Eisenstadt

The Eisenstadt area was settled in the Hallstatt period, and later by Celts, Romans and, around 800, Bavarians. The town's German name means iron city, recorded in 1118 as Castrum ferrum, after the iron mining and trade of the area; its Hungarian name, Kismarton, recalls St. Martin, patron of the main church, and first appears in 1264. Part of the Kingdom of Hungary from the 11th century, it was destroyed by the Mongols in 1241. The Kanizsai family rebuilt its walls and a fortress on the site of the present palace in 1388–92, and the town received market rights in 1388.

It passed back and forth between Hungarian kings and Habsburgs, was briefly taken by the Ottomans in 1529 and 1532 and burned in 1589. In 1622 the castle came into the ownership of the Hungarian Esterházy family, who made it their principal residence and centre of administration and converted it into a Baroque palace. In 1670 they settled some 3,000 Jews expelled from Vienna beside Eisenstadt and in six nearby villages, the Siebengemeinden, and the town's Jewish quarter lasted until 1938. Joseph Haydn's appointment as court music director began the great artistic period in the town's history.

Fire struck again in 1776, French troops occupied the town in 1809, and the railway arrived in 1897. After the First World War Burgenland was transferred from Hungary to Austria in 1921 without a plebiscite, and on 30 April 1925 Eisenstadt became its capital. The town was heavily bombed in the Second World War and captured by Soviet troops on 2 April 1945, staying under Soviet occupation until 1955. In 1960 it became the seat of a Catholic diocese.

Haydn is everywhere in Eisenstadt. He worked for the Esterházy princes for most of his career and lived in a house in the town from 1766 to 1778, now a museum. His late masses were mostly first performed in the Bergkirche, where the original 18th-century organ, played by Haydn, has been restored. His remains have lain in a marble tomb in the church since 1932, and his skull, separated from the body after his death, was reunited with them in 1954. Concerts are still given in the Haydnsaal of Schloss Esterházy. His pupils and musicians included the composer Ignaz Pleyel and Adam Liszt, father of Franz Liszt.

The town's Jewish history is the other deep thread. Eisenstadt was one of the Seven Communities, the Burgenland towns with a large and significant Jewish culture: Samson Wertheimer, chief rabbi of Hungary and Moravia, was its rabbi, and the surname Eisenstadt comes from the town. The community was destroyed after 1938. The Austrian Jewish Museum, founded in 1972, keeps its memory in the old quarter, beside the Jewish cemeteries.

Burgenland's mix of peoples shows in the town's names: Kismarton in Hungarian and Željezno in Croatian. Hungarian and Croatian speakers are small minorities today, the latter partly drawn from surrounding Croatian-speaking villages. St. Martin, patron saint of Burgenland and of the cathedral, is honoured in November, when roast goose has a special tradition in the state.

Eisenstadt had 16,118 inhabitants in 2025, making it Austria's smallest state capital. It is a statutory city, divided into Eisenstadt proper and the former villages of Kleinhöflein and St. Georgen, and it lies on a plain sloping down to the river Wulka at the southern foot of the Leitha Mountains, about 12 kilometres from the Hungarian border.

As the seat of the Burgenland state government, the town lives mainly from public administration and services. It is also the seat of three institutions of higher education: the FH Burgenland university of applied sciences, the PH Burgenland teacher-training college and the Joseph Haydn music conservatory. The working week is shaped by government offices and colleges.

Daily life combines the routines of a small administrative capital with the wine country around it. Vineyards climb the slopes of the Leitha Mountains above the town, and Lake Neusiedl and its wine villages are a short drive away. The ethnic make-up of the town changed after 1921, when many Hungarian civil servants and soldiers returned to Hungary.

Eisenstadt shares Burgenland's cooking, which has a Hungarian accent. Typical dishes include fish soup, pike-perch fried in clarified butter, goulash variations with plenty of onion, garlic and paprika, Bohnenstrudel filled with beans, and Grammelpogatscherl, small yeast pastries made with pork crackling and often served with wine in the wine villages. Around St. Martin's Day on 11 November the Martinigansl, roast goose, is the dish of the season.

Wine is the region's great product. Vines cover the slopes of the Leitha Mountains around Eisenstadt, and Blaufränkisch, most of whose Austrian plantings are in Burgenland, grows in the hill country bordering Lake Neusiedl. Rust, on the lake, is famous for its wines, especially Ruster Ausbruch, and Schloss Esterházy keeps a wine museum.

Heuriger taverns serve only their own wine with small homemade dishes such as spreads, sausage and cheese boards, each opening for a few weeks at a time, and in Austria St. Martin's Day marks the end of the wine-growers' year with wine tastings. The cafés and restaurants of the old town also serve Austrian standards such as goulash and strudel.