Berlin - geography.

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Near Tiergarten is the Kulturforum complex, including the Museum of Applied Arts, and the Bauhaus Archives and Museum, whichdocuments the modernist Bauhaus school of architecture and design that flourished from 1919 to 1933.

A museum complex lines the south edge of Tiergarten. West of the city center, in the contemporary borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, is the Kurfürstendamm, a boulevard that became the commercial center of West Berlinafter the end of World War II.

The ruined tower of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was built in the 1890s and destroyed in World War II, stands at the east endof the Kurfürstendamm.

The memorial serves as a reminder of the devastation of war.

Near Kurfürstendamm is Tauentzienstrasse, a prominent shopping area and site ofthe Europa Center, which houses a 22-story complex of restaurants, shops, offices, and cinemas. Kreuzberg, now a part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough, located directly south of the Mitte, is a residential area known for its large Turkish immigrant communityand its concentration of younger residents.

To the west of Kreuzberg and south of Tiergarten is Schöneberg, a largely middle-class residential neighborhood.

Thisneighborhood is now part of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg borough. A half-mile north of the Unter den Linden is the Oranienburger Strasse, the heart of prewar Berlin’s Jewish district.

Revitalization of the area includes the restoration of theNew Synagogue, built in 1866.

Gangs of Nazis badly damaged the synagogue on November 9, 1938, when they organized a night of anti-Jewish rioting known asKristallnacht (German for “Night of Broken Glass”).

The synagogue is now a center for the study and preservation of Jewish culture.

Berlin’s oldest Jewish cemetery is nearby. To the east of the city center, the Friedrichshain neighborhood contains largely residential sections in its northern portion.

One of Friedrichshain’s major streets, Karl-Marx-Allee, is lined by an imposing series of high-rise residential buildings constructed during the 1950s in an ornate monumental style of architecture popular in the USSR.

Thesouthern part of Friedrichshain contains storage yards for manufactured goods and industrial products. At the edge of Friedrichshain, next to the city center along the eastern bank of the Spree, is Alexanderplatz, a large square with restaurants and stores.

Prior to unification,Alexanderplatz was the cultural center of East Berlin.

Its most prominent feature is the Fernsehturm, a 365-m (1,198-ft) television tower topped by a popular revolvingcafé.

Berlin’s tallest building, the Fernsehturm was built during the 1960s in a futuristic style and has become a popular stopping point for tourists.

Near the square are theGothic-style Marienkirche (Church of Saint Mary) and the 19th-century red brick Rathaus (city hall). To the north of the city center lie two working class neighborhoods: Wedding and Prenzlauer Berg.

Wedding is an industrial center, while Prenzlauer Berg, which lies justeast of the former Berlin Wall, houses workers as well as a growing community of artists and students.

Even before unification, Prenzlauer Berg was a gathering point forartists and nonconformists dissatisfied with East German politics and society.

Bullet holes from the war still scar the walls of the district’s aging tenement buildings, many ofwhich are in a state of disrepair and neglect. In the west and southwestern portions of the city, the landscape becomes more open, with grasslands, parks, and lakes dominating the scenery.

Major natural features inthis region include the extensive Grunewald forest and the Havel lakes, whose shores include a kilometer-long stretch of sandy beach.

The Grunewald forest, which covers32 sq km (12 sq mi) in southwestern Berlin, is a major recreational area for Berliners seeking relief from the crowded central city.

North of the Grunewald are the residentialneighborhoods of Charlottenberg and Spandau.

Founded in the 13th century as an independent town, Spandau is best known as the site of a prison that housed Nazi warcriminals.

Its medieval streets remained relatively undamaged by World War II bombings. III POPULATION In 2005 Berlin had a population of 3,387,800, far fewer than the 4.5 million who called the city home in 1942.

Between 1945 and 1990, Berlin’s population diminishedslightly in size.

After unification, it increased by almost one-sixth.

Compared to most major cities, Berlin’s population began aging after 1945.

In the mid-1990s the largestage group, which made up 19 percent of the population, consisted of people between the ages of 25 and 34.

The next largest group included those 65 years of age or older(16 percent of the population). During the mid-1990s Berlin was home to more than 400,000 foreign citizens.

Most of these immigrants came from other European countries to seek better economicconditions in Germany.

More than 30 percent of Berlin’s foreigners were guest workers who came from Turkey to work at temporary jobs. Protestants make up Berlin’s major religious group, with nearly 950,000 members.

Roman Catholics form the next largest group at 341,000.

The number of Muslims standsat 183,000.

The smallest religious group is the Jewish community, which has about 11,000 members.

This compares to 161,000 Jews living in Berlin in 1933.

Most of theprewar Jewish population was devastated during the Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s, when Nazi leaders organized the systematic destruction of Jewish people. IV EDUCATION AND CULTURE Berlin has been a center of scientific research and theory, attracting luminaries such as Swiss physicist Albert Einstein and German physicist Werner Heisenberg.

TheHumboldt University of Berlin, formerly the University of Berlin (1810), has been the site of important scientific research, and its faculty has included more than 25 NobelPrize winners.

A highly regarded teaching hospital, the Charitè, was founded in Berlin in 1727.

Other institutions of higher education include the Technical University ofBerlin and the Free University of Berlin, as well as scientific research institutes such as the Max Planck Society and Sciences Center Berlin. The German State Library, founded in 1661, is on Unter den Linden.

It contains nearly 7 million books as well as collections of maps, musical scores, records, and paintings.Located several blocks south of Tiergarten on Potsdamerstrasse, the National Library contains many of the prewar holdings from the historic Prussian State Library. Berlin has also been home to many important artists, musicians, and architects.

Early architectural landmarks in Berlin include the Gothic Church of Saint Nicholas, whichwas built in the late 14th to early 15th century, and the Charlottenburg summer palace, which houses the Museum of Decorative Arts.

In the entrance court toCharlottenburg Palace stands a famous equestrian statue of the 17th-century Great Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William.

Internationally influential architects who haveworked in Berlin include 19th-century neoclassical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and 20th-century architect Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus school ofarchitecture. An exhibition on the history of Germany is housed in the baroque Zeughaus, one of Berlin’s finest buildings on the Unter den Linden, designed by German sculptor AndreasSchlüter and built from 1695 to 1706.

Just north of Unter den Linden, the Museum Island contains some of the world’s most important art collections.

The PergamonMuseum has excellent displays of Greco-Roman and Asian art.

The Bode Museum contains fine examples of ancient Egyptian and Byzantine art.

The Old National Galleryexhibits paintings and sculpture from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. Berlin is also home to another group of famous institutions, including the Painting Gallery, which displays European painting from the 13th to 16th centuries, and theStaatliche Museum, home to the famous 14th-century- BC painted limestone bust of Egyptian queen Nefertiti.

A new cultural quarter, located south of Tiergarten, contains the New National Gallery, which houses part of Berlin’s collection of 20th-century Western art. Musical events take place at the State Opera House, German Opera Berlin, Komische Opera, and Schauspielhaus, a concert hall.

Among the city’s many theaters, two havereceived worldwide accord: the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz and the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, which is still home to the Berliner Ensemble, a theatrical groupfounded by playwright Bertolt Brecht in 1954.

Located south of Tiergarten is the Philharmonie Concert Hall, a striking asymmetrical structure that serves as the home of theBerlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

The city is the site of an annual International Film Festival and JazzFest Berlin.. »