Linz

Linz began as Lentia, a Roman fort founded in the first century at a bend in the Danube — the name comes from a Celtic root meaning "bendable" — and the first Roman fort in Noricum. The present name is recorded in 799; Linz was a fortified town by 1236 and received city rights in 1324. Johannes Kepler taught mathematics here for several years, and the city's university now bears his name. The wool manufactory founded in 1672 became the largest in the Austrian lands, and in 1832 a horse-drawn railway from Linz to České Budějovice became the first railway line on the European mainland. Anton Bruckner was organist at the Old Cathedral from 1855 to 1868.

Adolf Hitler moved to Linz as a child and regarded it as his home town for the rest of his life; Adolf Eichmann also grew up here. Under Nazi rule the city became a giant industrial complex: Hermann Göring oversaw the construction of the steelworks, built with slave labour, and three subcamps of Mauthausen operated inside it. The synagogue was destroyed in November 1938, and the city's Jewish community was persecuted and murdered.

After the war Linz lay in the American zone and grew into one of Austria's main economic centres, reaching a record population of 204,889 in 1971. Since 1979 the founding of Ars Electronica and the Klangwolke has given the steel town a second identity, and in 2009 Linz was a European Capital of Culture. Since 1988 many streets have been named after victims of Nazism and resistance fighters.

Linz's cultural reinvention began in 1979, when the International Brucknerfest, the new Ars Electronica festival and the first Klangwolke were brought together. Ars Electronica, with its museum, research lab and annual festival, has made the city a world centre of new media art, and Linz is a designated City of Media Arts; the Valie Export Center in the Tabakfabrik holds the legacy and archives of the artist. The Lentos art museum of 2003 faces the Ars Electronica Center across the Danube.

Music follows from Bruckner, who worked here and is buried at nearby St. Florian. The Brucknerhaus, opened in 1974 with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, holds about 200 performances a year, and the Musiktheater, opened in 2013, is one of the most modern opera houses in Europe. Each September the Klangwolke turns the riverside into a stage of music, lasers and fireworks, while July's Pflasterspektakel fills the streets with performers.

Football is followed closely. LASK, the oldest club in the region and in 1965 the first team outside Vienna to win the Austrian championship, won its second title in 2026. The twice-yearly Urfahraner Markt, Austria's oldest public festival, and the Christmas markets on the main square and in the Volksgarten mark the calendar. The city's handling of its Nazi past, from renamed streets to memorials, is part of its public life.

Linz had 214,064 inhabitants at the start of 2025, and about 820,000 people live in its metropolitan region. It is the only large Austrian city with nearly twice as many jobs as residents to fill them — about 157,000 — so commuters pour in each day, and traffic congestion is a constant issue. The Westring motorway is being built in stages, with the new Donautal Bridge opened in November 2024 and completion planned for 2031.

Industry still matters. voestalpine, founded as the Reichswerke Hermann Göring, is a large steel and technology group known for the basic oxygen steelmaking process, and the Danube port handles ores and scrap for the works. Services, research and higher education have grown alongside: the Johannes Kepler University has about 27,000 students, and the city ranks third in Austria for congresses.

Linz lost residents to the suburbs between 1991 and 2001 and began growing again from 2012, passing 200,000 at the end of 2015. The city has thirteen shopping malls, three of them in the centre, and eleven farmers' markets. Serbian and Romanian immigrants have founded their own churches.

The Linzer Torte is the city's gift to the world's pastry trays: a very short, crumbly pastry of flour, butter, egg yolks, lemon, cinnamon and ground nuts, usually hazelnuts, filled with redcurrant, raspberry or apricot preserves and covered with a lattice of thin dough. It is a holiday treat in Austria and neighbouring countries, often eaten at Christmas, and Linzer Augen, sandwich biscuits with a round window showing the jam, are a biscuit version. Pastry shops in the centre, such as Jindrak on Herrenstrasse, sell the torte.

Beyond the cake, typical dishes in Linz include Knödel, dumplings, and strudel in many varieties. Snack food has a strong local following: Leberkäse in a bread roll is sold at specialist counters and supermarkets, and the Bosna, a grilled bratwurst in white bread with onions and curry-spiced mustard or ketchup, is claimed by some sources to have been invented in Linz rather than Salzburg.

Snack stands in the centre serve fried sausages with sauerkraut, Leberkäse, kebabs, Chinese food and pizza. Local beers and Most, a still cider and the region's traditional drink, are the usual accompaniments, and the city's eleven farmers' markets sell fresh produce.