Berlin Interesting Facts | Berlin Fun Facts

Interesting and Fun Facts About Berlin

Some Interesting and Fun Facts about Berlin:

Berlin Wall Graffiti - © GNTB/Hans Merten..

Mention ‘Berlin’ and the Fall of the Berlin Wall comes to mind for many people.

But apart from the Berlin Wall, there are many other interesting and fun facts about this dynamic city that most people probably aren’t aware of. Here’s just a few of them:

Berlin, with an area of 892 square kilometres, is nine times bigger than Paris.

Berlin has around 1,700 bridges, easily beating even Venice.

At 368 metres the Berliner Fernsehturm (Television Tower) is the tallest building in Germany and one of the tallest constructions in Europe.

To date six US presidents have made historic speeches here since the war – most memorable being John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” (1963) and Ronald Reagan’s emphatic “Mr Gorbachev – tear this wall down!” (1987).

The first set of traffic lights in Europe was put into service in Potsdamer Platz in 1924. A replica of the lights can still be admired there today.

With the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Central Station), the city has become a proper central rail hub for the first time in its history – and the largest in Europe.

Berlin is the most multi-cultural city in Germany. Its 3.4 million inhabitants include over 470,000 residents with foreign passports. People from over 184 nations are long-term residents in the city.

The Berlin dialect was largely influenced by the Huguenots in the late 17th century. A few words of French origin are: “Budike” (pub or shop), “Boulette” (meatballs), “Roulade” (rolled meat slices) and “Destille” (pub). However other linguistic influences, e.g. Hebrew (via Yiddish) have left their audible mark in expressions like “Ganove” (crook) or “Macke” (quirk).

With four universities, four art schools and ten technical colleges, and around 134,000 students, Berlin is Germany’s biggest university city. In addition there are around 130 non-university research facilities.