Heiligensee is a locality within Reinickendorf

Reinickendorf

Reinickendorf is the twelfth borough of Berlin. It encompasses the northwest of the city area, including the Berlin-Tegel Airport, Lake Tegel, spacious settlements of detached houses as well as housing estates like Märkisches Viertel.-Subdivision:...

, a borough of the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 capital, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. It has 17,780 inhabitants
and an area of 10.7 square kilometre.

Overview

Situated at Berlin's north-western rim on the shores of the Havel

Havel

The Havel is a river in north-eastern Germany, flowing through the German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Berlin and Saxony-Anhalt. It is a right tributary of the Elbe river and in length...

 river, Heiligensee shares border with the town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

s of Hennigsdorf

Hennigsdorf

Hennigsdorf is a town in the district of Oberhavel, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated north-west of Berlin, just across the city border, which is formed mainly by the Havel river.-History:...

 and Hohen Neuendorf

Hohen Neuendorf

Hohen Neuendorf is a town in the Oberhavel district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is located north west of Berlin.-Geography:Hohen Neuendorf is situated upon the Havel river and is bordered by the Berlin area Frohnau to the south, Muehlenbeck to the east, Birkenwerder and Oranienburg to the north,...

 in the Oberhavel

Oberhavel

Oberhavel is a Kreis in the northern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the districts Uckermark, Barnim, the Bundesland Berlin, and the districts Havelland and Ostprignitz-Ruppin.-Geography:The district is located along...

 district of Brandenburg

Brandenburg

Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...

.

History

The village was founded in 1308. Between 1945 and 1990 Heiligensee housed West Berlin's inner German border crossing for inland navigation

Inland navigation

Inland navigation is transport with ships via inland water between inland ports or quays and wharfs.-See also:* Code Européen des Voies de la Navigation Intérieure -External links:...

 on the Oder-Havel Canal

Oder-Havel Canal

The Oder-Havel Canal is a German canal built between 1908 and 1914, originally known as the Hohenzollern Canal. Together with Hohensaaten-Friedrichsthaler Wasserstraße, the Oderhaltung and the Schwedter Querfahrt it forms the Havel-Oder-Wasserstraße...

. The crossing was open for freight vessels navigating between the People's Republic of Poland

People's Republic of Poland

The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...

, or the Soviet Zone of occupation in Germany (till 1949, thereafter the East German Democratic Republic

German Democratic Republic

The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...

) and West Berlin

West Berlin

West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

.

External links

Heiligensee page of Reinickendorfer site