Antique map - Berlin area 1840

Circular map of Berlin and its surroundings in 1840 (Rundkarte von Berlin): the March of Brandenburg eight miles around the Prussian capital.

This circular map shows Berlin and its surroundings in 1840, within a circle of eight Prussian miles around the city. The Prussian mile (Meile) being approximately 7.5 kilometers, the radius shown is about sixty kilometers. Its original title is "Rundkarte von Berlin. 8 Meilen im Umkreise", meaning "circular map of Berlin, eight miles around".

Berlin was then the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia and had about 330,000 inhabitants, compared to 200,000 in 1816 and 408,000 in 1846. The map shows the city center at the heart of the circle, surrounded by towns and villages in the province of Brandenburg. Today, Berlin itself forms a Land, a city-state, and most of the places on the map are in the Land of Brandenburg (Brandenburg), which surrounds the capital.

Places and neighborhoods shown:

• The four vignettes of Berlin - the corners of the map reproduce the Königliches Opernhaus, the Königliches Schauspielhaus, the Zeughaus and the Königliches Schloss. The opera house, built from 1741 to 1743 by Knobelsdorff for Frederick II, burns on the night of August 18 to 19, 1843, three years after this map, and will be rebuilt immediately. Schinkel's Schauspielhaus saw the premiere of Weber's "Freischütz" in June 1821. The Zeughaus, completed in 1706, is the oldest building on Unter den Linden.
• The Schloss, the center of all distances - since 1834, the royal palace has served as the starting point for all distances measured to Berlin. Begun in 1443, it will be dynamited in September 1950, and the rebuilt palace now houses the Humboldt Forum.
• Potsdam and the first Prussian railway line - the line from Berlin to Potsdam, approximately 26 kilometers long, opens in 1838, in two stages (September 22 and then October 29), and it is Prussia's very first. Crown Prince Frederick William is said to have declared that this carriage rolling through the world, no man's arm can stop it, while his father, King Frederick William III, had refused to participate in the inaugural journey. The map's legend distinguishes between railways in operation and planned railways.
• Neu Ruppin - this town in the northwest, written here as two words, is the birthplace of the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781), author of the Schauspielhaus in the vignette, and the writer Theodor Fontane (1819). Rebuilt in the neoclassical style after a fire in 1787, it is known as "the most Prussian of Prussian towns". Schinkel died in Berlin in October 1841, one year after the map.
• Freienwalde and Neustadt-Eberswalde - two spa towns in the northeast. The spring at Freienwalde, discovered in 1683, becomes a royal spa, and Schinkel builds a ballroom there in 1817-1818. Neustadt-Eberswalde only began exploiting its spring from 1793. The town bore the name Neustadt or Neustadt-Eberswalde between 1375 and 1877, before being called simply Eberswalde.
• Charlottenburg, Spandau and Köpenick - the towns neighboring Berlin. Charlottenburg, raised to city status in 1705, takes its name from Queen Sophie Charlotte. They will not be incorporated into Berlin until 1920.

Cartographic key: the map is a circle, with its title in ornate letters overlooking the four corner vignettes. Its legend distinguishes towns (Stadt), market towns (Flecken), villages with a church and those with a manor, windmills and watermills, forest houses, brickworks, tar kilns and inns, as well as paved roads (Chaussee), roads, forests, marshes (Bruch) and dry and wet meadows.

In short: for anyone with ties to Berlin, Potsdam or Brandenburg, who loves the Schinkel era or pre-railway Berlin, this map shows the entire March around the capital in 1840, against a backdrop of market towns and forests.

What area does this map of Berlin and its surroundings cover? It covers Berlin and a circle of eight Prussian miles, or about sixty kilometers, around the city: Potsdam, Spandau, Charlottenburg, Köpenick, Oranienburg, Neu Ruppin, Brandenburg, Fürstenwalde, Freienwalde, Luckenwalde, Zossen and many other towns and villages.

In what year was this map published? This map dates from 1840.

Reproduction of the "Rundkarte von Berlin. 8 Meilen im Umkreise", 1840.

Printed on 200 g/m² textured art paper. Portrait orientation, standard 50x70 and 70x100 cm formats: easy to frame.