Krems an der Donau

People have lived where the Krems meets the Danube for a very long time: a child's grave found here is more than 27,000 years old, the oldest found in Austria. The town was first mentioned in 995 in a charter of Otto III, and in the 11th and 12th centuries Chremis, as it was then called, was almost as large as Vienna, a trading town on the river with its twin, Stein, just upstream. Its oldest surviving written town charter dates from 1305.

Hungarian troops caused heavy destruction in 1477, and the fortifications were restored soon afterwards; the Steiner Tor carries the date 1480. Near the end of the Thirty Years' War Swedish troops took Krems in 1645, and imperial forces won it back on 5 May 1646. The 18th century brought Martin Johann Schmidt, the Kremser Schmidt, one of the outstanding Austrian painters of the late Baroque, who died in Stein in 1801. In the last third of the 19th century the town walls were pulled down, leaving the Steiner Tor and a few other remnants.

In August 1938 a larger municipality named Krems an der Donau was formed. After the Second World War the town grew again as a centre of schools, culture and trade. The Donau-Universität and the arts institutions of the Kunstmeile, gathered in the former tobacco factory in Stein, gave Krems a new role late in the 20th century. Today it is a statutory city, both a municipality and a district of its own.

Krems is a town of trade, culture, schools and universities, and culture and wine meet along the Kunstmeile, the town's art mile of museums and galleries. The Kunsthalle stages large international exhibitions, the Karikaturmuseum shows caricature and cartoon art, and the state gallery of Lower Austria opened in 2019. In spring the Donaufestival brings avant-garde rock, noise, electronic music and performance art, and the town also hosts the Glatt & Verkehrt music festival.

Wine is the other culture. Krems, Stein, Dürnstein and Spitz are known for their Rieslings and Grüner Veltliners, and the Heuriger, the grower's own tavern, is the natural place to meet. A tavern hangs a bunch of conifer twigs over its door when it is open, serves its own wine with simple food and closes again after a few weeks. The town is also the main producer of Marillenschnaps, the apricot brandy of the Wachau.

Students give the centre a younger rhythm than most Wachau towns. Its higher-education institutions, among them the University for Continuing Education, the Karl Landsteiner private university of health sciences and the IMC university of applied sciences, bring people from across Austria and abroad, and church feasts and the vineyard calendar still mark the year.

Krems had 25,581 inhabitants at the start of 2026, making it the fifth-largest town in Lower Austria, and about 50,000 people lived in its wider area at the end of 2010. It is a centre of trade, culture, schools and universities, and the seat of the surrounding Krems district. The university hospital is a major employer, and the town also has chemical industry and a Danube port that handled about 2.2 million tonnes of goods in 2024. Austria's largest prison stands in Stein.

The town is divided into the old centre, Stein, Mitterau by the river, the hillside districts and outlying villages such as Gneixendorf. The pedestrian streets of the old town are busy on weekdays and Saturday mornings, students fill the cafés, and in summer cyclists and boat passengers arrive from the Wachau. Trains and the S5 and S33 expressways link the town with Vienna and St. Pölten.

The Danube shapes local concerns. The town stores a mobile steel and aluminium flood wall that can be put up along the river to protect its low-lying districts, and floods are watched closely. A new swimming complex beside the old Badearena has been one of the town's large building projects.

Krems shares the cooking of Lower Austria: Wiener Schnitzel, goulash, dumplings and roast pork with sauerkraut, followed by apple strudel or Kaiserschmarrn, a shredded, lightly sweetened pancake. The Heuriger is the local way to eat, with simple food served alongside the grower's own wine.

The Wachau's apricots, Marillen, are also made into speciality spirits, and Krems is the main producer of Marillenschnaps, the apricot brandy. The vineyards on the terraces above Stein and along the valley grow Riesling and Grüner Veltliner, and Wachau wines are graded by ripeness as Steinfeder, Federspiel and Smaragd, the last named after the green lizard of the vineyard walls.

Autumn is the season for Sturm, a partially fermented young wine sold at its start, and for the grape harvest in the vineyards around the town. The old town's cafés and the taverns of Stein and the surrounding wine villages are where most of this is eaten and drunk.