Economy
One of the most important "products" produced in Berlin by both academic and company-sponsored institutes is research. That research is exported around the world. German labor is highly efficient but comes at high cost. Strong trade unions, the end of West Berlin's pre-reunification subsidies and Germany's dense regulatory environment forced industry to concentrate on high quality and expensive products. Students, housewives and self-employed people are not included in Berlin's official unemployment rate, currently standing at 14 percent.
History
The foundation of Berlin was very multicultural. The surrounding area was populated by Germanic Swabian and Burgundian tribes, as well as Slavic Wends in pre-Christian times, and the Wends have stuck around. Their modern descendants are the Sorbian Slavic-language minority who live in villages southeast of Berlin near the Spree River.
In 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 about 10,000 inhabitants up to the late 17th century, because of the 30 years' war in the beginning of the 17th century, which led to 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 to a bigger Berlin. In 1871 Berlin became the capital of the new 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 surrounding cities of Berlin led to the foundation of the Berlin as we know it now. After the coming into power of the National Socialists, Berlin became the capital of the so called Third Reich and the domicile and office of Hitler though the triumph of Hitler and his companions started in the south of Germany.
WW II led to 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 sector, East Berlin belonged to the USSR. In 1949 the GDR was founded with East Berlin as its capital - West Berlin belonged to 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 latter built a wall between the countries and around West Berlin, so the division was complete.
In 1989 the German revolution took place -subsequently leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall- and in 1990 West and East Germany were merged officially together with Berlin becoming the capital of reunified Germany.
After WW II 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 in fact it just seems so because of the high percentage of young women in the district.
After the fall of the wall, Berlin - especially the former East - has evolved into a cultural mecca. Artists and other creative souls flocked to the city in swarms after reunification, primarily due to the extremely low cost of living in the East. Despite the increased prices and gentrification as a result, Berlin has become a center for art, design, multimedia, electronic music, and fashion among other things. The particularly high number of students and young people in the city has only helped this cause. Just stroll down a street in Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, or Mitte to get a glimpse of the new East Berlin.
Some famous artists of the region and their best-known works include Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Younger, Johann Gottfried Schadow, Marlene Dietrich The Blue Angel, Leni Riefenstahl Triumph of the Will, Bertolt Brecht Threepenny Opera, Käthe Kollwitz, Kurt Tucholsky, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Nosferatu, Fritz Lang Metropolis, Volker Schlöndorff, Wim Wenders Wings of Desire (German: Der Himmel über Berlin), Blixa Bargeld/Einstürzende Neubauten, Christopher Isherwood, Gunter Grass The Tin Drum, members of the Bauhaus architectural movement and many more.
Orientation
Berlin is - at least in many parts - a beautiful city, so allow enough time to get to see the sights. A good map is highly recommended. While the public transport system is superb, it can be confusing to visitors, due to a lack of directional signs in some of the larger stations, so a good transit map is also essential. Be sure to note the final station/stop of the S-bahn or U-bahn, since that is usually the way direction of travel is indicated. Roads into Berlin can also be confusing, so study your route and drive carefully. Signs point to city boroughs or districts rather than indicating compass directions, so it's a good idea to get to know where the various boroughs or districts lie in relation to each other. This also applies to cyclists.
Berlin's Tourist Information Office (http://www.visitberlin.de/en) is an excellent resource for finding out more about Berlin, providing a wealth of practical information and useful links.
People
Berlin is a relatively young city by European standards, dating to the thirteenth century, and it has always had a reputation as a place filled with people from elsewhere. Someone who has lived in Berlin for ten years will see themselves as a "true Berliner," looking down on the person who has been there for only five. It may seem tough to find someone born and raised here! This is part of Berlin's charm: it never gets stuck in a rut.
A certain uneasy detente still exists between some former residents of East and West Berlin and Germany. Wessi evolved as a derogatory nickname for a West German; its corollary is Ossi. The implication here is that after reunification, the West Germans automatically assumed the way they do things is the right way, and the way the Easterners should start doing it, too. Westerners got a reputation for being arrogant. They saw the Easterners as stubborn Communist holdouts interested only in a handout from the "rich West." Consider a shirt for sale in a shop inside the Alexanderplatz Deutsche Bahn station: Gott, schütze mich vor Sturm und Wind/und Wessies die im Osten sind "God, protect me from the storm and wind, and Wessies who are in the East". Another such stereotype is reflected by the short poem: Der Ossi ist schlau und stellt sich dumm, beim Wessi ist es andersrum "The Ossi is sly and pretends to be simple-minded, and with the Wessi, it relates the other way around". However, most of the younger generation do not share such biases.
Talk
German is of course the main language in Berlin but you can easily find information in English and sometimes in French. Due to the football World Cup in 2006 all public transportation staff got language training and should be able to help you in English although possibly with a strong German accent. If you seem to be lost or hesitating in a public transport station a member of staff could come to your assistance but don't count on that. You can easily approach a group of preferably young bystanders and ask for advice in English.
Most people under 40 in Berlin are able to speak English with varying degrees of fluency, but it might not be as widely spoken as you might expect, so a few key German phrases are worth having, especially in the suburbs and less touristy places. Basic French and Russian is partly spoken because French in West Berlin and Russian in East Berlin were taught in schools.
There are also 400,000 Turkish origined people living in Berlin mainly in the Kreuzberg, Wedding and Neukölln districts. Many of them arrived in early 1960's from remote villages in Anatolia as guest workers but stayed on.
There are some words in Berlin that differ from regular German, especially in the former East Berlin. Here, the language preserved a certain level of dialect.
Schrippe: Roll.
Stulle: Sandwich.
Broiler: grilled chicken people from west Germany probably won't understand this, they say Grillhähnchen instead.