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Berlin | |
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State | |
Country | Germany |
Capital | |
Population | 3440441 |
Postcode | 10117 |
Berlin (; German: [bɛʁˈliːn] (listen)) is the capital and biggest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3,769,495 inhabitants as of 31 December 2019 make it the most populous city of the European Union, according to population within city limits. The city is also one of Germany's 16 federal states. It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and contiguous with Potsdam, Brandenburg's capital. The two cities are at the middle of the Berlin-Brandenburg capital region, which is, with about six million inhabitants and an area of over 30,000 km2, Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main areas.
Berlin straddles the banks of the River Spree, which flows to the River Havel (a tributary of the River Elbe) from the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the numerous lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel, and Dahme rivers (the biggest of which is Lake Müggelsee). Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. About one-third of the city's area is composed of woods, parks, gardens, rivers, canals and lakes. The city lies in the Central German dialect region, the Berlin dialect being a version of the Lusatian-New Marchian dialects.
First documented in the 13th century and situated at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417--1701), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701--1918), the German Empire (1871--1918), the Weimar Republic (1919--1933), and the Third Reich (1933--1945). Berlin in the 1920s was the third-largest municipality in the world. Following World War II and its subsequent occupation by the victorious nations, the city was divided; West Berlin became a de facto West German exclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961--1989) and East German territory. East Berlin was declared capital of East Germany, while Bonn became the West German capital. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany.
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media and science.
Vega | |
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Population | 0 |
Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only 25 light-years from the Sun, and, together with Arcturus and Sirius, one of the most luminous stars in the Sun's neighborhood. It is the fifth-brightest star in the night sky, and the second-brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus.
Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers, leading it to be termed "arguably the next most important star in the sky after the Sun". Vega was the northern pole star around 12,000 BC and will be so again around the year 13,727, when its declination will be +86° 14′. Vega was the first star other than the Sun to be photographed and the first to have its spectrum recorded. It was one of the first stars whose distance was estimated through parallax measurements. Vega has functioned as the baseline for calibrating the photometric brightness scale and was one of the stars used to define the zero point for the UBV photometric system.