In a way, Vienna represents everything an overseas visitor would expect from a European city. It has the postmodern, glass-and-concrete office towers and the multinational business centers, but on the other hand it has all the cultural highlights and the historic buildings that make tourist cameras roll.

LocationPopulationMetro area populationAreaDensity
Far Eastern Austria1,911,2002,838,600415 km²4326 / km²

Vienna has been founded as a Roman military camp in the 1st century, but researchers have found evidence of human settlements going back to the Stone Age. It is the capital of Austria as well as the country’s largest city and it is the second-largest German-speaking city in the world behind Berlin. Thanks to its location close to the borders of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, it forms a secondary hub of the European Union. It is also home to several high-profile international organizations, including OPEC and OSCE.

Vienna regularly ranks highly on the lists of cities with best quality of living and it registers almost 18 million overnight stays per year. The most important tourist attraction in town is Schönbrunn Palace, followed by the Hofburg, Belvedere Palace, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and many other renowned attractions. Vienna also carefully cultivates its image as a city of music. Mozart, van Beethoven, Strauss, Schubert and many other composers worked here. Parts of that history is revived in more than 400 grand balls being hosted in Vienna each year.

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