VIENNA - Geography and history
Wien (Vienna), the capital city of Austria, with an area of 415 km2, became a Bundesland in its own right, separate from the surrounding Niederösterreich, in 1922.
While most of the city lies in the Vienna basin, some north-western and western suburbs spread up into the Vienna Woods, part of the Pre-Alps. The warm Pannonian climate gives it an annual mean temperature of 10°C and low precipitation - just over 500 mm. Around 23% of the total land area is urbanized, 17% is given over to agriculture, 16.5% is wooded and 1.7% under vineyards.
For hundreds of years, Vienna has been one of the great cities of Europe. It is home to several important international organizations. Formerly an important industrial centre, it is increasingly concentrating on the services sector. The beauty of the city and its wealth of cultural resources make it a major centre for tourism.
The Danube metropolis is at the centre of a major European traffic network, with most routes running west to east or north-east to south-west.
Capital city, cultural metropolis, seat of international organizations
Austria's capital is one of the oldest in Europe. Formerly the seat of the imperial house of Habsburg, its main landmarks are the Gothic St Stephen's cathedral, the Hofburg imperial palace, numerous baroque buildings and, as a result of the city's rapid expansion in the wake of industrialization, many splendid buildings erected between 1850 and 1914. There are also extensive blocks of flats. Model local-authority housing schemes from between the wars, post-war cooperative and private housing and estates, along with office blocks, recreational facilities, new bridges over the Danube and the extension of the modern public transport network, have all left their mark on 20th-century Vienna. With its numerous museums, theatres and concert halls, its many cultural events and eight universities or equivalent institutions, the city has won international renown. It is also one of the United Nations' three headquarters as well as being the seat of other major international organizations such as OPEC and offering full congress facilities. In the year 2003 the inner city of Vienna was declared as a world heritage site.
The down side is that housing shortages affect young people in particular, given the age of much of the housing stock, increasing rents and the high cost of building. Many industrial and other firms are moving out to the surrounding areas, where they have more space. Finally, private car use is causing serious problems in a city, which has expanded but still has a maze of relatively narrow streets.
Concentration of services, high percentage of foreigners
The federal capital is largely service-oriented, with a substantial commercial sector and a still-important industrial sector. GDP per capita in percentage of the EU average was 157% in 200, by far the highest of all the Bundesländer. The reverse side of the coin is that the unemployment rate (4.9% in 2001) is above the national average (3.4%).
Vienna has 23 districts. The inner ones surrounding the inner city, built largely in the years of rapid commercial and industrial expansion at the end of the 19th century, are heavily built-up, with commercial premises and main shopping streets, and the peripheral areas closest to the city, which date from the same period, are densely populated. In the west and north-west, exclusive residential areas are spreading out from the city, whereas there are large blocks of flats in the south. The centres of the two districts on the opposite bank of the Danube still have something of a village atmosphere as well as some development from the period of industrialization. Although residential blocks, housing estates, industry and gardens congregate around the centres, there are also broad areas of undeveloped land. In many of the outer suburbs there are industrial estates. Some parts of Vienna are favoured by the upper levels of society whereas in other parts the social level is less elevated, but in most areas the mix is a small-scale reflection of the general social pattern. In 1991, 12.8% of the population were foreign nationals but in 2001 this figure had risen to 16%.
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