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The capital and largest city of Austria, in the northeast part of the country on the Danube River. Originally a Celtic settlement, it became the official residence of the house of Hapsburg in 1278 and a leading cultural center in the 18th century, particularly under the reign (1740–1780) of Maria Theresa. Vienna was designated the capital of Austria in 1918. Population: 1,660,000.
For more information on Vienna, visit Britannica.com.
Located on a plain surrounded by the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods) and the Carpathian foothills, it is a cultural, industrial, commercial, and transportation center. The city is divided into 23 districts grouped roughly in two semicircles around the Innere Stadt, or Inner City. Vienna's industries, mainly concentrated on the left bank of the Danube and in the southern districts, produce electrical appliances, machine tools, paper, and clothing. There are also large oil refineries, breweries, and distilleries. The annual Wiener Messe, an industrial fair (est. 1921), attracts buyers from all over the world. Vienna's musical and theatrical life, its parks, coffeehouses, and museums, make it a great tourist attraction; tourism is of great signficance for the city's economy.
The modern city dates from Francis Joseph's reign (1848–1916). By 1860 the old ramparts around the inner city had been replaced by the famous boulevard, the Ringstrasse. The principal edifices on or near the Ringstrasse are the neo-Gothic Rathaus, with many statues and a tower 320 ft (98 m) high; the domed museums of natural history and of art, in Italian Renaissance style; the Votivkirche, one of the finest of modern Gothic churches; the parliament buildings, in Greek style; the palace of justice; the famous opera house and the Burgtheater, both in Renaissance style; the Künstlerhaus, with painting exhibitions; the Musikverein, containing the conservatory of music; and the Academy of Art. Among Vienna's many other museums are the Albertina, a state museum housed in an 18th-century building, and the Kunstforum, a bold contemporary exhibition space. In the late 20th. cent, Danube Island was developed as one of the largest urban parks in Europe; the neighboring Danube City development includes many modern buildings.
History
Originally a Celtic settlement, Vienna, then called Vindobona, became an important Roman military and commercial center; Emperor Marcus Aurelius resided there and died there (A.D. 180). After the Romans withdrew (late 4th cent.), it rapidly changed hands among the invaders who overran the region. The Magyars, who gained possession of Vienna early in the 10th cent., were driven out by Leopold I of Babenberg, the first margrave of the Ostmark (see Austria). Construction on Vienna's noted Cathedral of St. Stephen began c.1135.
Several decades later Henry Jasomirgott, first duke of Austria, transferred his residence to the town, made it capital of the duchy, and erected a castle, Am Hof. The town was fortified by Ottocar II of Bohemia, who conquered Austria in 1251. In 1282, Vienna became the official residence of the house of Hapsburg. The city was occupied (1485–90) by Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and was besieged by the Turks for the first time in 1529. In the critical second siege (1683) by the Turks under Kara Mustafa and their Hungarian allies under Thokoly, the city, heroically defended by Ernst von Starhemberg, was on the verge of starvation when it was saved by John III (John Sobieski) of Poland.
Early in the 18th cent. a new circle of fortifications was built around the city, and many magnificent buildings were erected. Bernhard Fischer von Erlach drew up new plans for the Hofburg (the imperial residence) and built the beautiful Karlskirche; Johann von Hildebrandt designed St. Peter's Church, the Belvedere (summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy), and the Kinsky Palace; together they planned the Schwarzenburg Palace and the winter residence of Prince Eugene. Empress Maria Theresa (reigned 1740–80) enlarged the old university, founded in 1365, and completed the royal summer palace of Schönbrunn, started by her father, Charles VI (1711–40). Joseph II (1765–90) opened the Prater, a large imperial garden, which now contains an amusement park, to the public. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert lived in Vienna and gave it lasting glory.
In 1805 and 1809, Vienna was occupied by Napoleon. In the early 19th cent. Vienna was famous for the waltzes of Joseph Lanner and the Strauss family, and for the farces of Nestroy, the comedies of Raimund, and the tragic dramas of Grillparzer. During the revolutions of 1848, revolutionists in Vienna forced Metternich to resign, but they were eventually suppressed by Windischgrätz.
In the late 19th and early 20th cent., Vienna flourished again as a cultural and scientific center. Rokitansky, Wagner-Jauregg, and Billroth (to whom Brahms dedicated the string quartets Op. 51) worked at the General Hospital; at the same time Freud was developing his theory of psychoanalysis. Vienna attracted Brahms, Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Arnold Schoenberg and his disciples, who gave it a further period of musical greatness. Krauss, Werfel, Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, and Wassermann dominated the literary scene.
Vienna suffered hardships during World War I. Amidst food shortages and revolution it became, at the end of the war, the capital of the small republic of Austria. In 1922, Vienna became an autonomous province (Bundesland) of Austria. The highly successful Social Democratic city government headed by Mayor Karl Seitz (1923–34) initiated a program of municipal improvements. In public housing Vienna set an example for the world. Model apartment houses for workers, notably the huge Karl Marx Hof, began to replace the city's slums. The projects were badly damaged in the civil war of Feb., 1934, between Viennese Socialists and the Austrian government of Chancellor Dollfuss.
On Mar. 15, 1938, Adolf Hitler triumphantly entered Vienna, and Austria was annexed to Germany. During World War II the city suffered considerable damage. The Jewish population (115,000 in 1938), residing mainly in the Leopoldstadt district (designated the official ghetto in the 17th cent.), was reduced through extermination or emigration to 6,000 by the end of the war. The Russian army entered Vienna in Apr., 1945. Vienna and Austria were divided into four occupation zones by the victorious Allies. The occupation lasted until 1955, when, by treaty, the four powers reunited Austria as a neutral state.
Vienna became the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957; it is the headquarters for several other international organizations, including the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The city also has been a neutral site for international talks, such as those between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev in 1961.
Bibliography
See A. J. May, Vienna in the Age of Franz Josef (1966); I. Lehne and L. Johnson, Vienna—The Past in the Present (1985).
From the later thirteenth century, when Vienna and its surrounding territories were claimed by the Habsburg Dynasty, until the mid-fifteenth century, the Habsburgs slowly built up the old residence of their predecessors, the Babenbergs, and the one-time Roman legionnaires' camp into a sizable city complete with a church dedicated to Saint Stephen as well as a university and a castle residence built next to one of the old Roman roads leading to this important Danube River crossing. By 1500 the city may have had a population of approximately twenty to thirty thousand.
For some time during the fifteenth century, the Styrian branch of the Habsburg Dynasty held the upper hand among the Habsburg relations in central Europe, and their city, Wiener Neustadt, was the preferred residence of many of the Austrian dukes, including the important Habsburg Duke Frederick who was crowned Holy Roman emperor in Rome by Pope Nicholas V in 1452 and ruled until 1493. The emperor was able to achieve the long-standing Habsburg goal of elevating their church in Vienna, St. Stephen's, to episcopal status through papal permission in 1469. (The rival residence city of Wiener Neustadt was similarly honored in the same year.) Now Vienna would be not only a trading city, university town, and sometime archducal residence. It was the center of a modest ecclesiastical jurisdiction as well, one which often unhappily shared religious responsibilities with its much more powerful neighbor, the Diocese of Passau, which also had administrative offices in Vienna.
For Vienna, the later fifteenth century meant a change in regimes: renewed claims over this area by the kings of Hungary led to an occupation of the city by the Hungarian King Mathias I ("Corvinus") Hunyadi beginning in 1485. King Mathias died in the city in 1490. The turbulent and multifaceted relationship with Hungary is an important aspect of Viennese history in this period.
The city on the Danube was again brought under Habsburg control through the efforts of Emperor Frederick's son, Archduke and later Emperor Maximilian I (ruled 1493–1519), who spent much of his time arranging Western marriages and residing in the Habsburg city of Innsbruck in Tyrol, among many other locations. For some time, the exact position of Vienna in the Habsburgs' plans was unclear. The Iberian and Burgundian inheritances engineered by Maximilian necessarily meant that the dynasty's representatives were more tied to cities such as Ghent or kingdoms such as Castile than to the rather forgotten city on the Danube River.
When Maximilian's grandson and younger brother of Emperor Charles V, the Spanish-born Archduke Ferdinand (who ruled 1558–1564 as Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I) chose Vienna as his residence, the city fathers had already established a local regime with its own sense of autonomy. In the 1520s this urban regime was harshly suppressed by the archduke and his officials, and the city administration was reorganized under stricter dynastic control. Ferdinand had arrived in the city with a sizable retinue of Iberian nobles, military personnel, and other assorted hangers-on, and the Spanish-speaking community in the city and at the court endured at various levels for two centuries, reflecting the resident rulers' close ties to their dynastic kin in the West.
One of the pivotal years for the history of early modern Vienna was 1529, when Ottoman troops besieged the city, following on their successful campaigns of the previous years, which had succeeded in defeating the Hungarians and in advancing the Ottomans' control well into that nearby kingdom. The siege was successfully resisted, but the results of the destruction in the suburbs and the economic dislocation the siege had brought lasted for much of the century. The economic foundations of many of the city's religious houses, which controlled properties outside of the old city walls, for example, were wrecked, and this, together with the increasing popularity of the teachings of Martin Luther and his followers, made the culture of the city increasingly Protestant, much to the dismay of Archduke Ferdinand, who resided in the Hofburg, the fortified Habsburg residence in the city.
Following the extinction of the Hungarian ruling dynasty in 1526, Habsburg claims to the Hungarian crown meant that Vienna maintained a certain dynastic importance because it was located so near to Bratislava, the newly relocated capital of Hungary, just down the Danube River. Military operations in the Hungarian kingdom were planned and administered from Vienna, even while the Habsburg rulers themselves increasingly gave in to the allures of Vienna's long-time rival, Prague, as their preferred place of residence. (Ferdinand and his two successors as Holy Roman emperor, Maximilian II and Rudolf II, were all buried in St. Vitus's cathedral in that Bohemian capital.) Ferdinand's grandson, the emperor Rudolf II (ruled 1576–1612), officially moved his residence up to the castle in Prague in the 1580s, leaving his brother Archduke Ernst and his sister Archduchess Elisabeth, the widowed queen of France, to reside in Vienna and attempt to regulate the increasingly unruly and Lutheran city population.
Conflicts over the Habsburg succession in Bohemia and Hungary eventually degenerated into the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), but they had little direct effect on Vienna. For the most part, the fighting took place well away from the city, although in its earliest stages in late 1618 and early 1619, enemy troops reached the city's vicinity, as did Swedish troops in 1645. The continued rather uncertain status of Vienna in its rulers' imaginations was reflected in the decision of Emperor Ferdinand II (ruled 1620–1637) to return to his ancestral homeland, Styria, to be buried in 1637.
The true blossoming of Vienna as the baroque capital of central Europe and the undisputed capital of the Habsburg Dynasty came only later, in the eighteenth century. The city was once again besieged by Ottoman troops in 1683 and once again successfully withstood their attacks, with the help of King John III Sobieski of Poland. Unlike the aftermath of 1529, however, subsequent Habsburg military campaigns pushed the Ottoman frontier well into Hungary and farther to the southeast. Vienna changed in character from a border fortress to a centrally located administrative and trading center, well located on the Danube for trading downstream with the newly conquered Hungarian territories. The Habsburgs' loss of their Iberian inheritance through the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), as well as their earlier setbacks in the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War, combined to redirect the dynasts' attention toward the south and east. Vienna was well situated to benefit from this reorientation.
The alliance of the Habsburgs and their supporters with a reinvigorated Roman Catholicism during the Counter-Reformation also provided an ideology and a cultural program that were physically reflected in the triumphant, new post-1683 city. New convents and monasteries abounded, and a much more extensive (although less militarily effective) wall (the 1704 Linienwall) was constructed. Noble palaces and Habsburg summer residences were constructed outside the confines of the walls as well, reflecting a new optimism and sense of security that would only be challenged when Napoleon's troops neared the city in the early nineteenth century. Vienna was now the capital of one of Europe's most important powers. It remained so until the demise of that power in the early twentieth century.
Bibliography
Barker, Thomas Mack. Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna's Second Turkish Siege and its Historical Setting. Albany, N.Y., 1967.
Csendes, Peter. Historical Dictionary of Vienna. Lanham, Md., 1999.
Lorenz, Hellmut. "The Imperial Hofburg: The Theory and Practice of Architectural Representation in Baroque Vienna." In State and Society in Early Modern Austria, edited by Charles W. Ingrao. West Lafayette, Ind., 1994.
Spielman, John P. The City and the Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court, 1600–1740. West Lafayette, Ind., 1993.
Weigl, Andreas, ed. Wien im Dreißigjährigen Krieg: Bevölkerung, Gesellschaft, Kultur, Konfession. Vienna, 2001.
—JOSEPH F. PATROUCH
Capital of Austria and largest city in the country, located in northeastern Austria on the south bank of the Danube River; Austria's leading cultural, economic, and political center.
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The country code is: 43
The city code is: 1
Local Time: Jul 7, 1:17 PM
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| State Coat of Arms | |
|---|---|
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| General Information | |
| Country: | Austria |
| State Capital: | Vienna |
| ISO 3166-2: | AT-9 |
| Vehicle Registration: | W |
| Community Identification Number: | 90101 - 92301 |
| Postal codes: | 1010 - 1239, 1400, 1450 |
| Area code: | 01 |
| Homepage: | www.wien.gv.at |
| State Flag of Vienna | |
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| Map: Vienna in Austria | |
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| Name in other languages | |
| German | Wien |
| Hungarian | Bécs |
| See "Vienna" in other languages | |
| Politics | |
| Mayor and governor | Michael Häupl (SPÖ) |
| Governing Party | SPÖ |
| Seats in the Municipal Council (100 seats): |
SPÖ 55 ÖVP 18 Greens 14 FPÖ 13 |
| Last Election: | 23 October 2005 |
| Next Election: | October 2010 |
| Population | |
| Population Metropolitan Area: |
1,664,146 (01.01.2007)[1] 2,268,656 (01.01.2007)[2] |
| Population density Metropolitan Area: |
4,011/km² 492/km² |
| Geography | |
| Area: | 414.90 km² |
| - percent land: | 395.51 km² (95,33%) |
| - percent water: | 19.39 km² (4,67%) |
| - Metropolitan Area: | 4,611.76 km² |
| Location: | |
| Dimensions: | North-South: 22.4 km East-West: 29.2 km |
| Highest Point: | 543 m (Hermannskogel) |
| Lowest Point: | 151 m (Lobau) |
| Administrative Structure | |
| Districts: | 1 Statutarstadt 23 Bezirke |
| Map: Districts of Vienna | |
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Vienna (German: Wien [viːn], see also other names) is the capital of Austria, and also one of the nine States of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primate city; with a population of about 1.7 million (2.3 million within the metropolitan area), and is by far the largest city in Austria as well as its cultural, economic and political centre. Vienna lies in the very east of Austria and is close to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site[3] and an Economist Intelligence Unit study of 127 world cities ranked it third for quality of life.[4]
Founded around 500 BC, Vienna was originally a Celtic settlement. In 15 BC, Vienna became a Roman frontier city ("Vindobona") guarding the Roman Empire against Germanic tribes to the north.
During the Middle Ages, Vienna was home of the Babenberg Dynasty and in 1440 became residence city of the Habsburg dynasties from where Vienna eventually grew to become the capital of the Holy Roman Empire and a cultural centre for arts and science, music and fine cuisine. The Ottoman conquers of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries were stopped twice just outside Vienna (see Siege of Vienna, 1529 and Battle of Vienna, 1683).
In 1804, Vienna became capital of the Austrian Empire and continued to play a major role in European and World politics, including hosting the 1815 Congress of Vienna. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 Vienna remained the capital of what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the latter half of the 19th Century the city developed what had previously been the bastions and glacis into the Ringstraße, a major prestige project.
In 1918, after World War I, Vienna became capital of the
First Austrian Republic. During the 1920s and 1930s it was a bastion of
In 1945, the Vienna Offensive was successfully launched by the Soviets against the Germans holding Vienna. The city was besieged for about two weeks before it fell to the Soviets. After 1945, Vienna again became the capital of Austria. It was initially divided into four zones by the 4 Powers and was governed by the Allied Commission for Austria. During the 10 years of foreign occupation Vienna became a hot-bed for international espionage between the Western and Eastern blocs.
In the 1970s Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky inaugurated the creation of the Vienna International Centre, a new area of the city created to host international institutions. Vienna has regained a part of its former international relevance by hosting such international organizations as the United Nations (UNIDO, UNOV, CTBTO and UNODC), the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Due to industrialization and immigration from other parts of the Empire, the population of Vienna increased sharply during its time as capital of Austria-Hungary (1867-1918). However, after World War I, many Czechs and Hungarians returned to their ancestral countries, resulting in a decline in the Viennese population. At the height of the immigration, about one third of the people living in Vienna were of Slavic or Hungarian descent. By 2001, only 16% of people living in Vienna had nationalities other than Austrian, nearly half of which were from the former Yugoslavia; the next most numerous nationalities in Vienna were Turkish (39,000 or 2.5%), Polish (13,600 or 0.9%) and German (12,700 or 0.8%).[5]
| Year | Total Population |
| 1754 | 175,460 |
| 1800 | 271,800 |
| 1850 | 551,300 |
| 1900 | 1,769,137 |
| 1910 | 2,083,630 |
| 1923 | 1,918,720 |
| 1939 | 1,770,938 |
| 1951 | 1,616,125 |
| 1961 | 1,627,566 |
| 1971 | 1,619,885 |
| 1981 | 1,531,346 |
| 1991 | 1,539,848 |
| 2001 | 1,550,123 |
| 2007 | 1,664,146 |
Vienna is composed of 23 districts (Bezirke). Legally, they are not districts in the sense of administrative bodies with explicit powers (such as the districts in the other Austrian states), but mere subdivisions of the city administration. Elections at the district level give the representatives of the districts some political power in fields such as planning and traffic.
The 23 districts are numbered for convenience in a roughly clockwise fashion starting in the city centre: 1. Innere Stadt, 2. Leopoldstadt, 3. Landstraße, 4. Wieden, 5. Margareten, 6. Mariahilf, 7. Neubau, 8. Josefstadt, 9. Alsergrund, 10. Favoriten, 11. Simmering, 12. Meidling, 13.Hietzing, 14. Penzing, 15. Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, 16. Ottakring, 17. Hernals, 18. Währing, 19. Döbling, 20. Brigittenau, 21. Floridsdorf, 22. Donaustadt, 23. Liesing.
The heart and historical city of Vienna, the Innere Stadt, was once surrounded by walls and open fields in order to deny cover to potential attackers. The walls were razed in 1857, making it possible for the city to expand and eventually merge with the surrounding villages. In their place, a broad boulevard called the Ringstraße was built, along which imposing public and private buildings, monuments, and parks now lie. These buildings include the Rathaus (town hall), the Burgtheater, the University, the Parliament, the twin museums of natural history and fine art, and the Staatsoper. It is also the location of the Hofburg, the former imperial palace. The mainly Gothic Stephansdom is located at the centre of the city, on Stephansplatz. Beyond the Ringstraße, there was another wall called the Linienwall, which was torn down in the latter half of the 19th century to make room for expanding suburbs. It is now a ring road called Gürtel.
Industries are located mostly in the southern and eastern districts. The Innere Stadt is situated away from the main flow of the Danube, but is bounded by the Donaukanal ("Danube canal"). Vienna's second and twentieth districts are located between the Donaukanal and the Danube River. Across the Danube are the newest districts, which include the location of the Vienna International Centre.
Vienna's postal codes can be determined by the district where a given address is located; 1XXA - 1 denotes Vienna, XX the district number (if it is a single digit then with a leading zero), A is the number of the post office (irrelevant in this case, usually zero). Example: 1070 for Neubau. Exceptions include 1300 for the Vienna International Airport located in Lower Austria near Schwechat, 1400 for the UN Complex, 1450 for the Austria Center, and 1500 for the Austrian UN forces.
Until 1918, Viennese politics were shaped by the Christian Social
Party, in particular long-term mayor Karl Lueger. Vienna is today considered the
centre of Social Democracy in Austria. During the period of the First Republic (1918-1934), the Vienna Social Democrats undertook many overdue social reforms,
improving the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of workers in the city. At that time, Vienna's municipal policy was
admired by
Ever since Vienna obtained federal state (Bundesland) status of its own in 1921, the mayor has also had the role of the state governor (Landeshauptmann). The Rathaus accommodates the offices of the mayor and the state government (Landesregierung). The city is administered by a multitude of departments (Magistratsabteilungen).
Vienna is the seat of the Viennese Roman Catholic archdiocese, and its acting Archbishop is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn. The religions of the Viennese resident population is divided according to the 2001 census as follows [5]:
| Roman Catholic | 49.2% |
| No religion | 25.7% |
| Muslim | 7.8% |
| Orthodox | 6.0% |
| Protestant (mostly Lutheran) | 4.7% |
| Jewish | 0.5% |
| Other or none indicated | 6.3% |
| Historic Centre of Vienna* | |
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| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
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| State Party |  Austria |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | ii, iv, vi |
| Reference | 1033 |
| Region† | Europe |
| Inscription History | |
| Inscription | 2001 (25th Session) |
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* Name as
inscribed on World Heritage List. † Region as classified by UNESCO. |
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| Museumsquartier |
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Art and culture have a long tradition in Vienna, including theatre, opera, classical music and fine arts. The Burgtheater is considered one of the best theatres in the German-speaking world alongside its branch, the Akademietheater. The Volkstheater Wien and the Theater in der Josefstadt also enjoy good reputations. There is also a multitude of smaller theatres, in many cases devoted to less mainstream forms of performing arts, such as modern, experimental plays or cabaret.
Vienna is also home to a number of opera houses, including the Staatsoper and the Volksoper, the latter being devoted to the typical Viennese operetta. Classical concerts are performed at well known venues such as the Wiener Musikverein, home of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Wiener Konzerthaus. Many concert venues offer concerts aimed at tourists, featuring popular highlights of Viennese music (particularly the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Strauss).
In recent years, the Theater an der Wien has become widely known for hosting premieres of musicals, although it has recently devoted itself to the opera again. The most successful musical by far was "Elisabeth", which was later translated into several other languages and performed all over the world. The Haus der Musik ("house of music") opened in 2000.
Many Roman Catholic churches in central Vienna also feature performances of religious or other music, including masses sung with classical music and organ.
The Hofburg is the location of the Schatzkammer (treasury), holding the imperial jewels of the Hapsburg dynasty. The Sisi Museum (a museum devoted to Empress Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie of Austria) allows visitors to view the Imperial apartments as well as the silver cabinet. Directly opposite the Hofburg are the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Naturhistorisches Museum, which houses many paintings by old masters and ancient and classical artifacts.
A number of museums are located in the Museumsquartier (museum quarter), the former Imperial Stalls which were converted into a museum complex in the 1990s. It houses the Museum of Modern Art (Ludwig Foundation), the Leopold Museum (focussing on works of the Viennese Secession, Viennese Modernism and Austrian Expressionism), additional halls with feature exhibitions and the Tanzquartier. The Liechtenstein Palace contains one of the world's largest private art collections. There are a multitude of other museums in Vienna, including the Military History Museum, the Technical Museum, the Vienna Clock Museum and the Burial Museum. The museums dedicated to Vienna's districts provide a retrospective of the respective districts.
A variety of architectural styles can be found in Vienna, such as the Romanesque Ruprechtskirche and the Baroque Karlskirche. Styles range from classicist buildings to modern architecture. Art Nouveau left many architectural traces in Vienna. The Secession, Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station, and the Kirche am Steinhof by Otto Wagner rank among the best known examples of Art Nouveau in the world.
The Hundertwasserhaus by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, designed to counter the clinical look of modern architecture, is one of Vienna's most popular tourist attractions. Another example of unique architecture is the Wotrubakirche by sculptor Fritz Wotruba.
In the 1990s, a number of quarters were adapted and extensive building projects were implemented in the areas around Donaustadt (north of the Danube) and Wienerberg (in southern Vienna). The 202 m-high Millennium Tower located at Handelskai is the highest building in Vienna.[7][8] In recent years, Vienna has seen numerous architecture projects completed which combine modern architectural elements with old buildings, such as the remodelling and revitalisation of the old Gasometer in 2001.
Most buildings in Vienna are relatively low; there are currently (early 2006) around 100 buildings higher than 40 m. The number of high-rise buildings is kept low by building legislation aimed at preserving green areas and districts designated as world cultural heritage. Strong rules apply to the planning, authorisation and construction of high-rise buildings. Consequently, much of the inner city is a high-rise free zone.
Vienna is also Austria's main centre of education and home to many universities, professional colleges and gymnasiums.
Twelve bridges cross the Danube in the city, which is divided by the Danube and its branch, the Neue Donau ("new Danube").
Vienna has a large public transportation network.
Vienna has an extensive tram and bus network - the tram network being third largest in the world. In the most populated areas of Vienna, public transport runs so frequently (even during off-peak hours) that any familiarity with departure timetables is virtually unnecessary. The convenience and flexibility of the public transport is in turn reflected by its popularity; 53% of Viennese workers travel to their workplace by public transport.[9] During night hours, public transport is continued by the Nightline buses operating on all the main routes, generally every half hour.
Fare prices within the city are independent of the length of the journey and covers all modes of public transport. Tickets are also available for various time periods, such as 24 hour, monthly or yearly tickets.
The Viennese public transport services are incorporated into a larger concentric system of transport zones, the VOR (Verkehrsverbund Ostregion = eastern region traffic association). VOR includes railway and bus lines operating 50 kilometers into the surrounding areas, and ticket prices are calculated according to the number of zones.
Tickets must be purchased (and often stamped) prior to boarding or entering a station. Tickets are not checked when entering a station or boarding, there are however regular ticket inspections on all routes.
There are also two miniature railways: the Liliputbahn in the Wiener Prater and the Donauparkbahn in the Donaupark.
Historically, all transport was oriented towards the main cities in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Vienna has several train stations that form the beginning of several train lines:
There are also several through train stations:
There are also a large number of smaller stations that are important for local passenger traffic. Since the mid 1990s, the Westbahnhof and Südbahnhof have handled all long-distance travel. Many trains also stop at Hütteldorf or Meidling, especially when inbound.
In order to bundle all long-distance traffic it has become necessary to build a tunnel, colloquially known as the Wildschweintunnel ("boar tunnel"), underneath Lainzer Tiergarten linking the Western Railway to the Southern Railway. The new bundled train line will connect to a new through train station called Wien Zentralbahnhof that will be constructed instead of the Südbahnhof.
