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= Mitte = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search This article is about the district in Berlin. For other uses, see Mitte (disambiguation). Mitte is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding.

It is one of the two boroughs (beside Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg) which comprises former West and East Berlin districts. Mitte encompasses Berlin's historic core and includes some of the most important tourist sites of Berlin like Museum Island, the TV tower, Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden, Potsdamer Platz, Alexanderplatz, the Reichstag and Berlin Hauptbahnhof, most of which were in former East Berlin.

When Berliners refer to Mitte they usually mean the smaller locality rather than the larger borough.

Contents

 * 1Geography
 * 2History
 * 3Regierungsviertel (Government District)
 * 4Botschaftsviertel (Embassy Quarter)
 * 5Tiergarten Park
 * 6Kulturforum
 * 7In arts and literature
 * 8Subdivision
 * 9Demographics
 * 10Politics
 * 11Twin towns
 * 12See also
 * 13References
 * 14External links

Geography[edit]
Berlin Cathedral and Television Tower

Mitte (German for "middle", "centre") is located in the central part of Berlin along the Spree River. It borders on Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in the west, Reinickendorf in the north, Pankow in the east, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in the southeast, and Tempelhof-Schöneberg in the southwest.

In the middle of the Spree lies Museum Island (Museumsinsel) with its museums and Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom). The central square in Mitte is Alexanderplatz with the prominent Fernsehturm (TV tower), Germany's highest building, and the large railway station with connections to many subway (U-Bahn), tramway (Straßenbahn), city trains (S-Bahn) and buses.

There are some important streets which connect Mitte with the other boroughs, e.g. the boulevard Unter den Linden which connects Alexanderplatz to the west with Brandenburg Gate and runs further as Straße des 17. Juni to the Victory Column and the centre of former West Berlin in Charlottenburg, or Karl-Marx-Allee from Alexanderplatz to Friedrichshain and the eastern suburbs.

History[edit]
Checkpoint Charlie,1963 The former Mitte district had been established by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act and comprised large parts of the historic city around Alt-Berlin and Cölln. Brandenburg Gate was the western exit at the Berlin city boundary until 1861.

Between 1961 and 1990, Mitte was the central part of East Berlin, however at the same time it was surrounded by the Berlin Wall at its north, south and west. There were some border control points, the most famous of which was Checkpoint Charlie between Kreuzberg and Mitte, which was operated by the United States Army and its allies and was open to foreigners and diplomats.

Two other checkpoints were at Heinrich-Heine-Straße/Prinzenstraße east of Checkpoint Charlie, open to citizens of West Germany and West Berlin and on Invalidenstraße in the north on the border with the West Berlin Tiergarten district (the present-day Moabit locality).