Vienna This article is about the city and federal state in Austria. For other places or things called Vienna, see Vienna (disambiguation). Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austria's nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). Situated on the river Danube, it is surrounded by the Austrian federal state of Lower Austria. With a population of about 1.6 million, Vienna is the largest city and the cultural and political centre of Austria. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization UNIDO, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC and the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA are situated in Vienna, together with many other international institutions and companies. History Vienna was originally a Celtic city founded around 500 BC. In 15 BC, it became a frontier city ("Vindobona") 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 the 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 features include the Lipizzaner stallions, the Vienna Boys' Choir (Wiener Sängerknaben), Wiener Schnitzel, Sachertorte, and various pastries. Viennese cafes claim to have invented the process of filtering coffee from the captured baggage after the second Turkish siege of 1683. Historical population 1800: 231,900 inhabitants 1830: 338,700 1850: 446,400 1880: 724,800 1900: 1,769,137 1910: 2,083,630 1923: 1,918,720 1934: 1,935,881 1939: 1,770,938 1951: 1,616,125 1961: 1,627,566 1971: 1,619,885 1981: 1,531,346 1991: 1,539,848 2001: 1,550,123 2004 (estim.): 1.60 million. 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: Innere Stadt (city centre) Leopoldstadt Landstraße Wieden Margareten Mariahilf Neubau Josefstadt Alsergrund Favoriten Simmering Meidling Hietzing Penzing Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus Ottakring Hernals Währing Döbling Brigittenau Floridsdorf Donaustadt Liesing By looking at the postal code it can be determined in which district a given address is located; 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. To the south-east of the city is the Prater amusement park. This park is the site of a large Ferris wheel Riesenrad, built originally in 1897, and 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. Vienna has a large and very efficient public tansportation system, including subways, buses and trams, which are widely used in Vienna. Intellectual Life € 0.50 coin) The motto reads: "DER ZEIT IHRE KUNST, DER KUNST IHRE FREIHEIT" Turn of the century Vienna was home to a thriving intellectual scene, including Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and 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 Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. von Hayek. The University of Technology (1815) was the first of its kind in the world. Well-known scientists of this college included Viktor Kaplan (who developed the first turbine for power stations), Josef Ressel (inventor of the first ship's screw), Josef Strauss (composer and technician), Otto Wagner (architect) and Anton Zeilinger (neutron physics). The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration was founded in 1898 and is today the largest university focusing in business and economics in Europe. They were a somewhat more liberal crowd compared to other German speaking intellectuals in Prussia (indeed the very term Austrian was a term of abuse used to suggest a provincial outlook, see Methodenstreit). 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. See also the Vienna Circle. Culture Memorial against War and Fascism (1981-1991) by Alfred Hrdlicka at Albertinaplatz in Vienna's city centre 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, Gustav Mahler 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. Every architectural epoch is represented, although Baroque buildings are predominant. The summer palace of the emperors, Schönbrunn, was built to rival Versailles. The Tiergarten Schönbrunn Zoo Vienna is located in the palace area. 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 great and famous Viennese citizens are buried at the Zentralfriedhof. Members of the ruling Habsburg family are buried in the Kapuzinergruft. The dialect traditionally spoken in Vienna is known as Viennese. Sports View of Vienna Vienna has become a popular host of many different sporting events including the Vienna City Marathon, which attracts more than 10,000 participants every year and normally takes place in May. In 2005 the Ice Hockey World Championships will take place in Austria, with the final being played in Vienna. After already being the stage of four Champions League (originally European Champion Clubs' Cup) finals (1964, 1987, 1990, 1995) the final of Euro 2008, the European Football Championships, will take place in Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadium. Austria's capital is also the home of numerous sports teams. The best known of them are the local soccer clubs FK Austria Wien (22 time Austrian national champions) and SK Rapid Wien (30 time Austrian national champions). Other important clubs are the Chrysler Vikings Vienna (American Football), who won the Eurobowl title as Europe's best American Football team in 2004, the Vienna Hot Volleys, one of Europe's premier Volleyball-organisations, and the Vienna Capitals (Ice Hockey). Events 1529 - Siege of Vienna (Turkish wars) 1683 - Battle of Vienna (Turkish wars) 1814 - Congress of Vienna 1873 - Weltausstellung 1873 Wien 1984-2004 - Vienna City Marathon (next: May 22 2005). See also Vienna International Airport Vienna Circle External links Vienna interactive guide www.your-friend.info Vienna www.wien.gv.at Photo-Gallery (mit Diashow) Hundertwasser House Vienna www.Hundertwasserhaus.at Vienna travel guide at Wikitravel Hotels in Vienna Vienna Hotel and Accommodation Information Events.at Very useful event calendar for what's going on in Vienna at the moment Vienna Metroblog blogging culture and life in Vienna. Virtual Vienna Net Vienna's International Community Online nds:Wien simple:Vienna FAVORITE ARTICLES: History of the World    History of the United States    History of Europe    Ancient History    History    Military History    World War I    Bombing of Dresden    California    US Constitution    Frank Sinatra    Boston    Marbury v. Madison This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. You must provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html To view or edit this article at Wikipedia go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna