Their modern descendants are the Sorbian Slavic-language minority who live in villages southeast of Berlin near the Spree River.

At the beginning of the 13th century, two towns (Berlin and Cölln) developed on each side of the river Spree (today the Nikolaiviertel and the quarter next to it beyond the river). As the population grew, the towns merged and Berlin became a center for commerce and agriculture. This area stayed small up to the late 17th century, because of the 30 years of war at the beginning of the 17th century, which led to the death of about half of the population.

Since the late 17th century, when large numbers of French Huguenots fled religious persecution, Berlin has welcomed religious, economic, and other asylum seekers. In 1701 Berlin became the capital of Prussia and in 1710 Berlin and surrounding former autonomous cities were merged into a bigger Berlin.

In 1871 Berlin became the capital of the newly founded German Reich and a few years later, it became a city with more than one million inhabitants because of the immensely growing industry.

Shortly after the first World War, in 1920, the last of the annexations of the surrounding cities of Berlin led to the foundation of Berlin as we know it now. After the coming into power of the National Socialists (“Nazis”), Berlin became the capital of the so-called Third Reich and the domicile and office of Hitler.

WWII led to the destruction of most of central Berlin, thus many of the buildings which we see nowadays are reconstructed or planned and built after the war, which led to a very fragmented cityscape in most parts of the inner town.

Berlin was divided into four sectors (West Berlin into the French, American, and British sectors, and East Berlin belonged to the USSR). In 1949 the German Democratic Republic (“East Germany”) was founded with East Berlin as its capital. West Berlin remained occupied by the western Allies and kept a close relationship with West Germany (with Bonn as the capital) and was an exclave (political island) in East Germany. Because of the growing tensions between West Germany and the GDR, the GDR built a militarized and increasingly impassable border between the states, and then in 1961 surrounded West Berlin with a wall.

In late 1989 East German citizens began to peacefully demonstrate in increasing numbers; this led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1990 West Germany and East Germany were united. Berlin became once again the capital of Germany.

After WW2 and the building of the wall, large numbers of immigrants from Turkey were invited to West Berlin to work in the growing industry sector; in East Berlin, the jobs were done mostly by Vietnamese immigrants. But also people from other communist countries, including the former Yugoslavia, not to mention Soviet soldiers who refused to return home, have helped to make Berlin more multicultural than ever.

Berlin is also a youth-oriented city. Before German unification, West Berliners were exempt from the West German civil/military service requirement. Social activists, pacifists, and anarchists of all moved to Berlin for that reason alone.

Musicians and artists were given state subsidies. It was easy to stay out all night thanks to liberal bar licensing laws, and staying at university for years without ever getting a degree was a great way to kill time. In contrast with most of Germany, Prenzlauer Berg is said to have the highest per-capita birth rate in Europe.