Potsdam

Potsdam began as a Slavic settlement of the Hevelli tribe around a castle, and is first mentioned in 993 as Poztupimi, when Emperor Otto III gave the territory to Quedlinburg Abbey. It remained a small market town for centuries — about 2,000 people in 1573 — and lost nearly half its population in the Thirty Years' War. The Edict of Potsdam of 1685, which invited persecuted French Protestants to Brandenburg, made the town a centre of immigration and set off its recovery.

Prussia's kings then made Potsdam their residence. Frederick William I, the 'soldier king', made it a garrison town and from 1734 had the Dutch Quarter built for craftsmen from the Netherlands. His son Frederick the Great built Sanssouci in the 1740s and, after the Seven Years' War, the New Palace. His successors added the New Garden, the Russian colony of Alexandrowka and Babelsberg Palace, and the town was planned as a balance of architecture and landscape, meant to be 'a picturesque, pastoral dream'. It remained a residence of the kings and emperors until 1918.

The 20th century gave Potsdam a darker fame. On 21 March 1933 the 'Day of Potsdam' at the Garrison Church staged a handshake between President Hindenburg and the new chancellor Hitler, and from 17 July to 2 August 1945 the victorious Allies met at the Cecilienhof to decide Germany's future. In East German times the government removed symbols of 'Prussian militarism', while the Glienicke Bridge on the border with West Berlin became the scene of spy exchanges. Since 1990 Potsdam has been the capital of Brandenburg; the palaces and parks became a World Heritage Site that year, and the old centre has been partly rebuilt, with the City Palace reconstructed as the Landtag in 2014.

The palaces and gardens define the city's image: Sanssouci and its park are Germany's largest World Heritage Site, and the summer palace night opens them up for an evening of music and theatre. The Museum Barberini, funded by the software billionaire Hasso Plattner, brings major exhibitions of Impressionist and modern painting to the rebuilt Alter Markt, and the debate over how much of the lost Baroque centre to reconstruct — the City Palace, the Garrison Church — has divided residents for decades.

Film is the other strand. The studio at Babelsberg, founded in 1912, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world; Metropolis and The Blue Angel were made there, and it has drawn international productions since the fall of the Wall. The Konrad Wolf Film University trains new generations, and in 2019 UNESCO named Potsdam a City of Film.

The city's immigrant past is still visible in its architecture — the Dutch Quarter, the wooden houses of Alexandrowka, the French church built for the Huguenots — and the Dutch Quarter keeps up Dutch customs with a spring tulip festival and a Sinterklaas Christmas market. With a large university and more than thirty research institutes, Potsdam is a city of students and scientists as well as civil servants, and summer life turns towards the Havel and its lakes.

Potsdam had an official population of about 185,000 at the end of 2025, making it the largest city in Brandenburg, and it lies within the Berlin agglomeration of almost five million people. Incorporations of surrounding villages in 2003 enlarged its area by 60 per cent. Its quarters range from the Baroque centre and the villa districts by the lakes to Babelsberg and the housing estates built in East German times in the south, such as Schlaatz, Waldstadt II and Drewitz.

The economy rests on government, as seat of the state parliament and ministries, on research and higher education, on the film and media industry at Babelsberg and on tourism. The University of Potsdam, founded in 1991, has about 20,000 students, and the institutes include the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and the observatory on the Telegrafenberg. The S-Bahn and regional trains link the city with Berlin.

Life is quieter than in Berlin. About twenty lakes and rivers lie in and around the city, and in summer people swim, sail and cycle along the Havel; the parks double as everyday walking routes. Housing is a local concern, as demand for homes has grown while new building slowed in recent years.

Potsdam eats the food of Brandenburg rather than dishes of its own. The best-known local produce comes from just outside the city: white asparagus from nearby Beelitz, which fills menus in spring, and fruit from the orchards of Werder on the Havel to the west. Fruit growing there goes back to the Cistercian monks of nearby Lehnin, and Werder still celebrates its orchards every May with the Baumblütenfest, its blossom festival. Werder was once also known for its wine and its fishing, both of which declined in the 18th century.

Eating out is concentrated in the old town. The Dutch Quarter's brick streets are lined with cafés and small restaurants, the square at the Nauener Tor is a favourite meeting place with its cafés and bars, and Brandenburger Straße, the main pedestrian street, has bakeries and cafés along its length. Restaurants around the Neuer Markt and in Babelsberg add more choice, and the Currywurst and Döner stands of nearby Berlin are as common here as anywhere in the capital region.