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→History
== 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.
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.
Berlin is a much younger city than most other major European capitals such as [[London]], [[Rome]], [[Paris]], and even [[Moscow]]. As a result of the [[Thirty Years War]], by 1650 Berlin's population was reduced by half to only about 6,000 residents.
A very short history to 1945:
A very short history to 1945: