Vienna





Vienna (German (official name): Wien, Hungarian: BŽcs) is the capital of
Austria, and also one of Austria's 9 federal states (Bundesland Wien). It is
situated on the river Danube, and is surrounded by the Austrian federal
state of Lower Austria. With a population of about 1.8 million, Vienna is
the largest city and the cultural and political centre of Austria.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency are
situated in Vienna.

History

Vienna was originally a Celtic city founded around 500 BC. In 15 BC, it
became a frontier city guarding the Roman Empire against the German tribes
to the north. In the Middle Ages, it became the home of the Babenberg and,
later, the Habsburg dynasties and through the latter the capital of the Holy
Roman Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Ottoman Turkish
invasions of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries were stopped at Vienna.
See the Battle of Vienna (1683). In 1815, Vienna was the site of the
Congress of Vienna which redrew national boundaries in Europe after the
defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo.

During the Cold War, Vienna was a hotbed of international espionage owning
to its location in neutral Austria, between the Western and Eastern blocs.

Other famous Viennese items include the Lippizaner stallions, the Vienna
Boys' Choir (Wiener SŠngerknaben), Wiener Schnitzel, Sachertorte, and Danish
pastries. Viennese cafes claim to have invented the process of filtering
coffee from the captured baggage after the second Turkish invasion of 1683.

Historical population

1800: 231,900 inhabitants
1830: 338,700
1850: 446,400
1880: 724,800
1900: 1,675,000
1925: 1,869,000

Districts

The city itself is composed of 23 districts (Bezirke), which although they
all have their own names are numbered for the sake of convenience:

  1. Innere Stadt (city centre)
  2. Leopoldstadt
  3. Landstra§e
  4. Wieden
  5. Margareten
  6. Mariahilf
  7. Neubau
  8. Josefstadt
  9. Alsergrund
 10. Favoriten
 11. Simmering
 12. Meidling
 13. Hietzing
 14. Penzing
 15. Rudolfsheim-FŸnfhaus
 16. Ottakring
 17. Hernals
 18. WŠhring
 19. Dšbling
 20. Brigittenau
 21. Floridsdorf
 22. Donaustadt
 23. Liesing

Looking at the postal code one can easily find out in which district the
given address can be found; 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 (which, incidentally, is the only place in Austria with a Green majority).

To the south-east of the city is the Prater amusement park. This park is the
site of a large Ferris wheel, built originally in 1897, and made famous as
the location where Orson Welles, in his role as Harry Lime in the film The
Third Man, looked down upon the people beneath and compared them to ants.

Trams are widely used in Vienna.

Intellectual Life

Turn of the century Vienna was home to a thriving intellectual scene. Most
prominent was the father of psychonalysis, Sigmund Freud. Other famous
products were the philosophers Franz Brentano, Bernard Bolzano, Ernst Mach
and Edmund Husserl.

The University of Vienna was the cradle of the Austrian School of economics.
The founders of this school who studied here included Carl Menger, Eugen von
Bšhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises and
Friedrich A. von Hayek.

They were a somewhat more liberal crowd compared to other German speaking
intelectuals in Prussia (indeed the very term Austrian was a term of abuse
used to suggest a provincial outlook, see Methodenstreit). Simply put in
Germany the influence of Hegel led academics to try to "overcome" the ideas
of Western Europe, Austrian scholars used these ideas as a basis for their
own theories.

Culture

For many centuries, Vienna has been a center of classical music and opera.
Christoph Willibald Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van
Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, and Anton Bruckner among others,
worked in Vienna, and Antonio Vivaldi died there. Johann Strauss II and his
family created their waltzes here. Later, the city became the home of the so
called Second Viennese School, with Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton
Webern all being born there. It's also home to the Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra.

Vienna is also noted for its art and architecture. Many Baroque buildings
exist although every time period is represented. The summer palace of the
emperors, Schšnbrunn, was built to rival Versailles but while huge and
ornate, never quite became as large. The Cathedral of St. Stephen (or
Stephansdom), which was built in the 12th century, is also notable. The
modern architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser has constructed some buildings
in the city in his idiosyncratic style.

"Sezession" and Jugendstil were twentieth century art movements related to
art nouveau important in Vienna. Gustav Klimt worked here.

Many of Vienna's great individuals are buried at the Zentralfriedhof

Events

   * 1873 - Weltausstellung 1873 Wien