Klagenfurt am Wörthersee (official name; until 2008 and later just
Klagenfurt, Slovenian Celovec ob Vrbskem jezeru) is a city in southern
Austria and the capital of the Austrian state of Carinthia. In the local
Bavarian-Austrian dialect, her name is pronounced Klognfuat. With
104,332 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2023), it is the largest city in
Carinthia and the sixth largest city in Austria. The urban area is
located in the center of the Klagenfurt Basin and currently has an area
of 120 km².
Klagenfurt was first mentioned in a document in
1192/1199 and was of little relevance until the city was donated by
Maximilian I to the Carinthian estates in 1518. This donation and the
Protestant Reformation movement that followed in the 16th century meant
a steep rise for the city: Klagenfurt became the capital of Carinthia,
and numerous buildings that are still important today, such as the
country house and the cathedral, were built.
Today the statutory
city of Klagenfurt is the seat of e.g. the Carinthian state government,
the district authority of Klagenfurt-Land, the Diocese of Gurk, the
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, the Gustav Mahler Private University
of Music, an international airport and a location for the Carinthian
University of Applied Sciences as well as numerous other companies and
institutions, including those of the Carinthian Slovenes. Due to its
attractive city center with squares and old town buildings as well as
cultural offers and the proximity to Lake Wörthersee, Klagenfurt is also
important for tourists.
1 cathedral church, cathedral square.
The church was built in the 16th century and has some beautiful wall
paintings inside.
2 St. Egyd Parish Church, Pfarrplatz. With a 92
meter high tower with viewing platform. Open: Mon - Fri 10 a.m. -
5.30 p.m., Sat 10 a.m. - 12.30 p.m.
Maria Wörth, is located on
the peninsula of the same name directly on the shore of Lake Wörth.
Stadttheater Klagenfurt
The building of the Stadttheater was built
in 1908 for the 60th anniversary of the reign of Franz Joseph I by the
architects Fellner and Helmer with the same floor plan as those in
Giessen and Gablonz and was officially opened in 1910.
The
Stadttheater Klagenfurt has gained national importance, especially under
its directors Herbert Wochinz (1968-1992) and Dietmar Pflegerl
(1992-2007). During their respective terms of office, both directors not
only focused on the performance of classical performances, but they also
ensured that numerous premieres and first performances took place at the
Stadttheater Klagenfurt.
The "Napoleonstadl", which used to be a
depot for props, is used for the performance of pieces of the so-called
experimental theater. In the "Volxhaus" and in the "Artecielo" building,
semi-professional groups perform so-called off-off-Broadway theatrical
productions. The Klagenfurt ensemble (director Gerhard Lehner) shows
contemporary spoken and musical theater in the HALLE 11 theatre.
In the 2000s and 2010s, Klagenfurt caused a certain stir in the media
with the Wörtherseebühne, an open-air stage right on the eastern shore
of Lake Wörthersee. However, these were not only reports about
performances on the lake stage, but often also reported on political
discussions and economic issues regarding the operation of the lake
stage. In 2015, the lake stage was finally demolished.
The Carinthian State Museum "Rudolfinum" is the largest museum in the
city of Klagenfurt and the state of Carinthia. With the attached state
library, the scientific staff and its own publishing house, it
represents an important scientific institution. The museum's exhibitions
show collections from the areas of archaeology, art, history, folklore,
botany, zoology, geology and mineralogy. A collection of musical
instruments is also on display in the museum. The State Museum was
renovated from 2017 to 2022 and reopened in May 2022 as
"kärnten.museum". The Carinthian State Museum includes the botanical
garden and the mining museum.
The Mining Museum presents the history
of Carinthian mining on an exhibition area of around 3000 m². The
museum, which opened in 1973, is located in a 500 meter long tunnel in
Kreuzbergl, which served as an air raid shelter during World War II. The
museum's exhibits include minerals and precious metals, as well as a
mint. The museum was closed in 2015 for cost reasons. The question of
whether it will reopen has not yet been clarified.
Since opening in
1996, the Stadtgalerie Klagenfurt has presented works of classical and
modern art in various exhibitions. So far, works by Klimt, Schiele,
Kokoschka, Morandi, Feininger, Man Ray, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paul Klee,
Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Meret Oppenheim and Max Ernst have been
exhibited.
The Museum of Modern Art Carinthia (formerly "Carinthian
State Gallery") shows individual and themed exhibitions of modern and
contemporary art on an exhibition area of approx. 1000 m². The
collection holdings of the province of Carinthia are a focal point. The
exhibitions include works by regionally and internationally renowned
artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as B. Hans Bischoffshausen,
Kiki Kogelnik, Maria Lassnig, Hermann Nitsch, Hans Staudacher and as a
representative of the youngest generation of artists Hans Schabus. The
castle chapel can be used by young artists as a project space. Objects
and sculptures are currently on display in the arcade.
Thomas Koschat
was a composer and poet and founded the first quintets of the Vienna
Court Opera (also known as "Koschat quintets"), with which he enjoyed
international success. The so-called Koschat Museum in Klagenfurt is
intended to commemorate the artist with its exhibitions, which also
contain an archive with photographs, manuscripts and information about
the private life of the artist.
The birthplace of the novelist Robert
Musil in Klagenfurt is now a literature museum with ongoing exhibitions
about his person. The museum is also dedicated to the writers Christine
Lavant and Ingeborg Bachmann, who also come from Carinthia. The
exhibitions include documentation, photographs and manuscripts by the
artists. A library with works by these three writers is also on display
there.
The composer Gustav Mahler spent several summers working on
his compositions on the eastern bay of Lake Wörth in Maiernigg near
Klagenfurt. Some of his most famous works were created in a house in a
forest clearing above Lake Wörthersee. This building is now known as the
"Gustav Mahler Composing House", which is run as a museum.
The
Ehrental Agricultural Museum exhibits an extensive collection of old
farming equipment. Various special exhibitions take place every year.
The Eboardmuseum currently exhibits over 800 electronic keyboard
instruments. The museum was founded in 1987 by Gert Prix as a keyboard
museum and received its current name in 2003. The instruments that are
shown in the museum are exhibited on an area of 2000 m² and can also be
played on.
The so-called Virtual School Museum in Klagenfurt
The
museum railway Lendcanaltramway, the city transport museum and the
cinema museum, which is located on the site of the former ORF medium
wave transmitter on the Lendkanal.
The Planetarium Klagenfurt is the
second largest planetarium in Austria. It was modernized in 2015 and
equipped with an 8K star projector. It is located on the Lend Canal.
The knowledge.worth.world is a so-called modern hands-on museum in
Klagenfurt for interested people from the age of six. Content from the
areas of art, culture, science, technology and social affairs is
conveyed in an age-appropriate manner using the "hands-on, minds-on"
method. A unique feature of this so-called "hands-on museum" is the
"mobile part" - "the kidsmobile". This mobile hands-on museum, so far
the only one of its kind in Austria, visits schools throughout
Carinthia. Another special feature of this institution is the time that
is dedicated to the visitors in this museum for the mediation of
culture. Therefore, the programs offered by the museum last between
three and four hours and can be booked either mobile (via kidsmobil) or
stationary (in the blue cube). In the stationary part - the "blue cube"
- there is an animation workshop as well as a recording and a television
studio. Here, visitors' ideas can be implemented by designing short
cartoons, sound recordings or television programs themselves.
The historically most important secular building in Klagenfurt is the
Landhaus Klagenfurt. It was built by the estates in the last third of
the 16th century and is today, among other things, the seat of the
Carinthian state parliament. The old town hall and the new town hall are
also located on the two central squares of the city, the old square and
the new square. Both buildings were erected in the 17th century. In 1918
the Rosenberg family exchanged the palace for the old town hall and left
their palace to the municipality of Klagenfurt. The Episcopal Palace on
Mariannengasse was built between 1769 and 1776 as a residence for
Archduchess Maria Anna, a daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.
Examples of more recent modern architecture in Klagenfurt are the
building that currently houses the Carinthian State Archives and the
so-called Hypo Group Alpe Adria Center on Völkermarkter Strasse.
There are also around 20 castles in today's urban area of Klagenfurt.
Most of the buildings erected as mansions by the estates and other
wealthy citizens of the city during the city's heyday in the 16th
century are all outside of what was then the city center and are now
mostly owned by private individuals. Only a few of the castles are
therefore open to the public, e.g. B. the Maria-Loretto Castle on Lake
Wörthersee, which is considered one of the most famous castles in
Klagenfurt.
Intact castle complexes no longer exist in
Klagenfurt. However, historical documents report the existence of
castles in Klagenfurt in the past. Soon after the city was refounded
(1246) in 1258 and 1268 there were castellans and a castle in
Klagenfurt. Unfortunately, nothing is known about where these were
supposed to be. Another castle was probably on the site of today's
country house, which was built in 1574. Some of Klagenfurt's castles
were also erected in places where medieval castles are said to have been
in the past. The MMKK Art Museum is located in the only building in the
city, which the citizens of Klagenfurt today call “Burg” (see Burg
[Klagenfurt am Wörthersee]), which cannot be traced back to such a
building, but was the official residence of the municipal burgrave.
The supposedly oldest house in the city is said to be the house "Zur
Goldenen Gans" on the corner of Alter Platz and Wiener Gasse. Emperor
Friedrich II gave this building to the city of Klagenfurt in 1489. A
plaque on the facade of the building commemorates this event.
Buildings and structures in the style of the Wörthersee architecture
There are also some important buildings in Klagenfurt that were built in
the style of the so-called Wörthersee architecture:
Hotel
Wörthersee (1891 to 1897, Wilhelm Hess)
Artist's house in Klagenfurt
(1913/1914, Franz Baumgartner)
Albatros Rowing Club (1908/1909, Franz
Baumgartner)
Stadttheater Klagenfurt (1910, architects: F. Fellner
and H. Helmer)
Stauderhof (1909, Franz Baumgartner)
Strandbad
Klagenfurt (1927, Franz Koppelhuber and P. Theer)
Villa Koss (1929,
Franz Baumgartner)
Lindwurm / Lindwurmbrunnen
One of the most well-known monuments in
Klagenfurt is the Lindwurm fountain on Neuer Platz. It is an important
example of Mannerist art in Klagenfurt.
Spanheimer monument
The Spanheimer monument on Arthur-Lemisch-Platz is dedicated to the
founder of the city, Bernhard von Spanheim.
Trinity Column /
Plague Column
Another monument worth mentioning in downtown
Klagenfurt is the Trinity Column on Alter Platz. It was erected in
gratitude for the end of a plague epidemic and, after the victory over
the Turks outside Vienna in 1683, a cross and a reclining crescent moon
were added.
Wörthersee-Mandl
A very popular photo motif is
Heinz Goll's "Wörtherseemandl" in the pedestrian zone of Klagenfurt.
This monument refers to the legend of the origin of the Wörthersee.
Fluder monument
As a curiosity, Klagenfurt's last surviving
"Fluder" (actually a wooden gully) in the Schiller Park can be seen.
Several brick rivers on the Feuerbach, which once flowed openly through
the old town, served as public washing places. A last, elegantly bricked
Fluder was a fountain in front of the Kleinmayr printing works and was
removed when the building was redesigned into today's "Stadthaus" and
later rebuilt in the nearby Schillerpark. However, the Feuerbach never
flowed there.
Lemisch Monument (Artur-Lemisch-Platz)
Domenico dell'Allio
Monument (10th October Street)
Achterjäger Monument (Achterjäger
Park)
Georg Bucher Monument (Achterjäger Park)
City relief
(Cathedral Square)
Displaced Persons Monument (Cathedral Square)
Memorial to the Victims for a Free Austria (Annabichl Cemetery)
Zill
memorial stone (Zillhöhe)
Monument to the Mountain Riflemen (Park of
Volunteer Riflemen)
Hülgerth Monument (Hülgerth Park)
Koschat
Monument (Viktinger Ring)
Kink memorial (Kreuzbergl, under the GH.
Schweizerhaus)
Rauscher memorial stone (Rauscher Park)
Schiller
Monument (Schillerpark)
Schubert Monument (Schubert Park)
Wilfan
Monument (Schubert Park)
1938 memorial (in front of the university)
Wulfen Monument (Völkermarkter Ring; in front of the Europagymnasium)
Kudlich Monument (near Krastowitz Castle)
Old place. The Alte Platz is the center of
the old town of Klagenfurt. The Golden Goose House, which is the
oldest building in Carinthia, is also located there.
New place.
The Neue Platz is 100-200m south of the Alter Platz and is right next to
the Klagenfurt Town Hall. Above all, this square is famous for the
Lindwurm, which stands in the middle of the square and is supposed to
show the history of Klagenfurt.
The provincial capital of Klagenfurt had city walls with moats in the
form of a square and a side length of about one kilometer that
surrounded the old town until the French troops withdrew in 1809. After
these fortifications were razed, today's four ring roads of Klagenfurt
with numerous parks named after poets and composers were built in their
place. For example, the Koschatpark was created on the Viktringer Ring,
named after the Carinthian composer Thomas Koschat. Although the park
created from the moat that was filled in in 1900 was originally to be
called Stadtpark, it was named Schillerpark in 1905 on the occasion of
the 100th anniversary of the death of Friedrich Schiller by the
Klagenfurt municipal council.
At the corner of Villacher Ring and
St. Veiter Ring, the Goethepark was created, named after the famous
German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. To the east of this is the
Schubert Park, named after the famous Austrian composer Franz Schubert.
There are also green areas on the Völkermarkter Ring in the east of the
city, such as in front of the concert hall or the federal high school,
where a bust of Schiller from the Schiller Park was placed. The
Rauscherpark, named after a Klagenfurt writer, is located on the corner
of Völkermarkter and St. Veiter Ring.
With a size of around 22
hectares, Europapark is not only the largest park in Klagenfurt, but
also one of the largest parks in Austria. It is located in the immediate
vicinity of the eastern shore of Lake Wörthersee in a triangle between
the Klagenfurt lido, the Lend Canal and the Minimundus miniature park.
The name is intended to symbolize the city's cosmopolitanism. This
should also be shown by the flags of the various partner cities of
Klagenfurt that are set up in the park. The Happ reptile zoo and the
planetarium are located in the immediate vicinity of Minimundus, which
is located near the Europapark. The Europapark area is also one of the
most important local recreation areas in Klagenfurt.
Hülgerth
Park is located east of Sankt-Ruprechter Strasse in the Viktringer
Vorstadt district and features a bust of Field Marshal Lieutenant Ludwig
Hülgerth.
Maria-Theresia-Park in the "Villacher Vorstadt"
district is located between the former orphanage barracks and
Herbertstraße. It is bounded by Lerchenfeldstrasse to the west and
Deutenhofenstrasse to the east. In the western part of the park there is
a monument in honor of the infantry regiment "Count von Khevenhüller No.
7" (1691-1918).
On the occasion of Emperor Franz Joseph I's visit
to Klagenfurt in 1850, the "Kreuzbergl" nature park was created on the
grounds of the "Wölfnitzberg" according to the plans of the knight
Martin von Kink, with a large fairground ("playing field"), an
observation tower, which today serves as an observatory, hiking trails
and ponds.
Also on the Kreuzbergl is the botanical garden created
in 1958 in a former quarry and managed by the Carinthian State Museum.
Minimundus, Villacher Straße 241,
opening times: April, October from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. May, June,
September from 9 am to 6 pm; July, August from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Entry to the Minimundus costs 11 euros. There are discounts for
children, students, families and groups. The Minimundus is also
called the little world on Lake Wörth. Buildings from all over the
world have been faithfully reproduced here. Children in particular
will enjoy a visit, but adults will also get their money's worth.
Happ reptile zoo, opening times: daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in
winter only until 5 p.m. The reptile zoo is in close proximity to
the Minimundus. Snakes, lizards and reptiles from all over the world
are cared for here. A visit is a must for lovers of these animals.
Klagenfurt is right on the Wörthersee and the
municipal lido is very popular in summer. In addition, Klagenfurt
offers a large leisure program such as Iron Man, Carinthia runs,
beach volleyball Swatch World Tour and many other sporting and
creative events:
Beach volleyball Grand Slam. Every year the
best beach volleyball players in the world play a tournament in
Klagenfurt's lido; the city becomes a big party zone. Tickets for
this event are difficult to get due to the high demand. However,
there is always a certain capacity of free places allocated at short
notice, for which you have to queue for a long time.
Ice Hockey.
In winter you can play the Carinthian "national sport" ice hockey in
Klagenfurt on some artificial ice surfaces and sometimes on the
frozen Wörthersee. A visit to a KAC game is also recommended for
those interested. "Derbies" against Villach are usually sold out,
you have to order tickets in good time. Information is available
from the EC KAC
To bathe. The Klagenfurt lido, located on Lake
Wörth, offers space for around 12,000 people in summer. In the lido
there is a small soccer field, a beach volleyball court, a large
water slide and a restaurant.
Klagenfurt is also the venue for regular events, some of which are
internationally renowned:
The readings and discussions in the course
of the internationally renowned Ingeborg Bachmann Prize take place in
Klagenfurt every year. Authors, literary critics, literary scholars,
journalists and publishers from all over the world come together at this
event in Klagenfurt.
In the summer months, musicians from all over
the world come to the former Cistercian monastery of Viktring every
year. This is where the music forum Viktring takes place, where
musicians meet for master classes, workshops and concerts. The
international composition prize of the music forum and the Gustav Mahler
composition prize are also awarded as part of the music forum.
Another event that takes place regularly in summer is the "Wörthersee
Classics" festival in the Konzerthaus. The concerts are given by
orchestras and soloists from the international elite of classical music.
The World Bodypainting Festival takes place annually in July in the
Norbert Artner Park, which is located behind the Künstlerhaus. Unique
live paintings, the presentation of the World Bodypainting Awards and
well-known international music acts are integral parts of this event.
During the summer months, the Lendhauer association organizes the harbor
festival and many other events at the Lendhafen, such as concerts and
readings as part of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt. As an
alternative to these events, radio and art installations are also held.
Since 1981 there has been the so-called Kontaktna-leča - contact lens
festival, which is organized by students of the BG/BRG for Slovenes.
This festival, which can be assigned to sub- and youth culture, is
intended to bring together young people from the two ethnic groups in
Carinthia.
Every year on the second weekend in August, the so-called
old town magic takes place, which is one of the biggest events of the
year in Klagenfurt. Street performers and live bands from a wide range
of music genres, such as jazz, blues, rock, soul or funk, become active
on squares and in some inner courtyards of the old town and attract tens
of thousands of visitors every year with their work. In the course of
this event, the traditional flea and tandel market, one of the largest
flea markets in Austria, takes place on Domplatz.
The so-called
Klagenfurt Festival has been taking place for ten days since 2020. This
cultural festival with a wide range of music, literature and theater
takes place in public places in the city and is intended to commemorate
the times of the so-called Week of Encounters, an event that took place
regularly in Klagenfurt up to 1995. There are several venues, namely the
Neuer Platz, the Burghof, the ORF Theater of the Carinthian State
Studio, the Messeparkhaus and the Stadttheater.
During the Advent
season, a Christmas market is held annually on Neuer Platz.
Carinthia cinema (formerly, on Ehrentaler Straße)
Cine-City
(new Heidemarie-Hatheyer-Platz 1; on Völkermarkter Straße)
Heide-Lichtspiele (formerly, on the heath / Haidach, east of
Klagenfurt)
Kammerlichtspiele in the Adlergasse (formerly), now
"Jazz Club"
Cinema in the courtyard (has been held annually in
the courtyard since 1975 [with brief interruptions])
Peterhof-Kino (formerly, Ramsauerstraße 7; on the right just before
the junction with Völkermarkter Straße in an outdoor dining area)
Prechtl cinema (formerly, until 1971, 10.-Oktober-Straße 25; today's
Hermagoras house)
Municipal Theater (former, during World War II)
Volkskino (founded 1926; still exists today as a so-called
alternative cinema; on St. Ruprechter Straße)
Wulfenia cinema
The film industry in Austria is traditionally strongly focused on the city of Vienna. Nevertheless, the city of Klagenfurt can refer to a long tradition as a backdrop and as a production location for numerous films and television series. The history of Klagenfurt as a location for the production of films and television series is closely linked to the history of the Wörthersee region as a production location for series and films. With its exhibitions, the Klagenfurt Cinema Museum recalls the history of Klagenfurt as a cinema and film city.
By plane
Klagenfurt Airport is 3 km outside the city center.
Bus line 42 runs every hour during the day to the city center to the
main train station.
Austrian Airlines connects Klagenfurt
with Vienna several times a day.
With Eurowings there are a
few connections per week from Cologne / Bonn, Hamburg and Berlin.
By train
Trains to Klagenfurt run regularly from Germany,
Italy, the former Yugoslavia and Vienna. It is a 10-minute walk from
the train station to the city center. There are also buses. From
Villach you can reach Klagenfurt every half hour.
Travel time
from Vienna main station approx. 4 hours, from Villach approx. 30
minutes, from Salzburg approx. 3 hours, from Udine approx. 2 hours,
from Ljubljana approx. 2:10 hours with a change in Villach.
ÖBB timetable
query
By bus
There are international bus connections
to Klagenfurt from various cities in the following countries: Italy,
the Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania. There are also numerous
regional bus connections from other Carinthian communities.
In the street
From Vienna you drive on the A2 via Graz to
Klagenfurt; the alternative route over the Semmering (S6-S36-S37 /
B317) is approx. 50 km shorter from Vienna and is constantly being
expanded.
From Germany, the journey from Salzburg takes you via
the Tauern Autobahn. At the Villach junction you change from the A10
to the A2. The junction is well signposted, follow the signs Vienna
- Klagenfurt.
From Italy via the A23 Canal Valley motorway over
the border at Tarvisio / Arnoldstein and further on the A2.
Coming from Slovenia the fastest way is via Jesenice and the
Karawanken tunnel to the Villach junction, then continue as
described above. The route over the Loiblpass is shorter but slower,
but it is scenic.
Parking outside the center is free of charge,
in the center it is chargeable Mon-Sat. There are parking ticket
machines.
By boat
Arrival by ship is possible from some
other Wörthersee communities. These connections are more of an
excursion character.
In Klagenfurt it is easy to get around on foot. If you want to visit sights that are a bit outside of the center, it is best to take the city buses.
There are a few shops and souvenir shops in the old town. Souvenir shops can also be found at Minimundus and other popular attractions. There are plenty of supermarkets with articles for daily needs in the whole city. There is a larger collection of specialty stores and specialist market centers (including Mediamarkt, Gigasport, Obi) along Völkermarkter Straße in the Welzenegg district. The IKEA furniture store is located right next to the Klagenfurt-Ost motorway exit.
In
Klagenfurt you will mainly come across Austrian and Italian cuisine.
The cheapest restaurants are in the area around the university.
Cheap
Cafeteria of the University of Klagenfurt,
Universitätsstrasse. This is the cheapest place to eat. However,
there is only a small selection of dishes. One menu is always
vegetarian.
Pizzeria Othello, Kardinalplatz 4. Inexpensive and
excellent Italian cuisine where all dishes are freshly prepared by
the chef himself and where an alternative dish from Austrian cuisine
is offered every day for lunch.
Pizzeria Uniwirt,
Universitätsstrasse. At the Uniwirt you have to put a little more
money on the table than in the cafeteria, but the food also tastes a
lot better.
Benedectine market. Several market stalls serve
Carinthian specialties, such as Ritschert, cheese noodle with salad,
smoked sausage, and soups. Price around € 3 to € 6. There are seats
inside and outside the market hall.
Upscale
1 Maria
Loretto, Lorettoweg 54, 9020 Klagenfurt. Tel .: +43 (0) 463 24465,
fax: +43 (0) 463 24465, email:
anfrage@restaurant-maria-loretto.at. The Maria Loretto is
located on the small headland where the Lend Canal flows into the
Wörthersee. Open: Wed - Mon 10 a.m. - midnight (hot meals 11 a.m. -
10 p.m.), Tuesdays are closed.
There are a few restaurants in the old town. During the study period,
university parties take place every second Thursday at the university.
In summer, the nightlife shifts to Lake Wörthersee and the communities
on the shore.
Middle
1 Discotheque Bollwerk, Gerberweg 46,
9020 Klagenfurt. Friends of loud, commercial music meet in the Bollwerk.
upscale
2 Klagenfurt City Theater, Theaterplatz 4, 9020
Klagenfurt. Tel.: +43 463 54064. The Municipal Theater is of particular
interest to culture lovers. The theater is very well run and offers a
range of interesting performances.
Cheap
1 Klagenfurt youth hostel, Neckheimgasse 6. Tel.: +43(0)463
511590. This state-of-the-art youth hostel is located near the
university and Lake Wörth. The rooms are equipped with 4 beds and toilet
and shower.
Middle
2 AllYouNeed Hotel Klagenfurt, Nautilusweg
11, 9020 Klagenfurt am Wörthersee. Tel.: +43 (0)463 207 005, fax: +43
(0)463 207 005 10, e-mail: klagenfurt@allyouneedhotels.at. Open
seasonally from July 1st to September 30th. 77 non-smoking rooms with
shower, toilet, hair dryer, flat screen TV with satellite connection,
room safe and free WiFi, panoramic rooms with roof terrace and terrace
furniture including parasol, 2 handicapped accessible rooms, garden,
elevator, lobby with seating, hotel parking spaces. Features: ★★★, Free
WiFi, Parking, Wheelchair Accessible, Dogs Allowed. Check-in: from 3
p.m. Check-out: until 11:00 a.m. Price: SR from €60.30/BB, DR from
€82.80/BB (possibly an additional €6/dog).
3 City Hotel zum Domplatz,
Karfreitstrasse 20, 9020 Klagenfurt. Phone: +43 (0)463 54320, email:
office@cityhotel-klagenfurt.at. Centrally located city hotel right on
the cathedral square. Feature: ★★★. Price: double room from €94/BB.
Accepted payment methods: Visa, Masters, EC/Maestrocard, Diners Club,
AMEX.
Camping
4 Klagenfurt campsite, Metnitzstrand 5, 9020
Klagenfurt am Wörthersee. Tel.: +43 (0) 463 28 78 10, fax: +43 (0) 463
28 78 103, e-mail: info@gocamping.at . Can be reached by public
transport using the STW bus lines 10 and 20 from the Heiligengeistplatz
stop. The nearest connection to the SPNV is the Klagenfurt-West train
station.
The University of Klagenfurt is run under the motto "small but nice".
The students praise the great atmosphere between professors and
students.
Language courses are offered by the adult education center
in Klagenfurt. Info: Homepage of the VHS Carinthia
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Universitätsstraße 65-67, 9020
Klagenfurt. Phone: +43 463 2700, email:
uni@aau.at
The job situation throughout Carinthia cannot be described as necessarily rosy. If you're looking for a casual job, the best place to go is to go to the university and browse the noticeboards for vacancies.
General information
Klagenfurt is a very safe city. As in all
other cities, theft can also occur in Klagenfurt. Normal precautions are
sufficient. In the evenings there can be scuffles in the entertainment
districts, so it's best to stay out of it.
Emergency numbers
Fire Department: 122
Police: 133
Ambulance/emergency doctor: 144
Mountain rescue: 140
Medical emergency service: 141
Accident
assistance and roadside assistance: 120 (ÖAMTC), 123 (ARBÖ)
Blocking
hotline for credit cards and debit cards: 0800/2048800
Police
Klagenfurt Police Station, Villacher Str. 137, 9020 Klagenfurt. Phone:
+43 59 1332 587100.
Klagenfurt Police Station, Kiki-Kogelnik-Gasse 4,
9020 Klagenfurt. Phone: +43 59 1332 583100.
Carinthia State Police
Headquarters, Buchengasse 3, 9020 Klagenfurt. Phone: +43 59 13320.
The rescue service can be reached anywhere in Austria under the
emergency number 144.
Hospital
1 Klinikum Klagenfurt am
Wörthersee, Feschnigstraße 11, 9020 Klagenfurt. Phone: +43 463 5380,
email:
klinikum.klagenfurt@kabeg.at
Pharmacies
2 Ring Pharmacy,
Viktringer Ring 1A, 9020 Klagenfurt. Tel.: +43 463 31752, fax: +43
(0)463 317524, e-mail: ring-apo@aon.at
Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat 8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
3 The pharmacy,
Sieben Hügelstrasse 15, 9020 Klagenfurt. Phone: +43 463 204670, fax: +43
463 20467022, e-mail:
fellner@apotheke-waidmannsdorf.at Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6 p.m.,
Sat 8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
4 Feschnig Pharmacy, Paracelsusgasse 16, 9020
Klagenfurt. Tel.: +43 463 430010. Open: Mon – Fri 8 a.m. – 6 p.m., Sat 8
a.m. – 12 p.m.
There is an information center for tourists at Heiligengeistplatz.
The Austrian mobile phone networks also work perfectly in
Klagenfurt. The main post office is located at Bahnhofplatz 5.
Klagenfurt is located on the Klagenfurter Feld in the center of the
Klagenfurt Basin and stretches approximately 15 km north-south and
east-west. The city covers the entire eastern shore of Lake Wörthersee,
the areas north of it are part of the Feldkirchen-Moosburger Hügelland
and the Glantaler Bergland. Parts of the northern district of Wölfnitz
are already part of the customs field, the south of Klagenfurt lies at
the foot of the Sattnitz ridge.
The city center is about 450 m
above sea level; the highest point within the municipality is the
Ulrichsberg at 1022 m above sea level. A., the deepest is the
Gurkerbrücke (420 m) on the eastern border of the city.
About a
third of the 120 km² large municipal area is designated as agricultural
area (33.4%) or forest (32.9%). 19.3% of the area of Klagenfurt is used
as building land, 2.2% is water and 1.3% is gardens. The remaining 10.9%
falls under "other types of use", which includes, among other things,
transport routes, mining areas and wasteland.
The Adriatic Sea is
only about 150 kilometers from Klagenfurt; Trieste can be reached via
the motorway in about two hours.
The entire Klagenfurt basin was filled by the Drau Glacier during the Ice Age. After the ice masses melted, alluvial fanatics of the Glan formed the subsoil of what is today the northern part of the city and the Zollfeld, consisting of Ice Age gravel. At the same time, the Wörthersee was created, which around 4000 years ago reached into today's city center, where a large moorland area formed through gradual silting up. The hills in the north of the city mainly consist of old-crystalline mica slates and Paleozoic phyllites, green slates and limestones, the Sattnitz range of hills south of Klagenfurt consist of conglomerates.
In the north of the urban area, the Glan flows through Klagenfurt in
a west-east direction, in the east the Gurk touches the district of
Hörtendorf, shortly before it meets the Glan in Ebenthal. There are two
canals in the city center that were artificially created in the 16th
century: the Lend Canal, which still connects the center with Lake
Wörthersee, and the Feuerbach, which has meanwhile almost completely
disappeared into the city's underground sewage system. Flowing through
the southern districts, the 8.8 km long Glanfurt (popularly "Sattnitz")
drains the Wörthersee into the Glan. Other, smaller watercourses are the
Kerbach, the Raba and the Struga, Wölfnitz and Viktringer Bach.
The entire eastern shore of Lake Wörthersee belongs to the city of
Klagenfurt, which has had the name of the lake in its own name since
mid-2007. There are also a number of ponds in Klagenfurt. The Hallegg
ponds, which are located in a nature reserve below Hallegg Castle, are
among the largest.
Klagenfurt is divided into 15 districts or localities.
Up
until 1848, the urban area only included what is now the inner city.
With the formation of political communities in Austria in 1850, the four
immediately adjacent suburbs (St. Veiter, Völkermarkter, Viktringer and
Villacher Vorstadt) first came to Klagenfurt. Apart from a smaller urban
expansion in 1893, Klagenfurt only reached its current size in the 20th
century through the incorporation of previously independent
municipalities in 1938 (Districts IX to XII) and 1973 (Districts XIII to
XV).
The four districts of the inner city roughly form a square
of squares, which are numbered clockwise starting at the top left (in
the north-west corner). The next four districts (5-8) encircle the
square in a roughly circular manner, numbering starts at the top, in the
north and goes around to the right. The same applies to the larger areas
9 to 12, which in turn form a belt of sectors in the cardinal points.
Like all zones, the three outermost and youngest districts are numbered
to the right, but stand out discreetly like wings, so they are not
connected to each other; the census now starts at 13 in the
south(southwest), runs through 14 in the northwest to the relatively
small 15th district in the east.
Klagenfurt has a temperate continental climate with relatively large
temperature fluctuations between the seasons. Due to the weather
inversion prevailing in the Klagenfurt Basin, an above-average frequent
and often long-lasting haze and fog formation is typical for this area.
In early and mid-autumn this is mostly ground fog, while in late autumn
and winter mostly high fog occurs. A general lack of wind is also
characteristic. The winters, which are cold compared to the Austrian
average, can at times be alleviated by the foehn through the Karawanken
to the south.
The long-term mean annual temperature (determined
in the years 1961 to 1990) is 7.7 °C. The average temperature in
Klagenfurt in 2007 was 9.7 °C.
Etymologically, the name Klagenfurt has Romance origins and came into
German through the mediation of Slovenian. Heinz-Dieter Pohl
linguistically reconstructed the formation of the Slovene name Celovec
for Klagenfurt, first documented in 1615 as V Zelovzi. The starting
point for this was a Romanesque l'aquiliu meaning "place by the water" -
but not the Wörthersee was meant, but the river Glan. The original
Romance form was first transformed into la quiliu and adopted into
Slavic without an article. According to the sound laws, this has become
cvilj-. This has been extended with the ending -ovec, which is common in
field and place names, resulting in Cviljovec. The similar-sounding
Slovene word cvilja meant 'lamentation'. In Slovenian, the name
Cviljovec was reinterpreted in terms of folk etymology as the "place of
complaints", which is reflected in German in the loan translation of
Klagenfurt. Other derivations are therefore not applicable, such as
those represented by Eberhard Kranzmayer from a wailing woman cvilja (=
lamentation), one of the legendary Slavic ford and water women who wash
their laundry at streams and springs and lament deaths, or from the
Glan, according to which a Glanfurt would be the origin of the name. It
is overlooked that there actually is a river called Glanfurt, which was
called Lanquart until the 16th century and is today also called Sattnitz
(Slovene: formerly: Lank(a)rt, today: Sotnica, or learned: Jezernica =
Seebach). It is the outflow of the Wörthersee.
An even older
derivation, which dates from the time of humanism, gives the Latin name
of the Roman city Claudiforum or Forum Claudii as the original name and
refers to Roman sources. The name Klagenfurt is said to have developed
from this. In fact, a Roman city, Virunum, founded by the Emperor
Claudius, existed north of what is now the urban area. Today it is clear
that Forum Claudii was an alternative name for Virunum and that there
was no Roman city in the area of present-day Klagenfurt.
The
founding legend of Klagenfurt tells of a dragon that lives in a swamp
and fed on people from the surrounding villages who approached it. The
monster could only be killed by a ruse: a tower was erected to the top
of which an ox was chained as bait, the chain also having a large hook.
When the dragon came out of his swamp to eat the ox, he got caught on
the chain and was then killed. This legend finds its heraldic expression
in the coat of arms of Klagenfurt and its artistic expression in the
Lindwurmbrunnen.
The first traces of clearing and settlement in today's urban area are for the period between 4000 and 2000 BC. by finds in Lendorf, Waidmannsdorf and Viktring. There are traces of settlements from the Bronze Age (dugout finds in the moor at the foot of the Sattnitz) as well as the urn field culture and the Hallstatt period (Wölfnitz and Waidmannsdorf). For a long time, only areas that towered above the moorland landscape in which the city center is located were considered as settlement areas. The hills in the north of today's urban area were particularly suitable for this.
No significant settlements in the area of present-day Klagenfurt are
documented for antiquity. The center of power for this region both in
the time of Celtic Noricum and for the time of the Roman occupation,
which started in 45 BC. BC to the 6th century (Virunum), was located on
the customs field north of today's Klagenfurt. Nevertheless, there were
isolated Roman settlements here too, for example the remains of a villa
and graves from Roman times were found on the Spitalsberg.
In
contrast to many places in Carinthia, where evidence of the immigration
of Slavs into the area of today's Carinthia, which took place from the
end of the migration of peoples, can also be proven by place names,
there is hardly any evidence of this in Klagenfurt. Nevertheless, it is
assumed that today's urban area was connected to the
Carolingian-Franconian Palatinate of Karnburg (Civitas Carantana), which
was built around the year 828. In the course of the Christianization of
Carinthia, the founding of churches in Maria Saal im Zollfeld by the
diocese of Salzburg and in Maria Wörth were significant, but there is no
evidence of any foundations on the eastern shore of Lake Wörthersee at
this time.
After Carinthia was elevated to a duchy within the
Holy Roman Empire in 976, numerous monasteries were founded in the 11th
century. However, Klagenfurt only became important in the first half of
the 12th century: the Spanheimers, who had owned property in Carinthia
since the middle of the 11th century and provided the Carinthian dukes
between 1122 and 1279, had gradually acquired parts of today's city
area. Count Bernhard founded the Cistercian monastery in Viktring in
1142 and caused the area to be settled.
The Carinthian dukes Hermann († 1181) and Bernhard von Spanheim (†
1256) are considered to be the founders of Klagenfurt. Hermann is
regarded as the founder of the Klagenfurt market on the southern edge of
the customs field in the area of today's Spitalsberg. This settlement is
first mentioned between June 1192 and March 1199, when the monastery of
St. Paul was granted exemption from tolls "in foro Chlagenuurt".
However, the newly founded town was in the floodplain of the Glan and
was repeatedly flooded. Bernhard von Spanheim took this as an
opportunity to re-establish the settlement in 1246 in an area that was
safe from flooding. Klagenfurt was re-established in the area around
today's Alter Platz and received city rights in 1252.
To protect
the city, a castle (first mentioned in 1268) and a six meter high city
wall were built, in front of which a four meter deep and ten meter wide
ditch was dug. The castle probably stood on the site of today's country
house, it was administered by ministerials who were called castle
keepers ("castellanus de Chlagenfurt"). The first documented priest in
Klagenfurt (Dominus Friedericus, 1255) was the vicar of Maria Saal. The
first church in Klagenfurt was probably today's parish church of
Klagenfurt-St. Egid, the patron saint of St. Egid in the 14th century.
Egidius accepted (documented 1347); outside the city walls was the Holy
Spirit Church with cemetery and hospital (documented 1355 and 1381).
Compared to other cities in Carinthia, Klagenfurt had only a small
population and remained in the shadow of the capital St. Veit and the
commercial center Villach until the 16th century.
At the beginning of the 16th century, Carinthia played only a minor
role within the inner Austrian provinces, because for long stretches not
even the office of provincial governor was occupied. After the Gorizia
died out in 1500, the Roman-German king and later Emperor Maximilian I
came into possession of their extensive heritage. On the one hand, the
absence of a sovereign helped the Carinthian provincial estates to gain
a stronger political position, on the other hand they had to contend
with peasant uprisings at the time, which flared up again in the
province in 1515 and during which the provincial capital of St. Veit
proved to be unreliable.
In 1514 Klagenfurt was almost completely
destroyed by fire. The estates asked the emperor, who had now also
become sovereign, to cede the city to them in order to develop it into a
bulwark against enemies from within and without. Maximilian complied
with this request, in the "Gabbrief" of April 24, 1518 he gave the
estates the city, including the castle and citizenship, while at the
same time lifting all civil privileges.
The estates rebuilt the
city and commissioned Domenico dell'Allio to plan a city fortification.
The financing of this undertaking was significantly boosted by the
leasing of the princely mint in 1529 by Ferdinand I and its relocation
from St. Veit to Klagenfurt soon afterwards. Even before that, in 1527,
an artificial waterway had been created with the Lend Canal from Lake
Wörthersee to the city, which served to transport goods, flood the moat
and as a fire-fighting water reservoir. A second, much smaller canal,
the so-called Feuerbach, brought Glanwasser into the city, which was
available there in two open channels and was also used to transport
waste. The previous “Galgenratte” became the new city center as “Neuer
Platz”. The streets around him were laid out like a chessboard.
Important representative buildings such as the country house (from 1574)
and today's cathedral (from 1581), built as a Protestant church, were
erected. In 1587, due to the ever-increasing tasks of the city
administration, judges and council asked the provincial estates to
appoint a mayor. As a result, Christoph Windisch (* ?–† 1597) was
appointed the first mayor of the city of Klagenfurt. By the end of the
16th century, Klagenfurt had grown into the most modern and strongest
fortified town in the region.
Outside of the city fortifications,
the city's sphere of influence included extensive areas of the
hinterland and smaller towns. They formed the Klagenfurt keep, which was
administered by the city judge. It stretched from St. Primus in the
north to the swampy landscape of the Glanfurt in the south and from the
Glan in the east to the town of Waidmannsdorf in the west of the city.
Not a single castle was built in this area, the aristocratic residences
of this type were all outside the keep boundaries.
In the course of the second half of the 16th century, large parts of
the people and almost all of the Carinthian estates joined the Lutheran
Reformation movement. In Klagenfurt, as early as the 1570s, we can speak
of a consistently Protestant population.
The new doctrine was
proclaimed both in St. Egid and in the Church of the Holy Spirit, and
the newly built Trinity Church, which later became the Catholic
cathedral, was also used as a Protestant church after its completion.
The Catholic Habsburgs, as sovereigns, were initially almost powerless
in the face of this development, but from around 1580 they timidly
pushed through the Counter-Reformation together with the Catholic Church
after Archduke Ferdinand came to power in 1595. Citizens were given the
choice of returning to Catholicism or leaving the country, books were
burned and evangelical churches were temporarily closed.
The
Trinity Church, which was closed in November 1600, was given to the
Jesuits and reopened by them in April 1604 and dedicated to Saints Peter
and Paul. Above all, the Jesuits, but also other religious orders that
settled in the course of the Counter-Reformation, shaped the face of the
city both with spiritual and cultural development and with numerous new
church and monastery buildings.
After the Jesuit order was
abolished in 1773, Klagenfurt became the seat of the Gurk cathedral
chapter in 1787/93.
The estates had already lost power with Maria Theresa's
administrative reform. From the year 1748 the city administration was no
longer subordinate to the estate deputies and the burgrave. State
authorities had taken their place. The state of Carinthia was divided
into three districts and the "castle" was now the seat of a district
office. In 1782 Klagenfurt lost its position as the provincial capital
after Joseph II had administratively placed all of Carinthia under the
Graz governorship.
During the course of the Napoleonic Wars,
Klagenfurt was occupied by French troops in 1797 and in 1805 and
1809/1810. Before they left, Napoleon's Württemberg sappers blew up the
city walls. The only one of the city gates that survived was the
Völkermarkter Tor, which, however, had to make way for road expansion in
1867. Massive causeway bridges were erected in place of the blown up
city gates. Today only a small remnant of the fortification wall and the
moat has been preserved. However, the location of the city walls can
still be clearly seen on today's "ring" around the city centre.
Even if there were only a few acts of war in the country during the
wars, this period and the years that followed meant an economic decline.
From an urban planning perspective, however, the demolition of the
fortifications also opened up new perspectives. A city map from 1827
already shows the inner city growing together with its four suburbs, St.
Veiter, Völkermarkter, Villacher and Viktringer suburbs. In addition to
the development of districts, Klagenfurt was also a vital city in terms
of its social structure, its culture and its relationship with the
surrounding area in the pre-industrial era.
On the political
stage, Klagenfurt and the now divided Carinthia were of little
importance during the Metternich era. This was only to change again
after the 1848 revolution, when Carinthia once again became an
independent crown land with a state parliament and state government in
Klagenfurt. After Klagenfurt became a city with its own statute in 1850,
the city expanded for more than 300 years as part of the general
restructuring of the state and the country and the associated creation
of the local communities as the smallest self-governing bodies.
However, the hoped-for unification of Klagenfurt with numerous
surrounding towns did not materialize at first, the neighbors saw no
advantage in this and preferred the status as an independent rural
community. In the end, apart from the inner city, the new township only
comprised its four suburbs, including the “country village of
Spitalmühle”. Not even the whole truce came to Klagenfurt: even the
Kreuzbergl area of the "Wölfnitzberg" remained in the cadastral
community of St. Martin and became part of the new local community of
St. Martin near Klagenfurt. In 1850, the first Klagenfurt municipal
council decided in favor of the 51-year-old lawyer Andreas Koller, who
had just been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Franz Joseph Order, as
mayor.
In 1863 Klagenfurt was connected to the southern railway network, and
the resulting economic stimulus made Klagenfurt the center of Carinthia.
The outdated, damaged water pipe, fed by the Feuerbach and the Sattnitz
springs, was taken over and improved by the city. In 1864, Ferdinand
Jergitsch founded the first voluntary fire brigade in Carinthia, a model
organization for numerous towns in the k. u.k. Monarchy. The city moats
were partly filled in and built over, the agriculturally usable area was
expanded by drainage and the city, including the former suburbs and
surrounding communities, was enlarged first to the east and later to the
west in the direction of Lake Wörthersee.
In the course of the
brisk building activity, the Protestant St. John's Church (1863-1866),
the Carinthian State Museum (1884), the large school buildings (Hasner,
Benedictine and West School, junior high school, trade school,
agricultural school "Kucherhof"), the state hospital (1895) and the new
"Jubilee City Theater" (1910) were built. The economic rise was also
documented by the first Carinthian state exhibition in 1885, at which
1,329 exhibiting companies presented their services to around 100,000
visitors. This laid the foundation for today's Klagenfurt Trade Fair.
The city administration, however, still rejected the electrification
of the city and the establishment of a railway headquarters in
Klagenfurt in 1896. Only after lengthy negotiations was the basis for a
power grid laid. In 1903, the city's streets received electric lighting
instead of the gas incandescent light that previously lit the streets.
The horse-drawn tram set up in 1891 was replaced by the electric
Klagenfurt tram in 1911. The railway management, on the other hand, had
meanwhile settled in Villach, making the western neighbor a "railway
town".
The First World War interrupted the rise of the city. After Italy's
entry into the war in 1915, Klagenfurt was not directly on the frontline
of the mountain war and was thus spared from the immediate war events,
but was subsequently flooded by returning soldiers. 2214 people from
Klagenfurt died as soldiers during the war. In addition, the SHS state
that emerged after the end of the war claimed parts of southern
Carinthia and Lower Styria, citing the Slovenian population. His troops
crossed the demarcation line and also occupied Klagenfurt on June 6,
1919. For security reasons, the Carinthian state government had recently
been temporarily relocated to Spittal an der Drau and later to St. Veit
an der Glan. The troops had to withdraw again at the end of July 1919
after a referendum on the whereabouts of the disputed areas had been
decided at the Paris Peace Conference. The plebiscite of October 10,
1920 finally resulted in a clear majority for Carinthia and the Republic
of Austria.
The economic consequences of the war - inflation and
high unemployment - initially slowed down the further development of the
city, which at times was not even able to pay the wages of its
employees.
With the “annexation” of Austria to the German Reich, Klagenfurt
became the capital of the Carinthian district on March 12, 1938
(Reichsgau from March 1, 1939). From October 1, 1938, East Tyrol and
from April 17, 1941, Miesstal, which fell to Yugoslavia in 1918, and
parts of Oberkrain were administered from Klagenfurt. Under the National
Socialist Mayor Friedrich von Franz, all previously published newspapers
were discontinued and replaced by the Carinthian Grenzruf. The New
Square was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz. In addition, numerous other
squares and streets in the city were given the names of Nazi greats.
The young, small Jewish community in Klagenfurt (1934: 269 religious
Jews) was almost completely wiped out during this period. During the
Night of Broken Glass on November 9, 1938, citizens of Klagenfurt
devastated the prayer house in Platzgasse (which was later completely
destroyed in a bomb attack), demolished Jewish homes and desecrated the
Jewish cemetery in St. Ruprecht. The bank accounts of the Jews in
Carinthia were blocked, but the money is said to have been used in
cooperation with the religious community to cover the travel expenses of
the emigrating Jews. Of all the Jews expelled from Carinthia or who
“voluntarily” emigrated, 45 certainly died, but probably more. Most of
the Jews who remained in Klagenfurt were later arrested and deported to
concentration camps; only a few were able to escape after 1939. In 1951
only nine citizens of the Jewish faith lived in Klagenfurt.
On
October 15, 1938, the previously independent community of Sankt Ruprecht
and the towns of Sankt Peter, Annabichl and Sankt Martin as well as
parts of the communities of Krumpendorf, Lendorf, Hörtendorf, Viktring
and Maria Wörth were incorporated. The urban area grew from 618 hectares
to 5613 hectares (roughly ninefold), and the population rose from 30,000
to over 50,000.
In the Lendorf district, prisoners of the
Mauthausen concentration camp set up barracks and a "Junker school" for
the Waffen-SS. The Klagenfurt-Lendorf sub-camp was located in the
courtyard of today's Khevenhüller barracks.
After there had
already been a minor attack by the 9th US Air Force on Klagenfurt
Airport in September 1943, the first bombs fell on the built-up area of
the city on Sunday, January 16, 1944 at 11:41 a.m. The main targets of
the attack were the area around the main train station and the tobacco
factory in Kempfstrasse, where part of the German aircraft production
had been transferred from Wiener Neustadt to Klagenfurt. In three waves
of attacks, 90 bombers dropped around 1,200 high-explosive bombs on the
city. 234 dead, 73 seriously injured and around 1800 homeless were to be
lamented.
This attack was followed by 48 more by April 26, 1945,
including 12 major attacks, in which a total of 2,000 tons of bombs were
dropped. At the end of the war 3413 houses with 9672 apartments were
destroyed. 60 percent of Klagenfurt's homes were destroyed and 510
people were killed. 1665 Klagenfurt died as soldiers during the war.
On May 8, 1945, British troops reached the city a few hours before
units of the Yugoslav armed forces and Yugoslav partisans. The communist
leadership of Yugoslavia under Marshal Tito, with the support of the
Soviet Union, claimed Klagenfurt and large parts of Carinthia for
themselves, but encountered resistance from the British. However, the
British could not prevent residents of the Klagenfurt district from
being abducted by Yugoslav partisans.
Klagenfurt was part of the
British zone until the end of the occupation of Austria in 1955. The
English War Cemetery on Lilienthalstraße is a reminder of this to this
day.
Austria's first district heating plant was built in
Klagenfurt in 1947, the country's first high-rise was built in 1955, and
in 1961 Wiener Gasse, together with Kramergasse, became Austria's first
designated pedestrian zone, which was soon expanded to include Alter
Platz. The botanical garden, founded in 1862, was relocated from
Mießtalerstraße to the former quarry at Kreuzbergl in 1958. The creation
of the cathedral square by demolishing the Jesuit barracks, which had
been damaged in the war, caused controversy in the 1960s.
A focus
of city politics in the post-war period was the reconstruction and
expansion of schools and universities. With the establishment of the
federal high school for Slovenes in Klagenfurt in 1957, one of Austria's
obligations in the 1955 state treaty was fulfilled. In addition, other
educational centers were set up with the aim of offering several
training focuses for schoolchildren in Klagenfurt, including the music
high school in Viktring and the federal school center Mössingerstraße,
which houses an HTL and a high school. The University of Education was
founded in 1970, which later became what is now the University of
Klagenfurt.
Due to the incorporation of four large-scale
neighboring communities (Viktring, Hörtendorf, Wölfnitz and St. Peter am
Bichl with the Ulrichsberg) as well as some areas of neighboring
communities (Ebenthal, Maria Wörth, Poggersdorf, Liebenfels) in the
course of the municipal reform in 1973, the municipal area was again
significantly expanded after 1938, more than doubled, and reached its
current size of 12,030 hectares.
On July 3, 2007, the municipal
council decided to rename the city of Klagenfurt to "Klagenfurt am
Wörthersee", which was confirmed by the Carinthian state parliament. It
was hoped that this would increase the city's marketing value. Critics,
on the other hand, emphasized that Klagenfurt has only been on Lake
Wörthersee since the beginning of the 20th century due to property
purchases and has little in common with Lake Wörthersee in terms of
cultural history.
The Wörthersee stadium was rebuilt between 2006
and 2008 for the 2008 European Football Championship, and three
preliminary round matches took place in the stadium.
In 2015,
Klagenfurt am Wörthersee was awarded the honorary title of "European
City of Reformation" by the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe.
As of January 1, 2023, the city of Klagenfurt am Wörthersee had
104,332 inhabitants. On February 22, 2016, the city recorded 100,000
inhabitants for the first time. The intention of the city of Klagenfurt
to incorporate the immediate neighboring communities of Ebenthal in
Carinthia and Krumpendorf am Wörthersee failed in the past due to
resistance from the local population. The incorporation of at least one
of the two neighboring municipalities suggested by the city of
Klagenfurt would have caused the number of inhabitants in the city of
Klagenfurt am Wörthersee to rise to over 100,000 much earlier.
Around the year 1400, Klagenfurt had around 3000 residents. After the
expansion of the city in the 16th and 17th centuries, there were already
7,500 around 1750 and around 1820 the 10,000-inhabitant mark was
exceeded.
With the formation of political communities in 1850,
today's suburbs came to Klagenfurt, so that the city already had over
15,000 inhabitants at the census of 1869.
In the 20th century,
the incorporation of the communities of Annabichl, St. Peter, St.
Ruprecht and St. Martin as well as the communities of Hörtendorf,
Viktring, Wölfnitz and St. Peter/Bichl resulted in a significant
increase in the urban area and the population of Klagenfurt.
The proportion of foreign nationals in the population of Klagenfurt
was around 10% in 2010, around a third of them (32.8%) were citizens of
the European Union.
13,795 citizens of Klagenfurt were not born
in Austria. This corresponds to a share of 14.8%. The majority of those
born abroad come from the countries of the former Yugoslavia (5,799
people or 6.2% of the total population), the second largest group are
Germans (2,267 people or 2.4%).
According to figures from
Statistics Austria, as of January 1, 2014, 12,013 of the approximately
97,000 residents of Klagenfurt had non-Austrian citizenship
(corresponding to 12.4% of the population of Klagenfurt). 16,056 were
born abroad (corresponding to 16.6% of the population of Klagenfurt).
Due to the fact that nationals were categorized according to their
country of birth, these figures do not include people with a
second-generation migration background (children of foreign parents born
in Austria).
In the 2001 census, 89.4% of the population stated
that German was their everyday language. The second largest language
group was Croatian (3.3%), followed by Slovene (1.9%).
A good two-thirds of the population of Klagenfurt (2001: 68.8%)
profess the Roman Catholic faith. The urban area of Klagenfurt is
assigned to 18 Catholic parishes, 16 of which are combined in the
deanery of Klagenfurt-Stadt, one each in the deanery of Klagenfurt-Land
or Tainach:
Dean's Office of Klagenfurt-City:
Parish Ebental
"Mariahilf" (mostly in the district of Klagenfurt Land)
Parish of
Klagenfurt-Annabichl
Cathedral parish of Klagenfurt-St. Peter and
Paul
Parish of Klagenfurt-Don Bosco
Parish of Klagenfurt-St. egid
Parish of Klagenfurt-St. hemma
Parish of Klagenfurt-St. Jacob on the
street
Parish of Klagenfurt-St. Josef Sieben Hügel
Parish of
Klagenfurt-St. Martin
Parish of Klagenfurt-St. modest
Parish of
Klagenfurt-St. Peter
Parish of Klagenfurt-St. Rupert
Parish of
Klagenfurt-St. Teresa
Parish of Klagenfurt-Welzenegg Sacred Heart of
Jesus
Parish of St. Georgen am Sandhof
Parish of Viktring-Stein
Parish of Wolfnitz
Pastoral center for Slovenes Cyril and Methodius /
Župnija sv. Cirila in Metoda
To the Evangelical Churches A.B. and
H.B. 7.5% of the inhabitants profess it. The two Protestant parishes in
Klagenfurt (Johanneskirche and Christuskirche) belong to the
Superintendency of Carinthia and East Tyrol based in Villach. In
addition, 3.0% of the population profess Islam, 1.5% to the Orthodox
Church and 0.6% each to Jehovah's Witnesses and to the Old Catholic
Church (St. Mark's Church). Other denominations based in Klagenfurt are
the Free Baptist Church, the Pentecostal Church, the Evangelical Church,
the Free Evangelical Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the
Seventh-day Adventists, the New Apostolic Church and the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The only evidence of the former
Jewish community (1934: 269 members, 1951: 9, 1968: 15) today is the
small Israelite cemetery in St. Ruprecht and a commemorative plaque at
Platzgasse 3, on the site of the former prayer house, which was
devastated during the November pogroms of 1938 and later destroyed by
bombs. The few citizens of the Jewish faith still living in Klagenfurt
belong administratively to the religious community of Graz.
16.1%
of the residents of Klagenfurt are not religious.
Statistics: Number of workplaces and employees - resident companies
Klagenfurt is Carinthia's most important business location, because 22%
of Carinthian commercial companies and 20% of Carinthian industrial
companies are located in the provincial capital.
In 2001, 63,618
people were employed in 6,184 companies in Klagenfurt, 33 of which are
large companies with more than 200 employees. The register census of
Statistics Austria from October 31, 2011 shows an increasing number of
workplaces and employees in the city of Klagenfurt. In 2011 there were
8,832 workplaces (companies) and 71,140 employees (including 65,623
dependent employees) in Klagenfurt. 10,495 outbound commuters compared
to 35,654 inbound commuters.
The most important branches of the
city's economy are: the lighting industry, medium-sized commercial and
commercial enterprises and tourism. A number of international companies
have also settled in Klagenfurt, e.g. B. Siemens and Philips, settled.
An important company that has its headquarters in Klagenfurt is the
Kärntner Elektrizitätsgesellschaft AG (Kelag).
A central project
in Carinthia's economic policy has been the Lakeside Science &
Technology Park, which is located right next to the
Alpen-Adria-Universität. This technology park is intended to enable
close cooperation between business and research, which is why a location
in the immediate vicinity of the universities located in Klagenfurt
(university, technical college) was chosen. It aims to establish the
federal state of Carinthia and its capital Klagenfurt as important
locations in the field of so-called cutting-edge technologies.
Klagenfurt is also the location of two well-known beverage producers,
namely the fruit juice manufacturer Pago and the spirits factory Stroh
Austria.
Other important employers in the region are the two
municipal companies Stadtwerke Klagenfurt and Energie Klagenfurt, which,
in addition to supplying energy and water, are also responsible for the
city's municipal bus services. Kostwein Maschinenbau GmbH, based in
Klagenfurt, together with its subsidiaries, achieved sales of 191.5
million euros in 2018 with 1,144 employees worldwide.
Klagenfurt is also the location of several media companies that are primarily known regionally.
The businessman Josef Ignaz von Kleinmayr started printing the
“Weekly Intelligence Journal” (later “Klagenfurter Zeitung”) in 1770.
With the publication of Carinthia from 1811 by the Kleinmayr family, the
oldest scientific journal still in existence today in the
German-speaking world was created. In the 1920s and 1930s, well-known
daily newspapers from Klagenfurt were the “Klagenfurter Zeitung”, the
Christian-social “Klagenfurter Tagblatt” (from 1871), the newspaper
“Freiestimme”, a newspaper with a pan-German tendency, the
social-democratic “Arbeiterwille”, which was published in Graz, and from
1932 the National Socialist propaganda organ “Der Vormarsch”. In the
period after Austria's "annexation" to the German Reich in 1938, the
"Carinthian Grenzruf" was the only newspaper officially authorized in
Carinthia. In the period after the end of the Second World War, the
Allies allowed the Volkszeitung (ÖVP), the Neue Zeit (SPÖ, from 1965 the
Kärntner Tageszeitung [KTZ; discontinued in 2014]) and the Volkswillen
(KPÖ) as daily newspapers in Carinthia. The Kleine Zeitung was founded
in Klagenfurt in 1954. This is today the most widely read newspaper in
Carinthia.
In addition to the Kleine Zeitung, there is also a
regional edition of the Kronenzeitung, the “Kärntner Krone”, as daily
newspapers in Carinthia today (as of 2014). The free weekly newspaper
"Kärntner Woche" has been published since 1996 and has belonged to the
Ring der Regionalmedien Austria since 2009. The Slovenian-language
weekly “Novice” has been published by the Klagenfurt publishing house
SloMedia since 2003. In addition, the magazine "Kärntner Month" is
published monthly in Klagenfurt.
RAVAG (Radio Verkehrs AG) was the first radio station in Austria to
start broadcasting in Vienna in 1924. A transmitter was also set up in
Klagenfurt in 1927. After 1945, Radio Klagenfurt belonged under the
patronage of the "British Information Services" together with the radio
station Radio Graz and a station in Schönbrunn to the station group
Alpenland in the British occupation zone in Austria. First you had to
send from the air raid shelter built in 1942 on the Kreuzbergl, which
later became the Mining Museum. On May 8, 1945 at 7:30 p.m., the “Freie
Landessender Klagenfurt” broadcast for the first time. The capitulation
of the German Reich was announced as the first message from the station.
It was not until 1953 that the operators of the transmitter, who had
previously suffered from nausea and headaches due to insufficient oxygen
supply in the bunker tunnel, were given a new broadcasting center on
Sponheimerstraße. This made the station in Klagenfurt Austria's most
modern radio station at the time. On March 15, 1954, the Alpenland
broadcasting group merged with the Rot-Weiss-Rot broadcasting group and
Radio Vienna to form the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). He
runs a state studio for the state of Carinthia in Klagenfurt. From
there, among other things, the regional program "Radio Kärnten" and the
Slovenian-language "Radio dva" as well as the daily broadcast TV show
Kärnten heute are produced. This will be broadcast in the early evening
program of the ORF 2 station. In addition, the private television
broadcaster KT1 has been represented in Klagenfurt since 1999.
The private broadcaster Radio Agora of the working group open radio in
Klagenfurt primarily serves the Slovene-speaking ethnic group. The
private radio provider Antenne Kärnten is also based in Klagenfurt.
Classic landline telephony and the telephone booths that were very common in the past have been increasingly supplemented or superseded by mobile telephony in Austria over the course of time. In order to correspond to this development and because more and more private commercial buildings and accommodation establishments in particular have started to offer freely accessible W-Lan networks, the Stadtwerke Klagenfurt began in 2018 to open heavily frequented public squares and streets of the city, namely as of 2021 the Neuer Platz, the Alter Platz, the Benediktinerplatz, the Kardinalsplatz, the Heuplatz, the Pfarrplatz, the Bahnhofstraße, the Heiligengeistplatz, the lido Klagenfurt and the Hall enbad Klagenfurt with free WiFi as internet access for mobile devices.
The most important market square in the city is Benediktinerplatz,
which used to be called Herzogplatz. In 1948 it replaced the Alter Platz
as the central marketplace in the city centre. A municipal weekly market
takes place twice a week on this market square, where foodstuffs such as
vegetables, fruit, honey, meat, fish and poultry are offered. Some of
the so-called "standers", as the operators of the market stalls in
Klagenfurt are called, no longer come from the areas around the city of
Klagenfurt as they used to, but nowadays there are also a large number
of international suppliers represented at the Benedictine market, which
shows the supra-regional importance of the Benedictine market that it
has now achieved.
Market law traditionally plays an important
role in Klagenfurt, and this is still expressed today through a large
number of symbols intended to remind of the long tradition of markets in
the city.
For example, there is a copy of the Klagenfurt Freyung
on a lantern column in the middle of the square. This market judge's
sword, originally from the 18th century, is a legal monument that is
considered a symbol of market organization and market freedom. Since
1988, the "Steinerne Fischer" has stood on the edge of the square, the
landmark of the fish market that was held on the Heiligengeistplatz
until 1925.
In addition to the historically important markets,
Klagenfurt, as a modern city, also has shopping centers and malls.
Klagenfurt is a city of supra-regional importance in terms of its
range of shopping facilities. The catchment area of the city goes far
beyond its borders and its surroundings and extends to Italy and
Slovenia.
Popular inner-city shopping streets are
Bahnhofsstrasse, Burggasse and Wiener Gasse, which connects Neuer Platz
with Heuplatz. The City-Arkaden Klagenfurt shopping center has been
located there since 2006 and is operated by the ECE Group. The shopping
center is one of the largest shopping centers in Carinthia with its 120
shops on almost 30,000 square meters of retail space. At the time of its
construction, it was one of the first shopping centers (arcades in the
city center) of its kind in Austria.
The second large shopping
center in Klagenfurt is the Südpark. The shopping center built in 1998
is located near the main train station.
Universities and colleges
There are several universities in Klagenfurt, which are now also increasingly internationally renowned. The Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt with its locations in Universitätsstrasse (university campus in St. Martin), Sterneckstrasse (Villacher suburb), Bahnhofstrasse and Kempfstrasse (inner city) deserves special mention. The University of Klagenfurt is ranked 48th among the best young universities in the world in the THE Young University Rankings 2021. The Carinthia University of Applied Sciences is represented in Primoschgasse with the focus areas "Information Technology and Digital Transformation Management", "Network Technology and Communication" and "MedIT" as well as with a location at the Klagenfurt Clinic. The Carinthian University of Education (Viktor Frankl University) and the Gustav Mahler Private University of Music are also located in Klagenfurt. Thanks to the latter, the federal state of Carinthia has a university educational institution for music and drama. As the seat of two universities, a teacher training college and a branch of a university of applied sciences, Klagenfurt is one of the southernmost German-speaking university locations.
There are a total of 44 general compulsory schools, of which 22 are
elementary schools and 13 middle schools, as well as 9 general secondary
schools.
The respective schools sometimes have different
specializations with different training levels and educational concepts,
such as the Europagymnasium as the second oldest grammar school in
Austria with a focus on European languages, the Bundesrealgymnasium
Klagenfurt-Viktring with a focus on music, the BG/BRG Mössingerstraße,
the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Gymnasium, the BG/BRG for Slovenes (UNESCO project
school), the BG/BRG for professionals in Ferdinand-Jergitsch-Straße, the
BG/BRG Lerchenfeld with a focus on sports. The commercial academies have
two locations in Klagenfurt, namely the commercial academy in Klagenfurt
am Wörthersee (HAK1 International Klagenfurt) in Kumpfgasse with classes
in Slovenian and German. The commercial academy for professionals in
Klagenfurt is also located there. In addition, there has been a
bilingual commercial academy in Klagenfurt since 1990. In addition,
there are two higher technical colleges in Klagenfurt, namely the HTL1
Lastenstraße, founded in 1861, which also has an HTL for working people,
and the HTL Mössingerstraße, which has existed since 1988 and also has
an evening school. The colleges for higher education for economic
professions are also represented with two locations in Klagenfurt,
namely with the HBLA for economic professions, fashion and clothing
technology in Fromillerstraße and the HBLA Pitzelstätten with a focus on
agriculture and food industry in Glantalstraße in the district of
Wölfnitz. In addition, in Klagenfurt there is a federal educational
institution for kindergarten education in Hubertusstrasse. The range of
school locations in Klagenfurt is supplemented by the agricultural
technical school in Ehrental and the technical school for social
professions run by the Carinthian Caritas Association on the Viktringer
Ring. Next to the one in Villach, this school for professions in the
field of healthcare and nursing is the only institution of its kind in
Carinthia.
There is also a Montessori private school and a
Waldorf school in Klagenfurt. In addition to a kindergarten,
after-school care center, elementary school and middle school, the
school center of the Ursuline nuns on Heiligengeistplatz also houses the
Episcopal Real and Upper Secondary School of the Diocese of Gurk.
Klagenfurt does not yet have its own city library. However, there are a number of larger public libraries in Klagenfurt, namely the University Library of Klagenfurt, the Carinthian State Library, which is located in the Carinthian State Museum, the library of the Carinthia Chamber of Labor, the Klagenfurt Diocesan Library and the library of the library and reading association in the Viktring district. In addition, a Slovenian depositary library Slovenska Studijska Knjiznica (Slovene study library) is located at the Mladinski dom (Slovene student dormitory) in the Sankt Peter district in the Mikschallee in Klagenfurt.
In addition, Klagenfurt is considered the political and cultural
center of the Carinthian Slovenes. For this reason, there are a number
of educational institutions in Klagenfurt, which were set up in
Carinthia, among other things, because of the constitutionally granted
rights of this recognized ethnic group in Austria. They increasingly
serve as intercultural meeting places for all citizens living in the
province of Carinthia.
Worth mentioning in this context are the
Federal Gymnasium and Federal Realgymnasium for Slovenes (Zvezna
gimnazija in Zvezna realna gimnazija za Slovence), the bilingual Federal
Commercial Academy, the public bilingual elementary school 24 (Javna
dvojezična ljudska šola 24) in the St. Peter district and two private
kindergartens, namely the private kindergarten Naš otrok, which is
located in the building complex of the Hermagoras Verein in the city
center of Klagenfurt, and the Sonce kindergarten, founded in 1984, in
the St. Peter district (there within the framework of the Mladinski
dom). The Slovenian music school Carinthia (Glasbena šola na Koroškem)
is also located in the Mikschallee in Klagenfurt.
Science and
Research
The most important research facilities in Klagenfurt are
mainly located on a common area, which consists of the university campus
of the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt and the immediately adjacent
Lakeside Science & Technology Park. Among other things, Lakeside Park is
home to Lakeside Labs, a robotics research institute run by Joanneum
Research, Fraunhofer Austria Research GmbH and various industrial
research and development facilities.
Klagenfurt is also the venue for numerous regular trade fairs. 13 trade and public fairs take place in Klagenfurt every year, e.g. B. the "International Wood Fair", the "GAST", the "Agriculture Fair", the "Weidwerk & Fischweid", the "Freizeit", the "Autumn Fair" and the "Family Fair" with the "Healthy Living".
Klinikum Klagenfurt, Feschnigstrasse 11
Elisabethinen General
Public Hospital, Völkermarkter Straße 15–19
Accident Hospital
Klagenfurt, Waidmannsdorferstrasse 35
Private Clinic Maria Hilf
Klagenfurt, Radetzkystrasse 35
Rehabilitation Clinic for Mental
Health and Prevention, Grete-Bittner-Straße 40
Retirement homes and
nursing homes
The city of Klagenfurt operates the retirement homes at
Hülgerthpark for seniors. In addition, Caritas, Diakonie and other
private organizations operate old people's and nursing homes in
Klagenfurt.
The Süd Autobahn A 2 runs past Klagenfurt, which is of great importance for the city, especially as a connection to Vienna and Villach. A large part of the autobahn near Klagenfurt was designed as a tunnel. You can get to Slovenia, which borders to the south, either directly via the Loibl Pass or through the Karawanken Tunnel, which is subject to a toll, with a detour via Villach.
Local public transport in the city area is now only operated with regular buses operated by the Klagenfurt public utility company. From 1891, Klagenfurt also had a tram network with lines to the train station, to Annabichl, to Kreuzbergl and to the lido on Lake Wörthersee; the last tram line was closed in 1963. From August 1944 to April 1963, trolleybuses (“Obus”) also drove to St. Peter, to Kreuzbergl and from the “See” tram stop to Krumpendorf.
The importance of Klagenfurt as a railway hub in southern Austria
lags behind that of Villach. Klagenfurt is on the important
Vienna-Villach route. Other routes go south to Rosenbach (Rosentalbahn),
in the east to the Lavanttal (via Jauntalbahn and Lavanttalbahn) and to
Maribor via Bleiburg on the Drautalbahn.
After completion, the
Koralmbahn will connect Klagenfurt to Graz and further to Vienna. Work
on this high-speed rail connection is currently underway.
There
are the following train stations and stops in the city area, which are
integrated into the network of the S-Bahn Carinthia:
Klagenfurt main
station S-Bahn Carinthia S-Bahn Carinthia
Klagenfurt Annabichl
(Klagenfurt Airport) S-Bahn Carinthia
Klagenfurt through road S-Bahn
Carinthia (planned)
Klagenfurt Ostbahnhof S-Bahn Carinthia
Klagenfurt Ebenthal S-Bahn Carinthia
Klagenfurt Industrial Zone East
S-Bahn Carinthia (planned)
Klagenfurt Lend S-Bahn Carinthia
Klagenfurt West S-Bahn Carinthia
Klagenfurt Viktring S-Bahn Carinthia
(closed)
Klagenfurt South S-Bahn Carinthia
On the Walk (only for pedestrians and cyclists)
Through road (only
for pedestrians and cyclists)
Ebental Street
Egger-Lienz path
airport road
Friedlstrand (only for pedestrians)
Josef Sablatnig
Street
load road
Lastenstraße (west of it; only for pedestrians
and cyclists)
Pichler-Manndorf-Strasse
Pischeldorfer Strasse
Rosentaler Strasse
at St. Jakober Strasse
St. Peter street
St.
Ruprecht Street
Stiftkogelstrasse
Straschitz street
Südring
(Rosentaler Bahn and Koralmbahn)
guard street
A2 at Minimundus
Glan (also for footpaths and cycle paths)
Heinzelstrasse (only for pedestrians)
Villacher Strasse with Lend
Canal
These – usually colloquially referred to as “railway translations” –
are becoming increasingly rare. Preserved to this day:
railway road
tit alley
Moessingerstrasse
midsummer alley
Waidmannsdorfer
Strasse
long-distance buses
There are several long-distance
bus lines that start in Klagenfurt, in order to be able to reach other
major cities. Most long-distance buses, many of which are so-called
stock buses with a toilet and WiFi connection, depart from Klagenfurt
main station, usually several times a day. For example, ÖBB offers the
intercity bus to Graz (journey time around two hours, with a connection
to Venice).
Klagenfurt Airport was opened in 1925 in place of a military airfield built in 1914 and served Austria's first flight connection (Klagenfurt-Vienna-Klagenfurt) at the time. Today, with around 217,000 passengers (as of 2017), it is the smallest of the six commercial airports in Austria. Currently, destinations in Austria and Germany are mainly served, as well as some cities in Europe.
The graphic below shows a comparison between Klagenfurt and the other provincial capitals in Austria in seven categories that can be considered relevant for the protection of the environment. This comparison was carried out in 2020 by the environmental organization Greenpeace.
The seven categories are
Choice of means of transport: Number of
journeys in passenger transport that are made in an environmentally
friendly manner on foot, by bike or with public transport.
Air
quality: exposure to nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter.
Bicycle
traffic: length of the cycle network, number of city bike stations,
number of traffic accidents.
Public transport: price, temporal and
spatial coverage.
Parking space: price for parking, proportion of
short-term parking zones.
Pedestrians: areas of pedestrian zones and
restricted traffic zones, number of traffic accidents.
Car
alternatives: number of electric cars, number of electric charging
stations, number of car-sharing cars.
Average: Sum of the seven
individual scores divided by seven.
Note: The more points a city
achieves, the better it performs in comparison. Graphics are currently
disabled due to a security issue.
District heating
A biomass power plant was built by Stadtwerke
Klagenfurt to supply the city with district heating. The previous
district heating plant (operated with coal or oil) was converted to
operate with gas and will in future only serve to cover peak loads.
In Klagenfurt there are a number of opportunities to pursue a wide variety of sporting activities. There are currently more than 300 active sports clubs in the city (as of 2014). The city is also characterized by a wide range of sports facilities. In addition, Klagenfurt is also a regular venue for various sporting events, some of which are of international importance:
With up to 3000 participants, the Ironman Austria is one of the largest triathlons in Europe (after the Challenge Roth and the Hamburg Triathlon). The Carinthia Runs Half Marathon has been held annually in August since 2002.
At world championship and major series tournaments of the beach volleyball FIVB World Tour in Klagenfurt, the best beach volleyball players in the world regularly competed against each other at the lido in Klagenfurt for a period of 20 years until 2016.
The city of Klagenfurt has been represented by SK Austria Klagenfurt
in the top division since the 2021/22 season. Austria is at home in the
Wörthersee Stadium, which took on its present form when it was built for
the 2008 European Football Championship and was the venue for three
preliminary round games. The old Wörthersee stadium had been at the same
location in the Waidmannsdorf district of Klagenfurt since 1960, but it
was designed as a football and athletics stadium. Until the winter break
of the 2005/06 season, the 2001 ÖFB Cup winner, FC Kärnten (formerly SK
Austria Klagenfurt), was also represented there. From the spring of
2006, FCK had to move to the ASK sports facility in Fischl due to
construction work in Waidmannsdorf. Due to ongoing financial problems,
the club stopped playing in 2009. SAK Klagenfurt (“Slovenski atletski
klub”), which was founded in 1970 as a student football club of the BRG
for Slovenes, is currently playing in the regional league in Carinthia.
More football clubs from Klagenfurt:
Klagenfurt AC
ASK
Klagenfurt
Annabichler SV
SV Donau Klagenfurt – St. Ruprecht
HSV Klagenfurt
ASKÖ Wölfnitz
SV Viktoria Viktring
Klagenfurt also has a very successful ice hockey team, namely the 32-time Austrian ice hockey champion and current record holder in Austria, the EC KAC, which plays its home games at the city's ice sports center.
Several successful billiard clubs are also based in Klagenfurt. The club PBC Eintracht Klagenfurt currently holds the record in Austria with five titles won and produced two international top players with the world champion in billiards Jasmin Ouschan and the world champion in billiards Albin Ouschan Junior. The club 1. PBC Meran Klagenfurt was Austrian champion three times, the club BC Standard Klagenfurt once. These two clubs currently play in the regional league.
Every year in May, the United World Games (UWG) take place in
Klagenfurt, where over 10,000 young athletes can compete in various
disciplines.
The KAC Floorball is a club from Klagenfurt, which
currently plays in the 1st Austrian Floorball Bundesliga.
The two
traditional Carinthian rowing clubs "Albatros" and "Nautilus" have their
respective club houses on the north-east shore of Lake Wörthersee, which
is located in the city of Klagenfurt.
The American football club
Carinthian Black Lions and the basketball club Kelag Wörthersee Piraten
are based in Klagenfurt. Both are currently playing in the highest
Austrian league.
The ice skating club Wörthersee is dedicated to the
sports of figure skating, speed skating and figure skating. However, he
is best known for maintaining the natural ice surfaces of numerous
bodies of water in Carinthia.
In addition to the Slovensko Planinsko
Društvo, a group of nature lovers and the Austrian Alpine Club with a
section in Klagenfurt with just over 15,700 members (as of December 31,
2022) are also represented as so-called Alpine clubs.
HC Kärnten is a
handball club from Klagenfurt that currently plays in the Handball
Bundesliga Austria.
For decades, the city of Klagenfurt has supported
the promotion of so-called mass sport with the regular organization of
the Klagenfurt Sports Days.
Various chess clubs are also based in
Klagenfurt, including SC Die Klagenfurter, Zugzwang Klagenfurt, SK
Woelfnitz, SG Magistrat, Post SV Kärnten and BSG Raiffeisen Klagenfurt.
The public order office in Klagenfurt monitors the so-called stationary traffic and becomes active when committing administrative violations. Employees are allowed to determine the identity of people and also issue penal orders.
At the beginning of St. Ruprechter Strasse is the Carinthia State
Police Headquarters (LPD) and the Klagenfurt City Police Headquarters
(SPK). The State Police Headquarters includes the State Control Center
(LLZ), the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) and the State Office for
the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism (LVT).
The
city police command consists of the city control center (SLS), the
traffic inspection, the so-called police detention center, the
operational criminal service and a police inspection.
There are five
other police stations in Klagenfurt, namely at Landhaushof, on Villacher
Strasse and in the Klagenfurt districts of Viktring, Sankt Peter and
Annabichl (Klagenfurt Airport). The Autobahn Police Inspectorate in
Klagenfurt am Wörthersee is also located there. The Klagenfurt Traffic
Inspectorate is based in Morogasse.
Since 2003 there has also been a
branch office of the Cobra task force in Klagenfurt.
A large building complex between the Stadttheater and Heuplatz
currently houses the Klagenfurt Regional Court.
The Klagenfurt
District Court has been located in a new building on Feldkirchner
Strasse since it was relocated.
The Klagenfurt prison with a capacity
of up to 340 inmates is located on Purtscherstraße. The facility serves
primarily to carry out pre-trial detention, prison sentences and
financial and administrative penalties. The Klagenfurt correctional
facility also has a so-called day-release house for the relaxed prison
regime. There is also a branch of the prison in Sankt Georgen am
Längsee.
The Carinthia military command is located in the FM Hülgerth command
building on Mießtaler Straße. There are also three other barracks in
Klagenfurt. First, the Khevenhüller barracks in the district of Lendorf;
The former SS Junker School is now home to the 25th Jäger Battalion of
the Austrian Armed Forces, making it the only airborne unit in Austria.
Secondly, the command of the 3rd operational supply point and the
workshop company of the 7th staff battalion are located in this barracks
Laudonkaserne in the district of Tessendorf is home to the army armory.
The oldest barracks in Austria, the orphanage barracks in
Deutenhoferstraße, which is now a listed building, was closed in 2009.
The base of a helicopter squadron is also located at Klagenfurt
Airport. Its Alouette III helicopters take on liaison, reconnaissance
and transport flights. The civilian areas of responsibility of the
squadron include operations in the field of mountain rescue and disaster
relief, since these machines are an integral part of the Austrian
emergency doctor helicopter system.
fire and rescue services
Klagenfurt is the seat of the district fire brigade command of the
political districts of Klagenfurt-Stadt and Klagenfurt-Land. In
addition, a professional fire brigade, ten voluntary fire brigades and
four company fire brigades are stationed in Klagenfurt, namely for the
airport in Klagenfurt, for the city theater in Klagenfurt, for the
prison in Klagenfurt and for the clinic in Klagenfurt. The Carinthian
state fire brigade command with a state fire brigade school and the
federal management of the Carinthian mountain rescue service with a
local office are located on Rosenegger Straße. The Austrian Red Cross is
based in Klagenfurt with the regional association as well as a district
office, a blood donation center and the Red Cross Youth.
The city's first two cemeteries were located around the parish church
and near the Church of the Holy Spirit, since numerous victims of the
plague were also buried in the area of the Holy Spirit Square. Both
cemeteries fell victim to urban planning measures over time. There was
also a cemetery behind the Bürgerspitalskirche. After its cessation, the
botanical garden of Klagenfurt was located on this site, later the
lapidarium of the Carinthian state museum. Since 2007 there has been an
administrative building for the Carinthian state government. Another
former city cemetery, which is no longer visible today, was laid out to
the east of Klagenfurt Cathedral.
The oldest still existing
cemetery in Klagenfurt is that in St. Ruprecht. The city's Jewish
cemetery is directly connected to this. The Annabichl Central Cemetery
is the largest of the city's 15 cemeteries today. In addition to the
seven cemeteries managed by the city, Klagenfurt also has Catholic
parish cemeteries and a so-called war cemetery from the British
occupation period:
Annabichl Central Cemetery (Magistrate)
Cemetery Emmersdorf (parish Karnburg)
Grossbuch Cemetery (Tigring
Parish)
Hörtendorf Cemetery (Magistrate)
Cemetery Lendorf (parish
Lendorf)
Cemetery St. Andrä (Magistrate)
Cemetery St. Georgen am
Sandhof (municipal authority)
Cemetery St. Jakob an der Straße
(municipal authority)
Cemetery St. Martin (Parish St. Martin)
St.
Martin am Ponfeld cemetery (Tigring parish)
Cemetery St. Peter
(Magistrate)
Cemetery St. Peter am Bichl (Parish Zweikirchen)
St.
Ruprecht Cemetery (Magistrate)
Cemetery Stein-Viktring (Magistrate)
Commonwealth War Cemetery (English War Cemetery)
Jewish Cemetery in
St. Ruprecht (Magistrate, Graz Jewish Community)
parish square
Heiligengeistplatz
East of the cathedral
South
of the Bürgerspitalkirche
At the Church of the Guardian Angel (north
of St. Veiter Ring)
At Harbach Monastery
Tombs (if not in
cemeteries)
Cathedral (bishop's crypt, canons' crypt)
Elisabethinenkirchen
Holy Spirit Church
Krastowitz / Church of St.
Ulrich / Crypt of the Kaiserstein
Rare home / Crypt of Windischgrätz
Parish Church of St. Egid / Julian Green
Peace Forest
Crossing
Sattnitzbauerstraße / Quellenstraße (urn burial under trees)