It was founded as a hunting area for the Elector of Brandenburg, and was situated to the west of the Cölln city wall, which was the sister town of Old Berlin.

Frederick Wilhelm I (1688–1740), Elector of Brandenburg (1713–1740), feeling the need to bring change to his private hunting grounds,[1] built many structures that are still visible today.

[citation needed] This is seen as the beginning of a transformation in the Tiergarten, a movement from the king's personal hunting territory to a forest park designed for the people.

[1] In 1742 he instructed the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff to tear down the fences that surrounded the territory and to turn the park into a Lustgarten (literally "pleasure garden"), one that would be open to the people of Berlin.

[citation needed] In the baroque style popular at the time he added flowerbeds, borders and espaliers in geometrical layouts, along with mazes, water basins and ornamental ponds; he also commissioned sculptures to add cultural significance.

These salons were blocked off from the walking path by hedges or trees and often furnished with seating, fountains and vases, offering guests a change of pace and a place to discuss intellectual matters in private.

Refugees, Huguenots in hiding from the French, were allowed to erect tents and sell refreshments to the pedestrians walking through the park.

Furthermore a pheasant house was erected inside the park, which would later become the core of the Zoological Garden, a zoo founded in 1844 that lies within the greater Tiergarten.

[citation needed] At the end of the 18th century, Knobelsdorff's late-baroque form had been all but replaced by ideas for a new, scenic garden ideal.

The castle park Bellevue and Rousseau Island were laid out by court gardener Justus Ehrenreich Sello in the late 18th century.

It was then in 1818 that the king commissioned the help of Peter Joseph Lenné, a young man who was at the time the gardener's assistant at Sanssouci in Potsdam.

Wide-open grass lawns traversed by streams and clusters of trees, lakes with small islands, countless bridges like the Löwenbrücke, and a multitude of pathways became distinguishing features of the new garden.

Built under the orders of Emperor William II, it was lined with statues of former Prussian royal figures of varying historical importance.

Statues of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Theodor Fontane, Richard Wagner and Albert Lortzing were also erected.

However, these two factors caused the once great forest to nearly disappear; only 700 trees survived out of over 200,000 that once lined the parkway, the bodies of water turned silty, every bridge was destroyed, the monuments lay on their sides and were badly damaged.

Several overgrown areas that had been used for picnics and football were replaced with open spaces and grassy lawns that have added to the prestige of the park.

A large tunnel, commissioned in 2006, has been built under the Tiergarten, allowing easy movement from north to south for motor vehicles, trams, and more recently S-Bahn trains.

The original proposal for the tunnel was met with great opposition from environmentalists, who believed the vegetation would be damaged due to shifts in ground-water levels; in fact, the first plans for construction were denied by a court order.

In the middle of the park is the square named Großer Stern ("Great Star") with the Siegessäule (Victory column) located in its centre.

In the northerly neighbouring quarter of Moabit a much smaller park bears the same name, thus both are differentiated as Großer and Kleiner Tiergarten.

The park is principally served by the S-Bahn at the rail stops of Berlin Tiergarten (situated at the western entrance on the Straße des 17.