[6] Archaeologist Gary Warrick of Wilfrid Laurier University dates the expansion of the Neutral people to the Kitchener-Waterloo area sometime in the 1300s in what is referred to as the Woodland Period (900BC to 1650AD).

The inhabitants are thought to be ancestors of the Neutral Nation; artifacts found include the remains of longhouses, tools made of bone and of stone and arrowheads.

[6] Kitchener stands on a part of the Haldimand Tract, lands in the Grand River valley purchased in 1784 by the British from the Mississaugas in order to grant it to the Six Nations for their allegiance during the American Revolution.

They were two Mennonites from Franklin County, Pennsylvania who were also brothers in law, Joseph Schoerg (later called Sherk) and Samuel Betzner Jr.[16] Joseph Schoerg and his wife settled on Lot 11, B.F. Beasley Black, S.R., on the bank of the Grand River opposite Doon, and Betzner and his wife settled on the west bank of the Grand, on a farm near the village of Blair.

One of these Mennonite families, arriving in 1807, was the Schneiders, whose restored 1816 home (the oldest building in the city) is now a National Historic Site and museum in the heart of Kitchener.

The Ebys were an old Swiss Mennonite family with an association with religious non-conformist movements in Europe going back possibly as far as the Middle Ages, and who were early followers of Anabaptism.

Two brothers, George and Samuel ("Indian Sam") Eby, arrived in 1804 and settled on Lot 1 of the German Company Tract, near the area of what would become downtown Kitchener.

[31] The village centre of Ebytown was established in 1830 by Phineas Varnum, who leased land from Joseph Schneider and opened a blacksmith shop on the site where a hotel would be built many years later, the Walper House.

[38][39] The extension of the Grand Trunk Railway from Sarnia to Toronto (and hence through Berlin) in July 1856 was a major boon to the community, helping to improve industrialization in the area.

Immigrants from Germany, mostly Lutheran and Catholic, dominated the city after 1850, and developed their own newer German celebrations and influences, such as the Turner societies, gymnastics, and band music.

[43][44] In 1869, the county government built a very large so-called poorhouse with an attached farm, the House of Industry and Refuge that accommodated some 3,200 people before being closed in 1951; the building was later demolished.

That building was demolished in 1924 and replaced by a new structure behind it, designed by architects William Schmalz and Bernal Jones, featuring a classical-revival style and a large civic square in front.

Thousands of Ukrainians, Germans, Turks, and Bulgarians were forcibly placed into internment camps by the Dominion government under the War Measures Act, which was passed in August 1914.

Despite pronouncements of loyalty and commitment to the war effort, the city's German community was subjected to physical violence and attacks on property by soldiers of the 118th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Of the cities that are now part of Waterloo Region, Berlin, now Kitchener, has the strongest German heritage because of the high levels of settlement in this area by German-speaking immigrants.

[citation needed] In 1862, German-speaking groups held the Sängerfest, or "Singer Festival" concert event in Berlin that attracted an estimated 10,000 people and continued for several years.

[71] In 1897, a large bronze bust of Kaiser Wilhelm I, made by Reinhold Begas and shipped from Germany, was installed at Victoria Park, Kitchener to honour the region's prominent German-Canadian population.

[73] The bust was recovered from the lake and moved to the nearby Concordia club, but it was stolen again February 15, 1916, marched through the streets by a mob, made up largely of soldiers from the 118th Battalion, and has never been seen again.

But it is important to remember that Canada was a society in transition – the country had absorbed massive numbers of immigrants between 1896 and the First World War, proportionately more than at any other time in our history.

[81]A document in the Archives of Canada makes the following comment: "Although ludicrous to modern eyes, the whole issue of a name for Berlin highlights the effects that fear, hatred and nationalism can have upon a society in the face of war.

[86]: 23  It was the brainchild of a local rubber magnate, Talmon Henry Rieder, who was heavily connected to Montreal business interests and who oversaw the 1912 construction of the Dominion Tire Plant on nearby Strange Street.

These included concerns around the health impact of air pollution and desire for "country air";[86]: 32  the ability for people to commute longer distances being enabled by motor vehicles;[86]: 35  the availability of large, cheap plots of development land;[86]: 35  an increasing emphasis on the "restricted residential subdivision"[86]: 36  and restrictive covenants barring industrial and commercial development in exclusive residential neighbourhoods (an antecedent to modern zoning); and a desire by Berlin-turned-Kitchener's ethnically German business class, in the wake of the city's turmoil over its German identity during the First World War, to distance themselves from its 19th century past and the downtown area associated with it in favour of a built environment similar to wealthy Anglo-Canadians in other Canadian cities, such as Montreal and Winnipeg.

[100] The groundbreaking ceremony for the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy and downtown health sciences campus took place on 15 March 2006, and the facility opened in spring 2009.

[120] The most common ethnicities in Kitchener as per the 2021 census are German (17.7%), English (15.9%), Irish (13.7%), Scottish (13%), Canadian (11.5%), French (6.1%), East Indian (5.6%), Polish (4.5%), Dutch (3.7%), British (3.5%), Italian (3%), Portuguese (2.4%), Chinese (2.2%), and Ukrainian (2.2%).

[125] Council is responsible for policy and decision making, monitoring the operation and performance of the city, analyzing and approving budgets and determining spending priorities.

The other dominant glacial feature is the Waterloo Moraine, which snakes its way through the region, and holds a significant quantity of artesian wells, from which the city derives most of its drinking water.

Notable past performers include Every Time I Die, Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker, Chiodos, Walk Off The Earth, Four Year Strong, Protest the Hero, Mad Caddies, Monster Truck, Gob, Treble Charger, Cute Is What We Aim For, The Planet Smashers, Bayside, and several hundred more.

Kitchener was very proactive and visionary about its transportation network in the 1960s, with the province undertaking at that time construction of the Conestoga Parkway from the western boundary (just past Homer Watson Boulevard) across the south side of the city and looping north along the Grand River to Northfield Drive in Waterloo.

[citation needed] The Mennonites who had banded together as the German Company to purchase the township from Richard Beasley simply divided their vast parcel of land by the number of shareholder households and then drew random lots to confer title on individual farms.

In 2017, the Ontario Liberal government proposed a Windsor–Toronto high-speed rail line through Kitchener, which would improve travel times to nearby major cities as well as to the Toronto Pearson International Airport.