Established as a town in and named after late Sophia Charlotte of Hanover , Queen consort of Prussia , it is best known for Charlottenburg Palace , the largest surviving royal palace in Berlin, and the adjacent museums. In the course of Berlin's administrative reform it was merged with the former borough of Wilmersdorf becoming a part of a new borough called Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.
Later, in , the new borough's districts were rearranged, dividing the former borough of Charlottenburg into the localities of Charlottenburg proper, Westend and Charlottenburg-Nord.
Its historic core, the former village green of Alt Lietzow, is situated on the southern shore of the Spree River running through the Berlin glacial valley.
Juni road, former Charlottenburger Chaussee, which runs eastwards from Charlottenburg Gate through the Tiergarten park to Brandenburg Gate , connects Charlottenburg with the historic centre of Berlin- Mitte. In the north and west, the Berlin Ringbahn and the Bundesautobahn Stadtring mark the border with the Charlottenburg-Nord and Westend suburbs.
Adjacent in the south is the territory of Wilmersdorf. Archaeological findings in the area date back to the Neolithic era. Within the Margraviate of Brandenburg , on the land occupied by present-day Charlottenburg, there were three settlements in the late Middle Ages: the farmsteads Lietzow pronounced leat-tsow south of the Spree and Casow pr. Although these names are of Slavic origin, the settlements are likely to have had a mixed Slavic and German population.
