard (London) Peterhof (Novgorod) Subsidiary Bishop's Lynn Falsterbo Ipswich Kaunas Malmö Polotsk Pskov Other cities Bristol Boston Damme Leith Herford Hull Newcastle Stargard Yarmouth York 1 Cologne and Dortmund were both capital of the Westphalian Quarter at different times. 2 Antwerp gained importance once Bruges became inaccessible due to the silting of the Zwin channel.