It borders Cuggiono to the north through the hamlet of Casate, Mesero to the east, Marcallo con Casone to the south, and Boffalora sopra Ticino to the west with the Piedmont territory of Romentino.

Archaeological excavations conducted by the Soprintendenza Archeologica della Lombardia in 2005 have brought to light a necropolis consisting of twelve inhumation tombs of late Roman age and a single burial of the first century A.D.[7] Analysis of the evidence suggests that the small community must have had an economy based on agriculture and trade.

In the Middle Ages Bernate was called Brinate as it appears from a map of 1045, remembered by Giorgio Giulini (Memorie ecc.

Important in those centuries was a castle, mentioned in a paper of 1098 containing a sale for 40 pounds of money that Algerio son of Vallone of Brinate had made to Ariberto priest.

It is in fact in the year 1150 that Giovanni of the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio invested Domenico, Pietro, Pastore and Gualla Crivelli of the banks, gravels and woods that are in the territories of Brinasca (otherwise Bernate) and Cusionno (Cuggiono).

It was in 1186, when on the papal throne sat with the name of Pope Urban III Uberto Crivelli who took place the foundation of the regular rectory at the church of Saint George.

On 25 November 1186 Urban III addressed with a seal the parish of S. Maria di Crescenzago; after having explained that the church of Saint George di Brinate, founded on a paternal land was deprived of goods and of possessions, he assigned to the church of Saint George the goods bought by the nuns of Caronno except the port and the gravel of Ticino river, and those he had bought from the monks of San Vincenzo or from the soldiers of Arconate or from those of Dugnano.

In more recent times, the village appeared in the movie L'albero degli zoccoli of 1978 of the director Ermanno Olmi where, in a shot along the Naviglio Grande you can clearly see the dome of the parish church and the medieval bell tower.

[9] Another hypothesis is that the name would derive from Castrum Brinati (fourth century AD), i.e., the Roman name of a fortified area to guard a port on the Ticino river.

Typical is the procession with the boats on the Naviglio Grande on Saturday evening and the Regata Storica of Bernate Ticino (historical regatta) on Sunday afternoon.