The Center for Area Studies (CAS) unites the competence that exists in different research networks in the humanities and social sciences at Freie Universität Berlin. Traditionally, a major focus at Freie Universität Berlin has been placed on North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, East Asia and the Middle East. Today, also the other regions of the World like Western Europe or Africa are taken into account.

CAS’s scientific purpose is to analyze transcultural phenomena and processes with an interdisciplinary approach.

The foundation of CAS was an important milestone in the development of Freie Universität Berlin as a center of disciplinary-based and interdisciplinary-connected research in various fields of area studies.