Tiergarten Park

Großer Tiergarten is a 210-hectare (about 520-acre) park in the heart of Berlin and one of the largest urban parks in Germany. Lakes, a rose garden, memorials, and open meadows lie between the Brandenburg Gate, the zoo, and the government quarter. If you are looking for things to do in Berlin that are free and relaxing, the Tiergarten is the best place for a long walk, a bike ride, or a picnic in the middle of the city.

From hunting ground to public park

The park began in the 16th century as a hunting preserve for the electors of Brandenburg and shrank as Berlin grew. Under Frederick I, a broad avenue was cut through it, linking the city palace with Charlottenburg Palace. In 1742, Frederick the Great had architect Knobelsdorff convert it into a Baroque pleasure park open to the public; its pheasantry later gave rise to the Berlin Zoo. Between 1833 and 1840, Peter Joseph Lenné redesigned it as an English-style landscape park.

Under the Nazis, the east-west axis was widened and the Victory Column was moved to the Großer Stern. After World War II, Berliners cut down trees for firewood and planted vegetable plots; only about 700 of roughly 200,000 trees survived. Replanting with donated saplings ran from 1949 to 1959. Since 1991, the park has been protected as a historic garden monument, except the Großer Stern. The Tiergarten tunnel, opened in 2006, allowed a temporary relief road to be removed and the eastern part to be restored.

What to see

• Großer Stern and the Victory Column: the central roundabout on the park's main axis
• Neuer See and Luiseninsel: quiet lakeside paths
• Rose garden: blooms with a pergola, best in June and July
• English Garden: laid out in 1952 on about 40,000 square meters; its tea house was largely destroyed by fire in September 2024
• Carillon: a 42-meter bell tower from 1987 with 68 bells
• Memorials: among them those for Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, the murdered Sinti and Roma of Europe, and persecuted homosexuals, plus the Soviet war memorial and the T4 memorial

Planning your visit

The park is free and open to everyone. For the highlights, plan 2 to 3 hours; for a full day with a picnic, allow up to 5 hours. It is prettiest in May and June, when the trees are green and the roses are in bloom, and again in autumn. Grilling has been banned in the Tiergarten since 2012, but picnics on the lawns are common; take your trash with you.

Getting there

The park sits between the Zoologischer Garten, the Brandenburg Gate, and Berlin Hauptbahnhof (central station). Several S-Bahn stations serve it, including Tiergarten and Bellevue, and buses run along Straße des 17. Juni. It is about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) on foot from the Victory Column to the Brandenburg Gate. Parking at the edge of the park is hard to find, so public transport or a bike is better. A single ticket in zone AB covers the trip, and the Deutschlandticket is valid on local transport.

Nearby

• Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag at the eastern edge
• Bellevue Palace, the German president's official residence, on the north side
• Berlin Zoological Garden at the western end
• House of World Cultures, home of the carillon, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe to the southeast