It is a great, sprawling city, 344 square miles, eight times the size of Paris, three times the size of London. Its perimeter would encircle the five boroughs of New York City.
Like most major cities, Berlin is divided into neighborhoods or boroughs with their own names and distinctive styles - Spandau, Pankau, Treptow, Lichtenberg, etc.
Berlin turned out this way only in part because of organic growth. The decisive event in the city's aggrandizement was the annexation in 1920, under the Weimar government, of dozens of surrounding towns, villages, and estates into one administrative unit. Greater Berlin now had not just one but two rivers, the Spree and the Havel, and canals linking them. Within the city limits were the Berlin Forest, the Green Woods (Grünewald), and many acres of land suitable for orchards and truck farming. In all, a third of Berlin was, and still is, covered with parkland, forest, farmland, rivers, or lakes.
Berlin, then, contains within itself its own countryside. A short subway ride from the dense inner city lie woods and fields and lakes.
As European capitals go, Berlin is comparatively new. The first permanent settlements, along what is now Museum Island, in the eastern part of the city, date only from 1237 - a dozen or more centuries after the beginnings of many other European cities. Berlin grew slowly, set back by outbreaks of the Black Death, as also by devastating wars. Only a handful of buildings from the medieval and Renaissance periods survived the Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648).
The village of Spandau was first mentioned in writing in 1197, although it was not incorporated into Berlin until 1920. Around the year 1600, the city had approximately 12,000 inhabitants. By the 1670's, the population will be growing fast, and the city becomes known as a safe haven for both Jews and Huguenots - groups being exiled from France. They enjoyed a warm reception: the war had ended in 1648, and religious liberty declared by the monarch.
The flowering of the city began at the end of that war, under the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern. It was he who envisioned a wide avenue leading westward from his castle. For aesthetic reasons, as well as for comfort in the summer, he planted trees along it. The avenue thus formed became the heralded Unter den Linden - Under the Linden Trees.
By 1755, the population was around 100,000. From 1806 to 1814, Napoleon's French soldiers occupy Berlin; the city survives will relatively little destruction. By 1850, population nears 400,000.
Friedrich Wilhelm's successors were great builders, turning Berlin into a baroque city. Among the most notable of the new structures was Schloss Charlottenburg, which Friedrich I of Prussia ordered built some three miles to the west of the city center as a country retreat for his queen, Sophie Charlotte. In their day, at the end of the seventeenth century, the royal party would have traveled from their main castle down Unter den Linden and through a large hunting preserve to reach Schloss Charlottenburg. In the eighteenth century, that hunting preserve became a park, the Tiergarten, and the Brandenburg Gate was erected at the point where Unter den Linden comes up against the eastern edge of the Tiergarten. This immense gate, six columns topped with a chariot drawn by four horses, was modeled on the entrance to the Acropolis and became the universally recognized symbol of Berlin.
To this day, visitors see these structures, as the city of Berlin is once again a shining example of culture. If you plan to visit Berlin, stay at least a week to have enough time to explore the many exciting parts of this great city.
