SkipCaptcha, Automoderated users, edit
1,631
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 23:
Line 23: + +
Added to page
== History ==
== History ==
The city's name is probably not originally Germanic, but instead derives from the area's early medieval inhabitants, a [[Slavic]] sub-group known as the Wends. They referred to the site as "Berlin" or "Birlin," which may have meant "swamp," given the marshy lowlands around the Spree river that flows through the city. Though the region was steadily conquered by the Germans in the [[Middle Ages]] (some Wends nonetheless remain in and around Berlin to this day), many of the original place names remain; a number of the names of Berlin's neighborhoods themselves have Slavic roots, as do those of many other communities in eastern Germany. As the "Ber" in Berlin sounds like the German for bear (''Bär''), the city's official coat of arms includes a depiction of a bear.
A very short history to 1945:
A very short history to 1945:
* grew from a pair of Wendish villages ( Berlin and Kölln), founded in the early 13th century.
* grew from a pair of Wendish villages ( Berlin and Kölln), founded in the early 13th century.