The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin is an early Classicist triumphal gate that stands on the western flank of the square Pariser Platz in the Mitte district of Berlin. It was built at the end of the central boulevard of Dorotheenstadt, the street Unter den Linden, in the years from 1789 to 1793 on the instructions of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II. Based on designs by Carl Gotthard Langhans. The sculpture of the Quadriga that crowns the gate is a work based on a design by the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow. To the west of the Brandenburg Gate are the extensive green areas of the Great Zoo, which the Straße des 17. Juni crosses in a straight extension of the street Unter den Linden. The square immediately west of the gate is called Platz des 18. März.
The gate is the only surviving of the last 18 Berlin city gates. In terms of form, it represents the turn from the Roman to the Greek model. It is one of the first classicist buildings in Prussia and thus marks the beginning of classicism as a state-supporting architecture in Prussia.
The gate is one of the most famous Berlin landmarks and national symbol, with which many important historical events of the 19th and 20th centuries are connected. Today the gate is mainly seen as a symbol of German reunification. Until then, it stood directly on the border between East and West Berlin and thus, during the Cold War, on the border between the Warsaw Pact and NATO.