Berlin: Orientation

Emcompassed about by the Bundesland (federal state) of Brandenburg, the city - state of Berlin measures some 892 sq km while the municipal boundaries encircle 234 sq km. Roughly one-third of the municipal area is made up of parks, forests, lakes and rivers; in spite of WW Il bombing, there are more trees here than in Paris and more bridges than in Venice. Much of the natural beauty of rolling hills and quiet shorelines is in the city's south-east and south-west.

Berlin is a sprawling metropolis radiating from its medieval core on the banks of the Spree River. The city is Germany's principal rail hub, with lines fanning out from the main Zoo Station and other terminals. Trains from Paris to Warsaw and Moscow pass through Berlin daily, and connections exist to every large European urban center.

Several airports serve Berlin. Tegel, in the west, is the terminal for most of the Western airlines. Schönefeld, in the east, continues as the main airport for Eastern Europe. Two other airports, Tempelhof and Gatow, are primarily military fields.

Berlin lies in the northeastern part of Germany, about equally distant from the Elbe River to the west, the Oder River to the east, and the Baltic Sea to the north. The city's location makes it susceptible to rapid changes in weather as maritime air from the North and the Baltic seas intermingles with continental air from the east.

Because it is built on a low-lying glacial plain, Berlin has an average elevation of only 111 feet (34 meters). The highest point is the Teufelsberg (394 feet, or 120 meters). This small mountain, named for the Devil, was formed of rubble from the bombed city. It is now a grass-covered park in summer and Berlin's only ski center in winter.

Within the municipal limits are 21 square miles (55 sq km) of lakes and rivers and 61 square miles (157 sq km) of forests. Formerly, much of the present area was marshland. Population growth and the need for more space led, over centuries, to urban expansion and the construction of what is today a vast interconnected network of canals that serve for both transportation and drainage.

Medieval Berlin consisted of two settlements: Old Berlin, nestling between the Spree River and the present Alexanderplatz; and Kölln, on an island facing Old Berlin. As the population grew, the urban zone expanded to the north and east of Old Berlin and across the Spree to the west and southwest of Kölln, around the modern Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse. These areas became the Mitte district, Berlin's inner city.

Following the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century, the population exploded, and the city pushed farther outward. Two rapid-transit systems, the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn, begun late in the 19th century, made possible the development of working-class suburbs that are now in the northern, southern, and eastern quadrants of Berlin. Pervading these districts Prenzlauer Berg, Wedding, Moabit, Kreuzberg, Neukölln, and others are five-story tenements with small factories operating in their inner courtyards.

In the western districts of Dahlem, Grunewald, Nikolassee, Wannsee, and Tegel, quiet areas of one-family houses and elegant villas wind among sizable lakes connected by the Havel River. On the opposite side of Berlin, just beyond the Köpenick district, is another great lake, the Grosser Müggelsee. During the summer, sailboats contest for space with the tour boats that thread their way through the lakes and canals of the city, which has been called the "Venice of the North."

The highly efficient rail system also funnels workers throughout the city, which by the outbreak of World War I had begun to rival the Ruhr as a major industrial center. Most of the larger industrial complexes are concentrated along the Spree River and the rail line running west to Spandau. The immense Siemens electrical-equipment plant is situated just east of Spandau, adjacent to the internationally acclaimed Siemensstadt, a workers' settlement built to designs by Walter Gropius and others in 1928-1931.

The expanding transportation system, in addition, facilitated the growth of the business district westward from Mitte. West of the green expanse of the Tiergarten park begins the dense postwar development of modern Berlin. Here, along the Kurfürstendamm and satellite streets, is the city's economic and cultural heartland, crowded with office towers, restaurants, cafés, automobile showrooms, and theaters.

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