Vienna

Vienna began as Vindobona, a Roman legionary camp built from around AD 97 on the Danube frontier of Pannonia, with a civilian town beside it that gained city rights in 212. In 1155 Duke Henry II of the Babenberg family moved his residence here from Klosterneuburg, at the time the Schottenstift was founded. Under the Habsburgs Vienna became the seat of the Holy Roman emperors, and it survived two Ottoman attacks, the siege of 1529 and the Battle of Vienna in 1683, as well as the Great Plague of 1679, which killed nearly a third of its people.

Victory over the Ottomans began a century of Baroque building, and in the late 19th century the old bastions were replaced by the Ringstrasse, lined with the opera, parliament, city hall and museums. By 1910 Vienna had more than two million inhabitants, the third-largest city in Europe, the capital of Austria-Hungary and the city of the Secession, Loos, Wittgenstein and Freud. After 1918 the Social Democrats ran "Red Vienna", building the Gemeindebauten, the council housing still central to the city, until the civil war of 1934, when the army shelled the Karl-Marx-Hof.

In 1938 Hitler announced the Anschluss to a crowd of 200,000 on the Heldenplatz. Of almost 200,000 Viennese Jews, around 120,000 were driven to emigrate and about 65,000 were murdered. Bombing destroyed around a third of the centre and burned the State Opera and the Burgtheater, and the Red Army took the city in April 1945. Four-power occupation lasted until 1955, when both theatres reopened, and the Vienna International Centre later brought the UN. Its centre became a World Heritage Site in 2001 and was on UNESCO's endangered list from 2017 until July 2026.

Vienna's reputation rests on music. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Schubert, Schoenberg and the Strauss family lived and worked here, and the city still keeps an unusually full calendar: the Vienna Philharmonic at the Musikverein, with its New Year's Concert broadcast around the world, the Vienna Symphony at the Konzerthaus, the State Opera and the Theater an der Wien. Many concerts aimed at visitors play Mozart and Strauss. The city also has a strong popular and electronic music scene, and the Wiener Stadthalle hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2015 and again in 2026.

The ball season runs through Carnival, with formal balls in the Hofburg, the City Hall and the Musikverein. Debutantes wear white, the dancing opens with a Viennese waltz around ten at night and ends at about five in the morning. The coffee house is the other great institution: a place to read the papers for hours over one cup, where the waiter brings a glass of water unasked. Manners are formal and polite forms of address are used, and the local humour, the Wiener Schmäh, can be charming and barbed at once.

Art is never far away, from the Bruegels of the Kunsthistorisches Museum to Klimt and Schiele at the Belvedere and the Leopold Museum, and Otto Wagner's Art Nouveau stations and churches. Football divides the city between Rapid Wien, who play in Penzing, and Austria Wien, in Favoriten, and in summer the Viennese head for the Danube Island, the Prater and the wine taverns.

Vienna has just over two million inhabitants, and its metropolitan area nearly 2.9 million, close to a third of Austria's population. It is the fifth-largest city in the European Union and has the largest student population in the German-speaking world, with about 197,000 enrolled in 2023–24. Many residents have family roots elsewhere, above all in the former Yugoslavia, and in Turkey, Poland and Germany.

The economy runs on government, the universities, finance, tourism and international organisations: the United Nations, OPEC and the OSCE all have offices here. The city's council housing, the Gemeindebauten, still provides affordable homes, and cyclists have more than 1,000 kilometres of cycle paths.

The inner districts are dense with apartment blocks, while the outer ones run from council estates and new developments across the Danube to the villas of Hietzing and Döbling. Shops close on Sundays, and summer evenings are spent on the Danube Island, along the canal and at the Heuriger. The city's flood defences kept it largely dry during the European floods of 2024, but summer heat is a growing concern: the temperature reached a record 41°C in August 2026. The city's governing coalition stayed in office after the April 2025 election.

Viennese cooking is best known for Wiener Schnitzel, a veal cutlet pounded flat, coated in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and fried in clarified butter; versions made with pork or chicken are common too. Tafelspitz, very lean boiled beef, comes with Geröstete Erdäpfel, boiled potatoes sliced and pan-fried, and Apfelkren, a mixture of horseradish, cream and apple. These dishes belong to the Beisl, the small traditional Viennese tavern.

Cake is a serious matter. Sachertorte, a moist chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam under a chocolate glaze, is the city's most famous, and confectioners such as Demel, a former supplier to the imperial court, and the old coffee houses serve it alongside strudel and Palatschinken, sweet pancakes. Coffee comes in many forms, the Melange among the best known. In winter small street stands sell hot chestnuts, Maroni, and potato fritters, and the Würstelstand sells Frankfurter, as Vienna sausages are called here, and Käsekrainer, a cheese-filled sausage, through the day and into the night.

Vienna is one of the few capitals with its own vineyards. Its growers sell young wine in their taverns, the Heuriger, in Grinzing, Nussdorf, Sievering, Neustift am Walde and other former villages, and the typical local wine is Gemischter Satz, a blend of grape varieties grown in the same vineyard. The Naschmarkt along the Wienzeile is the city's best-known market, with fruit, spices, fish and small restaurants serving food from around the world.