Mitte

Mitte
Borough of Berlin

Coat of arms
Mitte

Coordinates: 52°31′N 13°22′E / 52.517°N 13.367°E / 52.517; 13.367Coordinates: 52°31′N 13°22′E / 52.517°N 13.367°E / 52.517; 13.367
Country Germany
State Berlin
City Berlin
Government
 • Mayor Christian Hanke (SPD)
Area
 • Total 39.47 km2 (15.24 sq mi)
Population (2012-11-30)
 • Total 346,542
 • Density 8,800/km2 (23,000/sq mi)
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Vehicle registration B
Website Official homepage

Mitte is the first and most central borough of Berlin. It was created in Berlin's 2001 administrative reform by the merger of the former districts of Mitte proper, Tiergarten and Wedding; the resulting borough retained the name Mitte. It is one of the two boroughs (beside Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg) which comprises former West and East Berlin districts. Mitte encompasses Berlin's historic core and includes some of the most important tourist sites of Berlin like Museum Island, Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden, Potsdamer Platz, the Reichstag and Berlin Hauptbahnhof, most of which were in former East Berlin.

Note that when Berliners speak of Mitte, they usually refer to the smaller locality and not to the larger borough.

Geography

Berlin Cathedral an Television Tower

Mitte (German for "middle", "centre") is located in the central part of Berlin along the Spree River. It borders on Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in the west, Reinickendorf in the north, Pankow in the east, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in the southeast, and Tempelhof-Schöneberg in the southwest.

In the middle of the Spree lies Museum Island (Museumsinsel) with its museums and Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom). The central square in Mitte is Alexanderplatz with the prominent Fernsehturm (TV tower), Germany's highest building, and the large railway station with connections to many subway (U-Bahn), tramway (Straßenbahn), city trains (S-Bahn) and buses.

There are some important streets which connect Mitte with the other boroughs, e.g. the boulevard Unter den Linden which connects Alexanderplatz to the west with Brandenburg Gate and runs further as Straße des 17. Juni to the Victory Column and the centre of former West Berlin in Charlottenburg, or Karl-Marx-Allee from Alexanderplatz to Friedrichshain and the eastern suburbs.

History

Checkpoint Charlie,1963

The former Mitte district had been established by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act and comprised large parts of the historic city around Alt-Berlin and Cölln. Brandenburg Gate was the western exit at the Berlin city boundary until 1861.

Between 1961 and 1990, Mitte was the central part of East Berlin, however at the same time it was surrounded by the Berlin Wall at its north, south and west. There were some border control points, the most famous of which was Checkpoint Charlie between Kreuzberg and Mitte, which was operated by the United States Army and its allies and was open to foreigners and diplomats.

Two other checkpoints were at Heinrich-Heine-Straße/Prinzenstraße east of Checkpoint Charlie, open to citizens of West Germany and West Berlin and on Invalidenstraße in the north on the border with the West Berlin Tiergarten district (the present-day Moabit locality).

Regierungsviertel (Government District)

The government district is located in the locality of Tiergarten around the Reichstag Building. Most institutions of the german government have their seat at the Regierungsviertel

Botschaftsviertel (Embassy Quarter)

Many embassies and the Federal Ministry of Defence in the historic embassy quarter in the south of the Tiergarten Park.

Tiergarten Park

Großer Tiergarten is the name oft the biggest urban park in Mitte, located in the same-named locality. The Tiergarten Park was established as a hunting ground in the 16th century by the Prussian kings. Today its enclosed by densely build-up areas by Hansaviertel and Moabit in the north, the Government District in the east and the City West and the Embassy Quarter in the southwest.

Many cultural monuments and memorials are located in the Tiergarten Park, like the Siegessäule, the Soviet War Memorial and a historic rose garden. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the biggest victim group of the Nazi-Diktatorship, is located on the east side of the park, near the Brandenburg Gate and the place where once Hitler's New Reich Chancellery was.

Kulturforum

Philharmonie Berlin

The Kulturforum was build in the 1950s and 1960s at the edge of West Berlin, after most of the once unified city's cultural assets had been lost behind the Berlin Wall. The Kulturforum is characterized by its innovative modernist architecture; several buildings are distinguished by the organic designs of Hans Scharoun, and the Neue Nationalgalerie was designed by Mies van der Rohe. 

Among the cultural institutions housed in and around the Kulturforum are:

In arts and literature

Subdivision

Subdivisions of Mitte

The present-day borough of Mitte consists of six localities:

(the former Mitte borough)

(the former Tiergarten borough)

(the former Wedding borough)

Demographics

As of 2010, the district had a population of 322,919, of whom 144.000 (44.5%) had a migration background. In the former West Berlin areas of Wedding, Gesundbrunnen and Moabit, foreigners and Germans of foreign origin compose nearly 70% of the population, while in Mitte proper the share of migrants is relatively low. The immigrant community is quite diverse, however, Turks, Africans, Eastern Europeans and East Asians form the largest groups.[1]

Percentage of people with migration background[2]
Germans without migration background/Ethnic Germans 55.5 % (184.000)
Germans with migration background, or Foreigners/Ausländer 44.5 % (144.000)
Muslim/Middle Eastern origin (Turkey, Arab League, Iran etc.) 18.0% (60.000)
non-German European origin (UK, Netherlands, United States, Russia, Poland, Spain, France etc.) 10.7% (35.400)
Others (East Asians, Vietnamese, Afro-Germans, Sub-Saharan Africans etc.) 14.5% (48.000)

Politics

At the 2011 elections for the parliament of the borough (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung) the following parties were elected:

Twin towns

View over Mitte from Berlin Cathedral

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/Publikationen/Stat_Berichte/2011/SB_A1-5_hj02-10_BE.pdf
  2. ↑ http://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/Publikationen/Stat_Berichte/201gnm1/SB_A1-5_hj02-10_BE.pdf
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