Location: Upper Austria
Linz is the capital of Upper Austria and with
207,247 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2022) it is the third largest
city in Austria after Vienna and Graz and the center of the
country's second largest conurbation with 805,770 people (as of
2020).
The city on the Danube has an area of 95.99 km² and
is the center of Upper Austria. As a statutory city, it is both a
municipality and a political district; also seat of the district
authorities of the neighboring districts of Linz-Land and
Urfahr-Surroundings.
After the end of the Second World War
(1945), Linz had the reputation of a dusty steel city, which it owed
to the largest employer, the steel works of today's Voestalpine AG.
However, through improved environmental protection and numerous
initiatives in the cultural sector, such as events such as the
Linzer Klangwolke, the Bruckner Festival, the plaster spectacle and
the Prix Ars Electronica or the Ars Electronica Festival, the city
gradually gained a new image. The film festival Crossing Europe has
been held annually since 2004. In 2013 the new Musiktheater am
Volksgarten, a modern theater and opera house, was opened. With
these and other initiatives, Linz was able to position itself as a
city of culture, although some of the structures of the old
industrial city are still visible. As a university city with several
universities, Linz also offers numerous courses in the artistic and
cultural fields.
The city gave its name to the Linzer Torte,
the recipe of which is considered to be the oldest known cake recipe
in the world.
The city is also unofficially referred to as
Linz on the Danube, to avoid being confused with the German city of
Linz on the Rhine.
By plane
Linz-Hörsching Airport is a bit outside the city and
can be easily reached by taxi or bus. The bus runs regularly from
the main train station in Linz to the airport and back.
By
train
Central station, Bahnhofsplatz 1, 4020 Linz. The centrally
located Linz main train station is one of the most important train
stations in Austria and is on the western railway line Vienna - Linz
- Salzburg - (Munich), or on the railway line Passau-Linz-Vienna,
and the Summerauerbahn (direction north: Freistadt) and the
Pyhrnbahn (direction south: Selzthal, Graz) .: Today's modern and
transparent station building was opened in 2004 after the new
construction. Linz Central Station was voted Austria's most
beautiful train station seven times in a row by the Austrian
Transport Club (VCÖ) from 2005 to 2012. Features: free WiFi.
The
Pöstlingbergbahn is a local narrow-gauge railway and is described
under Sights-Pöstlingberg.
Linz Urfahr train station
(Mühlkreisbahnhof), Kaarstraße 18, 4040 Linz (Urfahr district). Tel
.: +43 (0) 732 930003126.
Linz-Urfahr is the south-eastern
terminus of the Mühlkreisbahn and is the only stop for this regional
railway line. There is also a connection line to Linz Central
Station, but there is no regular service. At Linz Urfahr train
station there is a transfer option to the city tram lines 3 and 4.
In the street
Linz can be reached from Salzburg and Vienna
via the A1. From Passau you use the A8 (the continuation of the
German A3), which joins the A1 southwest of Linz. To get into the
city, leave the A1 at the Linz junction and switch to the A7. After
crossing the Traun the city is reached.
The city center
should be avoided by car, as it is partly a pedestrian zone and is
very easy to reach by tram and bus.
By boat
There is a
landing stage for Danube ships on the Donaulände near the Nibelungen
Bridge in the city center.
By bicycle
From the west, Linz
can be reached from both banks of the Danube on the Danube Cycle
Path (Passau - Vienna), but the route on the south side partly leads
on a busy federal road. In the direction of Vienna there is only a
long-distance cycle path on the north bank, this runs directly on
the bank, far away from the roads.
Around the city
Tram line 1 runs from the university in Urfahr over the
Nibelungen Bridge to the city center, via the main train station to
Auwiesen, tram line 2 runs via Ebelsberg to SolarCity. Tram line 3
runs from Mühlkreisbahnhof (or Landgutstraße) in Urfahr through the
city center and the main train station to the Trauner Kreuzung, tram
line 4 to Traun Castle. All four tram lines (which are very well
timed during the day) pass the entire country road, the pedestrian
zone and the city's shopping mile. Some bus lines run across this
tram axis, which run frequently during rush hour (morning and
evening), about every 10 to 15 minutes during the day, but sometimes
only every 30 minutes in the evening. Public transport usually
leaves for the last time around midnight. On the weekends (Friday,
Saturday) and before public holidays, tram line 2 runs as night line
N82 and tram line 4 from the main train station as night line N84
between midnight and the early morning hours every half hour. There
is also a night bus route N83 between the port and Neue Heimat.
Single tickets are available from machines, advance tickets with
6 stripes are available from tobacconists. There are discounts for
schoolchildren and seniors as well as for children. The following
types of tickets are available (tariff from January 1, 2018):
Maxi (day ticket 24 hours for adults): single ticket € 4.50.
Midi (long-distance ticket for adults. In addition, day ticket for
children under 15 years of age and for people entitled to a reduced
fare; a youth ticket for people between 15 and 21 years of age as a
day ticket is also available at this price): Single ticket € 2.30.
Mini (short-haul ticket for adults and long-haul ticket for children
under 15 years of age and for people who are entitled to a reduced
fare; a youth ticket for people between 15 and 21 years of age as a
long-haul ticket is also available at this price): Single ticket €
1.20.
Weekly ticket (7 days): € 14.50.
24-hour adventure card:
city network and mountain u. Descent of the Pöstlingbergbahn: 8.60 €
/ 4.30 €.
Cell phone tickets are also available (smartphone app).
prehistory
Around 400 BC BC, several Celtic fortifications and
settlements arose within today's urban area and in the immediate
vicinity along the Danube. Within today's city limits were the oppidum
of Gründberg, in the area of today's Urfahr west of the Haselgraben,
and the Freinberg, west of the city center, as impressive Celtic
ramparts.
The settlement on the Freinberg probably already bore
the Celtic name Lentos, which means something like flexible or curved.
The name was subsequently transferred to the later Roman fort. The
fortress probably fell to Rome with the largely peaceful incorporation
of the kingdom of Noricum.
antiquity
Linz was first mentioned
in the Roman state manual Notitia dignitatum as "Lentia". To secure the
connection across the Danube, the Romans built a wood and earth fort in
the middle of the 1st century, which was replaced by a larger stone fort
in the 2nd century. After the 2nd century, Lentia was destroyed a number
of times by Germanic invasions (e.g. between 166 and 180 during the
Marcomannic Wars), but survived the storms of migration and thus has a
continuity of settlement beyond late antiquity.
middle Ages
In
the early Middle Ages, Linz became more important again due to the
advance of the Bavarian duchy to the east. In 799, the German name of
the city was first mentioned as "Linze". In the Raffelstetten customs
regulations (between 902 and 906) Linz is mentioned for the first time
as a royal market and customs place. During the rule of the
Carolingians, Linz fulfilled market and customs duties for the Traungau.
Until 1210, Linz was subject to the Bavarian dukes.
Under the
Babenbergs, Linz developed into a city that was planned to include the
old core of the settlement in 1207. In 1230 the new main square was
created. Until 1240, Linz received a city judge and a city seal. The
Linz toll was one of the most important sources of income for the
Austrian dukes, which gave the city a boost. It was also interesting as
a place for meetings of princes due to its location on the outskirts of
Bavaria. In 1335 the acquisition of Carinthia by the Habsburgs was
completed there.
Since the end of the 13th century, Linz has been
the seat of the provincial governor and has thus become the central town
of Austria above the Enns. Frederick III even chose the city as his
residence, making it the center of the Holy Roman Empire from 1489 to
1493 after Matthias Corvinus conquered Vienna. This as well as the court
of Duke Albrecht VI located in Linz from 1458 to 1462. on the one hand
brought the city an increase in cultural and political importance, but
at the same time the demands of the household represented a burden on
the city.
The first Upper Austrian state parliament was held in
Enns in 1408. Other early state parliaments were held in Enns and Wels.
The first state parliament in Linz took place in 1457 at the Linz
Castle. In 1490, Linz was designated the state capital for the first
time and the city council was given the right to elect a mayor and a
city judge. On March 3, 1497, Linz received the right to build a bridge
over the Danube from the Roman-German king and later Emperor Maximilian
I. It was only the third Danube bridge in Austria after Vienna and
Krems.
modern times
At the time of the Reformation, Linz was
Protestant until 1600. At times there was also a radical Reformation
Anabaptist community in Linz under the reformer Wolfgang Brandhuber.
During the Protestant period, the estates built the Renaissance-style
country house on the site of the former Minorite monastery as a sign of
their power. The country house later housed the landscape school, where
Johannes Kepler taught between 1612 and 1626. From 1600, Jesuits and
Capuchins carried out the Counter-Reformation. The Upper Austrian
Peasants' War, which was triggered by this, also hit the city in 1626,
when it was besieged for nine weeks under the leadership of Stefan
Fadinger.
At the time of the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuit
Georg Scherer worked here as a flaming preacher against the Reformation,
who was struck in the pulpit in 1605 in a sermon on the persecution of
witches and died.
After the end of the Thirty Years' War, the
city was transformed into a baroque style. The founding of new
monasteries by religious orders played a major part in this. In 1672,
Christian Sint founded the "woll stuff factory", the first textile
factory in Austria. In the 18th century it was nationalized; at times
more than 50,000 people worked there.
During the War of the
Austrian Succession, Linz was occupied by Bavarian and French troops in
1741. On May 3, 1809, the coalition wars at the Traun crossing led to a
bloody battle near Ebelsberg between the Austrians and the French, which
gave the impetus for the construction of a fortification, which was
realized from 1830 onwards.
During the War of the Austrian Succession, Linz was occupied by
Bavarian and French troops in 1741. On May 3, 1809, the coalition wars
at the Traun crossing led to a bloody battle near Ebelsberg between the
Austrians and the French, which gave the impetus for the construction of
a fortification, which was realized from 1830 onwards.
In 1761,
the first textile factory in Austria was built with the woolen factory
(on the banks of the Danube, demolished in the 1960s), spinning and
weaving was still outsourced to homework.
On Assumption Day,
August 15, 1800, a major fire broke out that severely damaged the
castle, the country house and the old town. As a result, the moat and
wall were leveled.
During the March Revolution of 1848, Linz was
spared the kind of battles that raged in Vienna. On March 15, freedom of
the press and the abolition of censorship were celebrated, which Emperor
Ferdinand had decreed the day before in Vienna under public pressure. At
the same time, he permitted the arming of the bourgeoisie by means of an
imperial patent. A National Guard was therefore founded in Linz on March
16th, following the old tradition of the vigilante group and committed
to maintaining public order and protecting property. The first commander
of the Guard, which never numbered more than 1,600 members during its
roughly three-year existence until the National Guard was banned in
1851, was Count Johann von Weißenwolff. Parallel to the Vienna Academic
Legion, the student corps was founded in the course of the revolution in
Linz, but was still affiliated with the National Guard in 1848. After
March 15, 1848, a citizens' committee was formed, which was organized on
the basis of Pillersdorf's constitution and scheduled the first mayoral
elections for June. This was won by the democrat Reinhold Körner, who
replaced Joseph Bischoff, who had ruled for 27 years, and became
provisional mayor.
In 1850 a provisional municipal code came into
force, on the basis of which the first municipal elections were held.
Although only six percent of the population, mainly the educated and
wealthy middle class and other better-off people, were allowed to vote
due to various restrictions, Reinhold Körner won again. However, after
the New Year's Patent of 1851, which ushered in the phase of
neo-absolutism, democrats and the liberal bourgeoisie were quickly
pushed out of political life. As the first prominent democratically
minded politician, Karl Wiser saw himself forced to resign from his
political offices. In 1854 Reinhold Körner followed him. After that,
Linz was governed by provisionally appointed mayors until 1861. In the
municipal elections of 1861, however, the Democrats were able to assert
themselves again. Reinhold Körner began his second term of office.
Steam navigation was introduced on the Danube from the mid-19th
century. The horse-drawn railway built from Budweis in 1832 was the
first railway on the continent. By 1861, the city had become an
important hub on the route from Vienna to Salzburg or Passau thanks to
the Western Railway ("Empress Elisabeth Railway"). In 1880 a horse tram
was built in Linz. This was electrified in 1897. The Pöstlingbergbahn,
the steepest adhesion railway in the world, was opened in 1898.
From the middle of the 19th century, industrialization also affected
Linz. In 1840, Ignaz Mayer founded the Linz shipyard, the first major
metalworking company in the city, and the German locomotive manufacturer
Krauss set up a branch in Linz in 1879 due to high import duties. The
textile industry also had an important location in Linz.
From
July 6th to 8th, 1870, the 8th German Fire Brigade Day took place in
Linz.
From 1892, the factory arm of the Danube was filled in,
which was created in 1572 during a flood together with the Strasserinsel
(also Strasserau or Soldatenau). The name Fabriksarm goes back to the
wool factory located there. When the river was regulated, the island
also disappeared. This was first called Au, later, after barracks
buildings, soldenau and finally after an owner Straßerau or
Straßerinsel.
By 1923, numerous former suburbs had been
incorporated, including Urfahr on the north bank of the Danube in 1919.
After the end of the First World War and the
proclamation of the republic, there was a revolutionary atmosphere in
Linz - as in many other places - which was also expressed in
demonstrations and looting. In February 1919 and May 1920 martial law
was imposed in the city after violent riots.
In contrast to the
state of Upper Austria, where the Christian Social Party had an absolute
majority in both the republic and the monarchy, the first local council
elections in 1919, based on universal and equal suffrage, brought about
a political upheaval in the city of Linz: the two-thirds majority of the
German nationalists became an absolute one Majority of the Austrian
Social Democratic Workers' Party.
During the democratic phase of
the First Republic, Linz developed into a major city: in 1923, the
100,000-resident mark was exceeded as a result of immigration and
incorporation. With the union with the city of Urfahr in 1919, the city
of Linz also expanded north of the Danube. As a result, the
infrastructure had to be expanded under the most difficult economic
conditions: social welfare was expanded with new mothers' counseling
centers, kindergartens and increased youth welfare, the municipal
farmyard was expanded to become the central company for garbage
collection and transport and as a material procurement center.
Furthermore, the focus was on urban residential construction, but the
extremely large housing shortage could not be solved. Despite the
willingness to work together, the fundamental differences between the
political parties came to light here: The bourgeois parties wanted to
push for settlement housing and rejected the larger residential
buildings as “interest barracks”. They saw urban enterprises as
undesirable competition for the private sector, while the Social
Democrats insisted on municipal enterprises to combat unemployment and
regulate prices.
During the First Republic, Christian Socialists,
Social Democrats and Greater Germans in Linz shared a commitment to
democracy and a willingness to work together, despite differing
ideologies and views, until 1933. After that, domestic and foreign
policy developments in Linz also permanently disrupted cooperation on
factual issues.
The Austrian Civil War
can be seen as a result of the intensifying conflicts between the
ideological camps in the First Republic and the anti-democratic course
of the federal government under Engelbert Dollfuss. It started in Linz
with a search for weapons in the party headquarters of the Social
Democratic Workers' Party. This was preceded by a letter from the Linzer
Schutzbund leader Richard Bernaschek and other officials to the party
executive in Vienna dated February 11, 1934. This announced resistance
in the event of further arrests of members of the Schutzbund or weapons
seekers. The letter arrived in Vienna late in the evening. Otto Bauer
gave instructions over the phone not to do anything without the approval
of the party leadership. However, the call was bugged. So the police
knew of Bernaschek's will to resist when they began searching for
weapons at around 7 a.m. on February 12 at the Hotel Schiff, the Social
Democratic party headquarters on Landstrasse. Before his arrest,
Bernaschek had alerted the Republican Protection League and given the
signal for the uprising. The Schutzbund crew in the Hotel Schiff fought
until noon with the invading executive and the federal army called to
help. Other centers of hostilities in Linz were the Eisenhandkreuzing,
the Diesterweg School, the village hall, the Parkbad and the railway
bridge, the Spatzenbauer in Urfahr and the Jägermayrhof on Freinberg. A
particularly momentous incident occurred at Polygonplatz (today
Bulgariplatz): A taxi with four members of the armed forces drove
towards the position of the Schutzbund, in the ensuing firefight three
soldiers were killed under circumstances that have not been fully
clarified to this day. A court-martial passed three death sentences on
the members of the Schutzbund involved, with only the one on the
Samaritan Anton Bulgari being carried out on February 22nd.
At
dawn on February 13, the Schutzbund gave up the last remaining road
blockades and occupations in Linz. The fighting had claimed at least 27
lives in Linz: four civilians, eight members of the Schutzbund and 15
dead on the part of the executive. On the part of the Schutzbund,
however, the injured and dead were kept secret by the authorities for
fear of reprisals, so that precise information on the wounded and dead
is not possible.
On February 12, 1934, the Social Democratic Party
was banned and its front organizations were smashed. A government
commissioner was installed in Linz and from November 1934 a community
day was organized primarily from Christian Socialists and
representatives of the Home Guard. There was a radical change in
personnel in the city administration, some of the municipal companies
had to limit their activities or were sold. The corporative state also
tried to anchor itself symbolically: streets were renamed and memorials
were erected for those who died on the government side on February 12,
1934. The cult surrounding Chancellor Dollfuss, who was killed in a
National Socialist coup attempt on July 25, 1934, also found resonance
in Linz, for example with the renaming of the Diesterweg School as the
“Dollfuss School”. In addition, cultural life should be redesigned
according to ideological positions.
Connection and time of
National Socialism
With the invasion of German troops on March 12,
1938, Adolf Hitler set out from his native town of Braunau on a
“triumphal journey” to Vienna and spoke in Linz for the first time as
Reich Chancellor on Austrian soil. It was only here, in view of the
jubilation of the population and the cautious reactions from abroad,
that he decided to complete Austria's annexation to the German Reich
immediately and completely. Because of his emotional connection to Linz,
Hitler took over the “sponsorship” of Linz that same day (which also
became one of the five Führer towns) and promised investments from the
Reich.
On March 13, 1938, Hitler signed the Anschluss Law in the
Hotel Weinzinger.
Hitler, who had attended school in Linz,
intended to spend his retirement here. Therefore he had given the city
an outstanding economic and cultural role in the empire. The expansion
plans included a boulevard with magnificent buildings such as the opera,
theater and galleries, but especially the "Führer Museum", which was to
house the world's largest art and painting gallery. For this collection,
corresponding works of art were stolen from the museums of the occupied
and conquered countries as part of the "Sonderauftrag Linz" (see also:
Architecture under National Socialism). In addition, Linz was to be
expanded into an industrial and administrative center with
representative buildings for the National Socialist German Workers'
Party (NSDAP) and its sub-organizations and oversized administrative
buildings. This would have meant large-scale demolition of the
historical building stock on both the Linz and Urfahrer sides. With a
few exceptions such as the Nibelungen Bridge, the bridgehead buildings
and today's Heinrich Gleißner House, the plans pushed by Albert Speer
were not implemented.
In the expansion of the existing industry,
the restructuring to large companies in the metallurgical and chemical
sectors should be mentioned in particular. With the steel and armaments
company Reichswerke AG for ore mining and ironworks "Hermann Göring"
Linz, which was set up during the National Socialist period from 1938,
as well as the nitrogen works in Ostmark, the foundation stone was laid
for what later became VÖEST and all its successor companies, as well as
for the chemical industry in Linz. The residents of the village of St.
Peter-Zizlau were resettled and the buildings demolished for the
construction of the factory premises and for the construction of the
port that was also planned there.
In 1941-1943, the railway line
to Gusen, including a Danube bridge, was built next to the two large
industrial plants over to Steyregg as a branch off the Western Railway.
Several concentration camps were located in Gusen, with the underground
production of large parts for Messerschmitt aircraft. Evidence from 2019
also speaks for the construction of the V2 rocket and for research into
nuclear fission.
In addition to prisoners of war and foreign
workers, prisoners from the Mauthausen concentration camp were also used
in the industrial plants mentioned.
Due to the expansion of
industry, the associated relocations and the influx of workers, the
existing lack of housing was exacerbated. As a remedy, entire districts
such as Bindermichl or the "Neue Heimat" with large residential
complexes were built, which still characterize the appearance of these
districts today. The necessary infrastructure (schools, kindergartens)
was not expanded. With the simultaneous incorporations, the urban area
was almost doubled and reached the extent that still exists today.
However, Linz was also a center of persecution: more than 100,000
people from all over Europe lost their lives in the nearby Mauthausen
concentration camp and its subcamps. There were a total of three
satellite camps of the Mauthausen concentration camp and 77 camps for
forced laborers in the city of Linz. The 600 Jews had to leave Linz -
150 of them were murdered by the National Socialists. There were
hundreds of victims of Nazi euthanasia in the Niedernhart sanatorium and
nursing home in Linz, now the Wagner-Jauregg State Psychiatric Hospital,
or were transferred from there to the Schloss Hartheim Nazi euthanasia
center near Linz.
Ultimately, those who had served the regime out
of enthusiasm or out of forced loyalty also suffered the consequences of
National Socialist policies. In Linz, for propaganda reasons, the
erection of air-raid shelters for the population was not forced until
the end of 1943. As recently as November 1944, entire districts were
without safe cover during air raids. More than 1,600 people died in the
22 bombing raids on Linz between July 1944 and April 1945, thousands of
people from Linz lost their lives as members of the German Wehrmacht.
In Linz, tanks were built in the Göring works and submarines in the
port area.
On May 4th and 5th, 1945, the city was under American
artillery fire and Gauleiter August Eigruber fled to southern Upper
Austria. The original plan to defend the city in urban combat was
abandoned. At 11:07 a.m. on May 5, the first American tanks arrived at
the main square.
From 1945 until the end of
the occupation period in 1955, Linz was divided along the Danube. The
north (Urfahr) was occupied by the Soviets, the south (Linz) by the
Americans.
In 1966, Linz became a university town with the
“College for Social and Economic Sciences”, from which the Johannes
Kepler University Linz emerged in 1975. From 1971 to 1991, Linz reached
its peak population (see Population section). By the end of the 1970s,
many residential buildings were erected that are now referred to as
"architectural blunders" of the time. Within a few years, the simplest
high-rise buildings were built in many parts of the city to meet the
enormous demand for housing. In this environment, projects such as
Lentia 2000 and other residential parks emerged.
From the late
1970s, Linz tried to get away from the "steel city" image of the gray
and dirty industrial city. Environmental measures and requirements for
industrial companies to improve air quality were taken (see Ecology
section), which have made Linz one of the cleanest cities in Austria to
this day. At the same time, new cultural institutions were founded. In
1974 the Brucknerhaus on the Donaulände was opened, in 1978 the Anton
Bruckner Institute Linz (ABIL). In 1979, the city administration
launched Ars Electronica, a festival for computer art. This festival is
now one of the most important and important of its kind. The Ars
Electronica Center and the municipal Lentos art museum for modern art
(opened in 2003) have also made Linz an important city of culture. The
European Union recognized this importance by being chosen as the
European Capital of Culture in 2009. The construction of a new music
theater at Blumauer Kreuz, near the main train station and adjacent to
the Volksgarten, was decided in 2004.
With increasing prosperity in post-war Austria, many families wanted
a “house in the countryside”. This had serious consequences for Linz in
the 1990s. Although there were around 12,000 people looking for housing
in 1990, Linz lost around 20,000 residents to the surrounding
communities within just ten years because there was no suitable housing
available in the city area. Since then, Linz has been trying to improve
its appearance and attractiveness, with a lot of support from the state
of Upper Austria. On the one hand, this is done through infrastructure
projects, such as the new construction of the main train station and the
development of the surrounding area into an office district with
high-rise buildings for ÖBB, Energie AG and the city's own knowledge
tower, where the adult education center and the city library have been
housed since 2007. Furthermore, the tram network was expanded to the
south and the bus and tram fleet is constantly being renewed. Measures
to improve the quality of life were the underground construction of the
city motorway at Bindermichl and the new construction of the general
hospital, the accident hospital and the Wagner-Jauregg state psychiatric
clinic. Direct measures to increase the number of inhabitants are
increased residential construction. Several large residential projects
have been implemented since the late 1990s: Solar City Pichling,
Lenaupark and development of the urban area in the south. The 1,300
Solar City apartments built between 1999 and 2005 are not only seen as a
pioneering project for social housing in the 21st century, but also as
an example of ecologically well thought-out construction.
In 2007
the construction of 1,700 apartments started. Most of them will be built
on the site of the former women's clinic (415 apartments), 200
residential units will be built at Winterhafen. The south of the city is
also being expanded further, for example with the housing project at the
former Laskahof underground construction depot and the Traunausiedlung
in Kleinmünchen. The construction of a new district on the site of the
former freight station started at the end of 2013. Since the last census
up to 2006, 5,000 residents have been regained or newly acquired.
Coming to terms with the Nazi past
On September 19, 1996, the
municipal council of the city of Linz decided to have the period of
National Socialism, including the period before 1938 and the
denazification after 1945, comprehensively and scientifically processed
by the municipal archive. Linz was the first city in Austria to deal
intensively with its own National Socialist past. At the final
presentation in May 2001, reference was made to seven scientific
publications, internet presentations and numerous lectures as a result
of the project.
The culture of remembrance is also manifested in
the erection of memorials and commemorative plaques for the victims of
National Socialism. Especially since 1988 numerous places of remembrance
have been created in public space. Street renaming or new street names
also reflect the confrontation with the Nazi past: while 39 streets in
Linz were renamed in 1945, immediately after the end of the Nazi
dictatorship, between 1946 and 1987 there were only two. Since 1988,
however, 17 new traffic areas have been named after victims of National
Socialism or resistance fighters. In the recent past, several Nazi
victims and activists against National Socialism received high awards
from the city of Linz, such as Simon Wiesenthal, who founded his first
Jewish documentation center in Linz after 1945.
Linz is located in eastern Upper Austria and
extends on both sides of the Danube. The north-south extension is 18.6
km, the east-west extension 12.3 km. The city is located in the Linz
Basin and borders in the west on the Kürnberg Forest and the fertile
Eferding Basin. North of the Danube, in the district of Urfahr, Linz is
bordered by the Pöstlingberg (539 m), the Lichtenberg (927 m) and the
hills and mountains of the Mühlviertel. The eastern city limit is marked
by the Danube, which first flows through and then around the city area
in a northeast-southeast semicircle. The Traun flows into the Danube 7
km southeast of the city center and marks the inner-city border to the
largest district of Ebelsberg. The foothills of the Alps begin south of
the city.
Of the approximately 96 km² urban area, 29.27% is
grassland, 17.95% forest, 6.39% water bodies, 11.63% are traffic areas
and 34.76% are building land.
Linz
borders in the north and east, consistently to the left of the Danube,
with seven municipalities in the district of Urfahr-Umwelt (UU), in the
south and west with five municipalities in the district of Linz-Land
(LL), and in the southeast, also in a short section on the left of the
Danube, to a municipality of the district of Perg (PE).
The
following tables provide an overview of the communities that directly
border Linz according to their political borders, and the communities
that do not directly border Linz, but follow it immediately and are also
part of the Linz “Bacon Belt” due to high commuter rates in the city.
The district in which the respective municipality is located and the
last population figure are also given.
The incorporation of some
neighboring communities (Groß-Linz) is occasionally discussed by
politicians and in the media. The reason for this is that Linz finances
many national projects from its budget, which also benefit the residents
of the surrounding communities without them making any financial
contribution. The boundaries between the urban area and the surrounding
area are still there politically, but are not recognizable socially or
in the cityscape.
The agglomeration
(conurbation) describes the population of a core city, in this case
Linz, and the settlements directly connected to it, without regard to
politically determined borders. From these points of view, the Linz
agglomeration comprises around 271,000 people. The official number of
inhabitants of Linz and all 13 neighboring municipalities is 289,107
people (2001) because not all settlements of the neighboring towns and
municipalities are directly connected to Linz.
Another way to
determine the importance of a city region is the commuter rate. Since
Linz has more than 154,867 jobs, but only 83,245 of the 188,118
inhabitants are employed, 89,294 people commute to work in Linz every
day – 7,687 even from other federal states, mostly from nearby Lower
Austria. In addition to the daily number of commuters, there are 18,525
Linzers who do not work in Linz, but mainly in the commercial and
industrial areas to the south and south-west. With an average employment
rate of 50% in the surrounding communities and 45% in the core city,
around 367,000 people depend on jobs in Linz. Including the tens of
thousands of jobs located primarily in the southern suburbs, the Linz
conurbation has a population of around half a million, which is mainly
at home in the Upper Austrian central area and the traditionally
structurally weak Mühlviertel hill country north of Linz.
Of the
89,294 people commuting to Linz, 24,593 (27.5%) come from Linz's 13
neighboring municipalities. Overall, 41,489 commuters, or around 46.5%,
come from the four Mühlviertel districts and another 23,403 or 23.2%
from the Linz-Land district. 21.7% come from the remaining districts of
Upper Austria, mainly from the nearby districts of Eferding, Wels,
Wels-Land, Steyr and Steyr-Land. The remaining 8.6% come from other
federal states.
In 1957, Linz was divided into nine
districts and 36 statistical districts. These in turn consisted of a
total of 863 building blocks. A division of the urban area into city
districts as political units only exists in Austria in the cities of
Vienna and Graz. When the inner-city boundaries were redefined, the
boundaries of the formerly incorporated municipalities were only taken
into account to a limited extent. For example, all incorporations south
of the Traun were combined into a single district and statistical
district of Ebelsberg. The area of the former St. Peter's was also
significantly changed, to name just two examples. The districts and
statistical districts that existed until the end of 2013 cannot be
equated one-to-one with the dimensions of the former suburbs of Linz.
The largest statistical district in terms of population and area was
the already mentioned Ebelsberg in the south of the city with 25.81 km²
and around 17,421 inhabitants. The second largest and at the same time
the least populated district and statistical district was St. Peter. It
had only 377 inhabitants on 9.13 km², which was due to the fact that the
area of the demolished, formerly independent community and the former
district is almost exclusively industrial area, of which voestalpine
takes up most of the space (since the beginning of 2014 industrial area
-Harbor). The smallest statistical district in terms of area was the
45.6 hectare old town quarter.
When the community system was introduced in Austria in 1848, it was
already planned that the former Linz suburbs of Lustenau and Waldegg
would be incorporated. However, since the two places wanted to remain
independent and were even planning a merger, the incorporation could
only take place in 1873 after an application by the Linz municipal
council to the state parliament was granted. The Linz urban area thus
grew from 6 km² to 20 km².
In 1906, when Linz had already become
much more attractive, parts of the municipality of Leonding, namely
Gaumberg, Untergaumberg and Landwied, sought to be incorporated into
Linz. However, what was then the municipality of Leonding made
unacceptable demands, so that the negotiations failed. However, there
was no resistance to the incorporation of St. Peter. As early as 1912,
an agreement was reached with the municipal council of St. Peter. The
incorporation came into force in 1915 and Linz grew to an area of 29
km². At the same time, after several failed attempts, negotiations with
the city of Urfahr were already well advanced, but they had to be
postponed due to the outbreak of the First World War. Negotiations
continued after the end of the war, so that on May 31, 1919, the
incorporation of Urfahr, including the previously independent
municipality of Pöstlingberg, which had been attached to Urfahr shortly
before, became legally effective. Linz now reached an area of 42 km².
In 1923, the 13 km² large industrial town of Kleinmünchen, which at
that time bordered on the south of Linz, was incorporated. In 1934, the
urban area was rounded off with the cession of uninhabited areas on both
sides of the Danube from Katzbach (Heilham) and Steyregg (Steyregg owned
uninhabited land west of the Danube in what is now the port district as
a relic of the time before the Danube was regulated) and grew by an area
of 2 km² .
After Austria's annexation to Germany in 1938, the
municipality of Ebelsberg was incorporated into Linz. St. Magdalena was
incorporated north of the Danube. The size of the city grew to 95 km² in
1938, and since the last minor expansion in 1939 (Keferfeld von
Leonding) the city size has been 96 km².
The division into city
districts and city districts, which was in force until the end of 2013,
goes back to a decision made in 1957. The division of the city into its
incorporated municipalities came to an end here. The city was divided
into nine districts, some of which combined several incorporated
communities or expanded their former borders to include newly defined
statistical districts. A total of 36 urban districts were created within
these districts, which, as far as possible, were based on former
cadastral communities or existing or expected closed settlements in
their demarcation. Traffic routes also served to define the borders. For
example, the Landstraße, the Wiener Straße and the city motorway served
as a border for numerous statistical districts. When naming the new city
districts, the designation of the settlement area that was common among
the population was chosen. With the reorganization of January 1, 2014,
this division was abandoned and 16 new statistical districts were set up
instead. Numerous old statistical districts were merged, for example the
harbor district and St. Peter were merged into the district of
Industriegebiet-Hafen. The previously largest district of Ebelsberg, on
the other hand, was divided. In the east it now borders on the newly
created district of Pichling.
Linz has a transitional climate with both oceanic and continental
characteristics. In the long-term monthly average, the temperature
varies between −0.4 °C in January and 19.9 °C in July. Average rainfall
is around 60 mm in the months of September to April and rises to around
95 mm in the summer months of June, July and August. Average annual
precipitation is around 870 mm.
The long-term mean annual
temperature (determined in the years 1981-2010) is 9.9 °C.
Linz has shed its previously problematic environmental image as an
industrial location since the mid-1980s thanks to extremely consistent
policies in this regard. The emission of the air pollutants sulfur
dioxide (SO2), particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was reduced
from around 47,000 tons in 1985 to around 14,000 tons in 2003. The
sharpest drop was in sulfur dioxide, around 80% of which was achieved by
voestalpine, which is still the city's largest industrial company. But
the drop from 18,000 tons in 1985 to 4,000 tons in 2003 was not only due
to voestalpine.
While private households once caused almost 1,000
tons of SO2 emissions, this value has practically disappeared from the
statistics today. Heating plants and the chemical industry, which once
caused around 2,000 tons of SO2 emissions, reduced their emissions to
less than 100 tons by 2003. Up until 2002, the value only increased
slightly for motor vehicle traffic, but after around 250 tons in 2002, a
year later this caused slightly less than the chemical industry plus
heating plants. The remaining emissions are caused on the one hand by
voestalpine, namely around 3,700 tons, and on the other hand by other
industrial and commercial companies with around 200 tons instead of 750
in 1985.
Around 60% of NO2 emissions were once due to the city's
chemical plants, but they reduced their emissions from just under 10,000
tons in 1985 to around 800 tons in 2003. After NO2 emissions from motor
vehicle traffic were also halved to almost 2,000 the main cause is now
voestalpine, which was only able to reduce NO2 emissions by 1,000 tons
to 3,000 tons in the same period. Dust emissions, for which voestalpine
was responsible for 80% in 1985, were reduced from 8,000 to 1,500 tons
by 2003. Motor vehicle traffic is the only area where dust pollution has
increased. In 2006, all measuring stations in the city area exceeded the
statutory maximum values for particulate matter.
The increase
in CO2 emissions from 7.7 million tons in 1988 to 10.4 million tons in
2007 can be attributed to the heating plants, the chemical industry and
above all to voestalpine, which expanded until 1993, the year with the
lowest overall value, was still responsible for the reduction in
emissions to a total of 6.8 million tons, but then emitted more CO2
again. However, other commercial enterprises, private households and
motor vehicle traffic were consistently able to reduce these emissions
somewhat.
In the years 2007 to 2011 there were only minor changes
in the exposure level in Linz. Linz is not in an extreme position when
it comes to international air quality comparisons. Only sulfur dioxide
(SO2) was slightly above average in an international comparison and in
comparison with the other state capitals in the years 2007 to 2011.
However, the load trend in Linz remains the same. In terms of nitrogen
dioxide (NO2) and CO2, however, Linz was rated better than average.
From 2008, the air quality comparison was supplemented by the fine
dust content PM2.5. These particles have a significant impact on human
health. This was measured in Linz in 2011 at 19 μg/m³. For a more
transparent comparison of the measuring point density, the population
and the size of the immission area were also included.
In Linz,
with a population density of 189,845 and an immission area of 96 km²,
the annual mean value is 4 μg/m³ sulfur dioxide (SO2), NO2 emissions 32
μg/m³ and CO values 360 μg/m³. The fine dust pollution (PM10) is 18
μg/m³. When it came to exceeding the daily average PM10 value of 50
μg/m³ for 45 days, Linz is in the middle. Compared to 2001, the days
were significantly reduced from 62 to 45. Linz reached its lowest value
in 2009 with 30 days.
Immissions to the environment in Linz also
fell to roughly the same extent as emissions fell. Only the ozone values
stagnate at a high level and vary slightly depending on the summer.
Despite this, Linz has been able to improve in terms of air pollution in
a comparison of the provincial capitals in recent years and is now tied
with Vienna in first place.
In 2006, the city of Linz won the
title of "Austria's most nature-friendly community" in a nationwide
competition organized by the Austrian Nature Conservation Union. The
city of Linz's achievements in the area of species protection (e.g.
nesting boxes on buildings), renaturation of streams (a total of 9 km of
regulated streams were renatured) and support for ecologically oriented
landscape management by city builders were particularly honored. The
Natural History Station of the City of Linz, which together with the
Botanical Garden belongs to the City Gardens of Linz, is responsible for
nature conservation and urban ecology. The station publishes the
quarterly magazine ÖKO.L.
Focus
The center of the city of Linz
is in the cadastral community of St. Peter, Aigengutstraße 20, on a
property owned by ÖBB-Postbus GmbH. This point represents the geometric
center of gravity of a flat surface (=centre of area).
In the census of 1971, Linz reached a high of 204,889
inhabitants. While the post-war years, especially 1947, with around
3,750 births to 2,000 deaths, were characterized by an enormous excess
of births, the number of births halved from around 3,200 in 1962 to
1,600 in 1979. However, there were birth deficits as early as 1970, when
the steadily increasing number of deaths (from 2,000 in 1947 to 2,500 in
1970) overtook the number of births. Since then, deaths have fallen
again, to around 1,900 in 2004, but the number of births, which reached
its low point in 1979, rose only irregularly and slowly after an
intermediate high in 1993 (around 2,000 births) and an intermediate low
in 1999 (almost 1,700 births). back to. While there were almost as few
in 2001 as in 1999, the number has steadily increased since then, to
1,886 in 2005.
Linz is the only major city in Austria that, with
157,000 jobs, has almost twice as many jobs as the city's population can
cover. This enormous surplus of jobs causes a correspondingly high
commuter rate from the communities surrounding Linz, which causes
enormous traffic problems in the city. According to a 2016 Eurostat
survey, around 781,833 people live in the metropolitan area of Linz.
There are also large commercial areas south of Linz. Several
shopping centers (such as the UNO Shopping, the PlusCity or the Infra
Center) in Linz and the neighboring communities also lead to additional
commuter traffic and exacerbate the traffic problem outside the city,
around these commercial areas.
More than other Austrian cities,
Linz has also experienced large population losses in recent decades,
especially between 1991 and 2001, due to the relocation of families to
the communities surrounding Linz. Due to good transport connections,
such as the West Autobahn A 1 and Mühlkreis Autobahn A 7, which have
already been expanded several times, as well as the Linzer Lokalbahn
(LILO), the Mühlkreisbahn, the Pyhrnbahn and the Summerauer Bahn, which
enables a quick connection to Linz even over greater distances,
increased this migration trend. A counter-movement, such as that which
has led to strong population increases in Vienna, Graz and Salzburg
since 2001, has hardly been observed in Linz. This only started in 2012.
Towards the end of 2015, the 200,000 mark was exceeded again.
According to the 2001 census, religious affiliation is distributed as
follows:
60.9% Roman Catholic
21.6% non-denominational
6.7%
Islamic
4.4% evangelical
2.5% Christian Orthodox
3.9% other
religions
From 1867 (religious patent) to 1938, after immigration
from the Nuremberg, Bohemia and Moravia area, there was a small Jewish
community in Linz, which at its peak in the 1920s had almost 1,000
members - the majority of whom lived in the Urfahr district. In 1877 the
young community built the Linz synagogue. In the early 1930s,
anti-Semitism caused emigration to begin. After the Anschluss in 1938,
organized expulsion and murder began, and Jewish property was Aryanized.
The synagogue was destroyed during the Reichspogromnacht in 1938. A new
synagogue was opened on the property in 1968. Today, the Jewish
community in Linz has fewer than 100 members.
The Christian
sacred buildings include the new cathedral, the old cathedral, the
parish church, the Pöstlingberg pilgrimage basilica, and the
particularly old Martinskirche.
Important Roman Catholic
institutions in the city are the Catholic Theological Private University
Linz and the Episcopal See of the Diocese of Linz.
There are
several Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran (AB) congregations in
Linz. There is also an Evangelical-Reformed (HB) and an Old Catholic
parish. Free churches and other communities are the Baptists, the
Evangelicals, the Mennonites, the Methodists, the Adventists or the New
Apostolic Church.
The Islamic faith community is working on the
realization of a cultural center in the south of the city, which will
also house Islamic associations, social and cultural institutions in
addition to a prayer room.
Serbian emigrants founded the Serbian
Orthodox Church in Linz, and Romanian evangelical Christians founded the
Church of Hope, which now belongs to the Pentecostal movement.