page_title: Moabit
section_title: First settlements
hierarchical_section_title: Moabit / History / First settlements
caption_attribution_description: English: AEG-Turbinenhalle, Interior, Berlin - This photograph does not show the famous AEG-Turbinenhalle, built 1908-1909 by Peter Behrens – which has a clearly different construction.
context_page_description: Moabit is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood is fully surrounded by three watercourses which define its present-day border. Between 1945 and 1990, Moabit was part of the British sector of West Berlin that directly bordered East Berlin.
  Colloquially, the name Moabit also refers to the Central Criminal Court and detention centre, which deals with all criminal cases in Berlin and is based in Moabit.
context_section_description: In the 13th century the waste area along the road to Spandau known as Grosse Stadtheide ("great city heath") was a hunting ground of the electors of Brandenburg. Settlement began in 1685 with the erection of the Staakensetzerhaus at the western border of what is now Moabit. 1716 saw the formation of the colony of Old Moabit by the Huguenots, who were meant to cultivate white mulberry trees for silkworms, but failed because of the low soil quality.
caption: The AEG turbine factory is an example of Moabit's industrial past.
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