Neukölln (locality)

Neukölln, formerly Rixdorf, from 1899 to 1920 an independent city, is a large inner-city quarter of Berlin in the homonymous borough of Neukölln, and evolved around the historic village of Rixdorf. With 162,548 inhabitants the quarter has the second-largest population of Berlin after Prenzlauer Berg. Since the early 13th century, the local settlements, villages and cities down to the present day have always been a popular destination for colonists and immigrants. In modern times, it was originally shaped by the working class and gastarbeiters, but western immigration since the turn of the millennium has led to gentrification and a rejuvenation of the quarter's culture and nightlife.

Geography

Neukölln is on the North European Plain, which is typically characterized by low-lying marshy woodlands with a mainly flat topography. The quarter lies on the geological border between the shallow Weichselian Warsaw-Berlin Urstromtal glacial valley and the northernmost edge of the Teltow young drift ground moraine plateau, specifically the Rollberge, a small range of glacial hills rising to the south of Hermannplatz and the street Hasenheide, and to the west of Rixdorf and the street Karl-Marx-Straße. Neukölln's average natural elevation is above NHN, ranging from to, with the highest man-made elevation at achieved by the Rixdorfer Höhe, a schuttberg in the Volkspark Hasenheide. Neukölln's geographical center, based on a minimum bounding plane, is located east of Richardstraße 101 near Kirchgasse at a linear distance of approximately to the river Spree with an elevation of.

Location

Neukölln forms the lower east side of Berlin's city center within the Ringbahn, and is the northernmost quarter in the homonymous borough of Neukölln, with the borough stretching all the way to Berlin's southern border with Brandenburg. The quarter, administratively abbreviated Neukö, is officially an Ortsteil, and the borough a Verwaltungsbezirk, in Berlin designated Bezirk. Different from the borough, the smaller quarter of Neukölln has no mayor or representative assembly of its own. To distinguish the quarter from the borough, the latter is sometimes informally called Groß-Neukölln, while the quarter is also called Berlin-Neukölln or Nord-Neukölln.
In the south, the quarter Neukölln is adjacent to the quarter Britz, which is also part of greater Neukölln, and to Späthsfelde in the quarter Baumschulenweg east of Britz. In the north and north-west, it borders on the quarter Kreuzberg in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough, namely the southern part of the historical Luisenstadt district in the SO 36 neighborhood, and the Graefekiez and Bergmannkiez in the Kreuzberg 61 neighborhood, which were once part of the historical Tempelhofer Vorstadt district. Neukölln's northernmost tip is also adjacent to Kreuzberg's neighborhood Wassertorplatz in the southern part of the historical Friedrichstadt district. In the west and south-west, Neukölln borders on the quarter Tempelhof in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg borough. In the north-east to south-east, Neukölln borders on the quarters Alt-Treptow, Plänterwald and western Baumschulenweg, which, together with Späthsfelde, are all part of the Treptow-Köpenick borough in former East Berlin.
Neukölln is separated from Kreuzberg by the park Volkspark Hasenheide, the Landwehr Canal, and the streets Kottbusser Damm and Hasenheide as far as the city square Südstern, which conforms to Berlin's historical Weichbildgrenze. With Tempelhof, Neukölln shares the Tempelhofer Feld, the vast field of the former Tempelhof Airport, now a popular recreation area. The Britz Canal, the green corridor Heidekamppark with the trench Heidekampgraben, the Kiefholzstraße and several urban streets in the Harzer Kiez separate Neukölln from the quarters of Treptow-Köpenick in former East Berlin. Finally, the Stadtring motorway with the Carl-Weder-Park, streets like Britzkestraße, Juliushof and Grenzallee, as well as the southern end of the Neukölln Ship Canal, form the administrative border with the Britz quarter.
The Teltow Canal, on the other hand, forms the geographical and demographic border within the borough Neukölln. The canal separates the dense urban areas of Neukölln and northern Britz with their higher share of immigrants and lower-income citizenry from the borough's southern residential areas, which, with the exception of Gropiusstadt, are mainly characterized by a larger number of family homes and middle-class households.

Subdivisions

Neighborhoods

Neukölln has nine primary neighborhoods, administratively called Ortslagen, among them the historical sites of Neukölln's foundation south-east of the quarters's geographical center,

Richardplatz-Süd

to the south and south-east of the central plaza Richardplatz, and

Böhmisch-Rixdorf

to the north and north-west, which together are commonly referred to as Rixdorf or Alt-Rixdorf. The other primary neighborhoods are :

Reuterkiez,
Flughafenkiez,
Schillerkiez,
Rollberg,
Weiße Siedlung,
Körnerpark, and
High-Deck-Siedlung.
Other sites

Several commonly recognized secondary neighborhoods exist in Neukölln. The most important and oldest central urban community is the Donaukiez along Donaustraße between Sonnenallee and Karl-Marx-Straße, including Hermannplatz at its western end. The oldest suburban community is the historically important Dammwegsiedlung just south of the Weiße Siedlung, an early modern housing estate from the 1920s. A recently evolved neighborship of cultural importance is the Weserkiez with its famous party mile around Weserstraße north of Sonnenallee. Due to urban development and expansion, many other kiez communities have formed over the decades, sometimes distinguished in the city's official LOR framework or the focus of current or former neighborhood management, while an outlier is Kreuzkölln, which is a meta-neighborhood and loosely defined cultural sphere, described by a berolinism, a modern jocular toponym, which since the mid-2000s has often been used by new residents and younger natives for the northern parts of the quarter and the surrounding regions of Kreuzberg.

Urban planning

Berlin's official urban planning framework, on the other hand, divides Berlin's boroughs and quarters into so-called Lebensweltlich orientierte Räume. In this LOR framework, the quarter of Neukölln, non-administrative district 10 in borough 08, as of 2025, is divided into five regions, each of them further compartmentalized into a total of 21 LORs, also called Planungsräume.

Region	Region number	Planning area	Area number	Primary neighborhoods	Secondary neighborhoods	Neighborships	Other areas	Industry	Other localities
Schillerpromenade	01	Hasenheide	01		Hasenheide		Volkspark Hasenheide		Tierpark Neukölln
Schillerpromenade	01	Schillerpromenade Nord	02	Schillerkiez			Tempelhofer Feld
Schillerpromenade	01	Schillerpromenade Süd	03	Schillerkiez			Tempelhofer Feld
Schillerpromenade	01	Wartheplatz	04		Warthekiez		Tempelhofer Feld		Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark
Schillerpromenade	01	Silbersteinstraße	05		Silbersteinkiez				Emmauswald, Carl-Weder-Park
Neuköllner Mitte/Zentrum	02	Flughafenstraße	06	Flughafenkiez
Neuköllner Mitte/Zentrum	02	Rollberg	07	Rollberg			Lessinghöhe
Neuköllner Mitte/Zentrum	02	Körnerpark	08	Körnerpark			Thomashöhe		Körnerpark
Neuköllner Mitte/Zentrum	02	Glasower Straße	09		Glasower Kiez	Kranoldkiez		Industrial park Lahnstraße
Reuterstraße	03	Maybachufer	10	Reuterkiez		Friedelkiez	Kreuzkölln
Reuterstraße	03	Reuterplatz	11	Reuterkiez		Friedelkiez	Kreuzkölln
Reuterstraße	03	Reuterplatz	11	Reuterkiez		Weserkiez	Kreuzkölln
Reuterstraße	03	Weichselplatz	12	Reuterkiez		Weserkiez	Kreuzkölln
Reuterstraße	03	Bouchéstraße	13		Harzer Straße
Reuterstraße	03	Donaustraße	14		Donaukiez				Hermannplatz
Rixdorf	04	Ganghoferstraße	15			Ganghoferstraße
Rixdorf	04	Alt-Rixdorf	16	Böhmisch-Rixdorf
Rixdorf	04	Alt-Rixdorf	16	Richardplatz-Süd					Richardplatz
Rixdorf	04	Braunschweiger Straße	17	Richardplatz-Süd
Rixdorf	04	Hertzbergplatz	18			Weserkiez	Wohnanlage Ossastraße	Treptow freight yards, industrial park Ederstraße, Neukölln Docklands	Wildenbruchplatz
Rixdorf	04	Treptower Straße Nord	19		Harzer Straße			Treptow freight yards, industrial park Treptower Straße
Köllnische Heide	05	Weiße Siedlung	20	Weiße Siedlung	Dammwegsiedlung			Neukölln Docklands	Heidekamppark, suburban garden allotments
Köllnische Heide	05	Schulenburgpark	21	High-Deck-Siedlung		Schulenburgpark		Neukölln Harbor, industrial parks Köllnische Heide & Lahnstraße	Heidekamppark, Von-der-Schulenburg-Park