Berlin

Berlin grew from two trading settlements on either bank of the Spree, Cölln and Berlin, at the crossing of two old trade routes; 1237 is taken as the city's founding date. It became the seat of the margraves and electors of Brandenburg, then capital of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1701. Between 1700 and 1750 its population nearly quadrupled, from about 30,000 to 113,000, and in the age of the Enlightenment it became a centre of science, art and philosophy.

In 1871 Berlin became capital of the new German Empire, and industrialisation in the Gründerzeit drew workers in their hundreds of thousands into tenement districts around the old centre. The Greater Berlin Act of 1920 absorbed dozens of surrounding towns and villages, and in the 1920s Berlin was the third-largest city in the world, famous for its theatre, cabaret and open gay and lesbian life. The Nazis ruled Germany from here after 1933, and the Second World War left much of the centre in ruins.

After 1945 the city was divided into four sectors. The Soviet blockade of the western sectors in 1948 was broken by the airlift, and in 1961 East Germany built the Wall around West Berlin, with a tank stand-off at Checkpoint Charlie soon after. The Wall fell on 9 November 1989. Reunited Berlin became the capital again, and the following decades brought huge building projects — Potsdamer Platz, the Hauptbahnhof in 2006, the rebuilt palace of the Humboldt Forum and, after years of delays, Berlin Brandenburg Airport in 2020.

Few cities have so many cultural institutions. Berlin has several opera houses, the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the world's leading orchestras, and the museums of Museum Island and the Kulturforum, alongside a large independent theatre and dance scene in venues such as the Hebbel am Ufer in Kreuzberg. The Berlinale is the largest publicly attended film festival in the world.

The city's other reputation is for its nights. After the Wall fell, squatters and artists occupied empty buildings in the old East and turned them into clubs and bars, and techno became Berlin's sound; clubs such as Tresor and Berghain are known worldwide. Kreuzberg's SO36 was a centre of punk in the 1970s and 80s, and the city's gay and lesbian scene, unusually visible as early as the 1920s, celebrates with Christopher Street Day and the Lesbian and Gay City Festival in Schöneberg. The Karneval der Kulturen parade at Pentecost reflects a population drawn from all over the world.

Berliners are known for their Schnauze, a direct, dry and quick-witted manner, and many feel more loyal to their own Kiez than to the city as a whole. Most belong to no church. Football divides loyalties between Hertha in the west and Union in the east, the marathon each September is one of the world's fastest, and summer life moves outdoors to the parks, the lakes and the canal banks.

At the end of 2024 Berlin had about 3.9 million registered inhabitants, the largest population of any city proper in the European Union, and its urban area had more than 4.6 million in 2021. The city is divided into twelve boroughs and 96 neighbourhoods. Berlin has the largest Turkish community outside Turkey, at least 180,000 people, alongside large Polish, Syrian and Russian-speaking communities, and in 2022 it became the main destination in Germany for refugees from Ukraine.

The economy is built on services rather than industry: government and the embassies, universities and research institutes, media, technology start-ups, health care and tourism. Berlin's growth has outpaced the national rate in every year since 2013, yet unemployment rose again to an annual average of about 10 per cent in 2025, and around a fifth of residents are at risk of poverty. A similar share of households spend at least 40 per cent of their income on rent.

Most Berliners rent flats in tenement blocks or in the large post-war estates of the outer east and west, and many cycle or use the S-Bahn and U-Bahn rather than drive. The day starts later than in much of Germany: weekend brunch runs into the afternoon, the Späti corner shops stay open late, the trains run all night at weekends, and Sunday, when most shops close, belongs to the parks, flea markets and lakes.

Berlin's own food is street food. The Currywurst — sliced pork sausage with curry ketchup — was invented in 1949 by Herta Heuwer at a stand in Charlottenburg and caught on with the construction workers rebuilding the city; tens of millions are eaten in Berlin every year. The modern fast-food Döner kebab sandwich evolved here in the 1970s among Turkish immigrants, and falafel is sold in many kebab shops. Buletten, the local meat patties, and Eisbein, cured and boiled ham hock, are the old pub dishes, and the jam doughnut that the rest of Germany calls a Berliner is known in Berlin as a Pfannkuchen.

Beyond those, the city eats from everywhere. Neukölln's Sonnenallee is lined with Arab bakeries and grills, Kantstraße in Charlottenburg is known for its Asian restaurants, and Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Indian, Italian and Greek kitchens are found across the city. Berlin is also known for its vegetarian and vegan cooking and for its food markets and pop-up street-food events, and in the 2021 Michelin Guide it had more starred restaurants than any other German city. Historic market halls such as Markthalle Neun in Kreuzberg have been revived for food stalls.

Berliner Weisse is the city's own beer, a cloudy, sour wheat beer of about 3.5 per cent, often served in a bowl-shaped glass with a shot of raspberry or woodruff syrup. By the late 19th century it was the most popular drink in Berlin, made by up to fifty breweries; by the late 20th century only two in the city still produced it.