BerlinArea - explore Berlin like buried treasure
The map is open.
BerlinArea is on the App Store. Free, no ads, no account, and it works with the phone in flight mode. Version 1.4 adds eight walks, a passport of stamps, archive photographs and a recorded narrator.
iPhone and iPad · iOS 16.4 or later · Free
A city is not a list of pins. Berlin is layers of history you can stand inside, once you know where to look.
A map, a story, a walk.
No account, no setup, no signal. Open the map and start finding the parts of Berlin worth remembering.
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Open the map
Berlin draws in sepia ink and gold, with the landmarks standing on it as small buildings. The tiles are already on the phone, so it works with the aeroplane switched on.
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Open a place
A few paragraphs on its history, the year it was built, the address and a photograph. Press play and a recorded narrator reads it to you.
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Walk it
Pick one of eight walks, or wander and let the places stamp themselves as you pass. Both remember where you got to.
A guidebook with a map inside.
A hand-picked set of places, each with its history, on a map you will want to keep open. Underneath it sit the parts of Berlin a map usually leaves out: the Wall, the buildings that are gone, and the walks between them.
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A map that needs no connection
Berlin's vector tiles ship inside the app, and so do the photographs and the texts. You can land at BER with no SIM card and still use every screen.
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127 places, each with its history
Landmarks, museums, galleries, parks, playgrounds, churches and squares. A few paragraphs on each, the year it was built, the address and a photograph.
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The city that is gone
Fifteen buildings that no longer stand: the Berliner Stadtschloss, the Palast der Republik that replaced it, the Anhalter Bahnhof, the Sportpalast. Each says the year it came down and what is on the ground today.
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Where the Wall stood
Drawn from Berlin's own 1989 survey of the front wall. East and West are filled in from the first launch, with a line telling you which side you are standing on.
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Eight walks
The Cold War, Prussian Berlin, Berlin in one day, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Charlottenburg, the vanished city, and one with children. Every walk follows real streets, with the stops numbered on the map and a bar that steps you through them.
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A passport of stamps
Come within a hundred metres of a place and it stamps itself. The stamps print as a poster of your route on parchment over the outline of the 1989 Wall, numbered in the order you reached them.
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Then and now
Thirty places carry an archive photograph beside the modern one, each with its year. Hold the picture and it fades to the other.
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Every place read aloud
One recorded English narrator, not a synthetic voice. Twenty five of the readings run about ninety seconds and are written for the ear. Nothing plays until you press play.
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Berlin transport, explained
What U, S, M, RE and F mean on the signs, what the zones cover, and where a ticket is sold, online and at the machines in the city.
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The practical half of a city
Supermarkets, pharmacies, cash machines, car parks, charging points and hotels. 5,277 points from OpenStreetMap, switched off until you ask for them. Cycle mode draws 755 km of the Berlin cycle network.
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Twelve languages
English, German, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Italian, French, Spanish, Azerbaijani, Hungarian, Czech and Polish.
No account. No ads. No tracking. Everything runs on the phone.
Straight from the phone.
Ten screens captured on an iPhone, with nothing redrawn for the web. Drag sideways for the rest.
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The map Berlin in sepia and gold, the landmarks standing on it as small buildings. -
The divided city The 1989 front wall, with East and West filled in behind it. -
Eight walks Each one along real streets, with its length, its time and its stops. -
A place, read aloud History, the year, the address, and a narrator when you want one. -
Then and now Hold the picture and 1900 fades in over the present. -
The city that is gone Fifteen buildings that no longer stand, with the year they came down. -
Your passport The stamps you collected, printed as a poster over the outline of the Wall. -
Getting around What the letters on the signs mean, what the zones cover, where tickets are sold. -
Search and filters Type Rewe and every branch lands on the map. Type Brandenburg and you get the gate. -
The practical layer 5,277 shops, pharmacies, cash machines and car parks, off until you ask.
All of it inside the download.
The map, the photographs, the texts and the recordings are in the app when you install it. Nothing is fetched later, and nothing about you leaves the phone.
- 127
- places, each with its own history
- 15
- buildings that no longer stand
- 8
- walks along real streets
- 30
- archive photographs paired with today
- 12
- languages
- 0
- accounts, ads and trackers
Take Berlin with you.
Download BerlinArea on iPhone and iPad. It's free, and the whole city travels with you offline.
iPhone and iPad · iOS 16.4 or later · Free
Found a bug? Tell me.
A landmark missing from the map, a story that reads wrong, a screen that crashes on your phone. Write it here and it gets fixed. Questions and ideas land in the same inbox.
Thanks, that landed. You'll get a reply at the address you gave.