Vienna

Vienna is the capital and most populous city of Austria, and also one of the country's nine states. As Austria's primate city, it has just over two million residents, while its wider metropolitan area holds nearly 2.9 million people—about a third of Austria's total population. The city serves as Austria's cultural, economic, and political hub, ranks as the fifth-most-populous city in the European Union, and is the largest city situated along the Danube River.

Geographically, Vienna lies on the eastern edge of the Vienna Woods, the northeasternmost foothills of the Alps that separate it from western Austria, at the transition to the Pannonian Basin. It sits on the Danube and is crossed by the heavily regulated Wienfluss. The city is entirely surrounded by Lower Austria, located about 50 kilometers west of Slovakia and its capital Bratislava, 50 kilometers northwest of Hungary, and 60 kilometers south of Moravia in the Czech Republic.

The Romans founded a military camp called Vindobona here in the 1st century, when the area was part of the province of Pannonia. It was granted Roman city rights in 212. After the Romans left, the region came under the influence of the Lombards and then the Pannonian Avars, with Slavs forming the majority of the population. From the 8th century onward, the Baiuvarii settled the area. In 1155, Vienna became the seat of the Babenberg dynasty, which ruled Austria from 976 to 1246. The city received its city rights in 1221. During the 16th century, the Habsburgs, who succeeded the Babenbergs, made Vienna the seat of the Holy Roman Empire's emperors, a role it held—with a brief interruption—until the empire dissolved in 1806. When the Austrian Empire was formed in 1804, Vienna became its capital, and it remained the capital of all its successor states.

In the modern era, Vienna was among the largest German-speaking cities globally. It held the top spot in the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak of two million inhabitants before Berlin surpassed it early in the 20th century. The city hosts many major international organizations, including the United Nations, OPEC, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Its city centre was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, though it was listed as endangered from July 2017 to July 2026.

Vienna is famous for its rich musical heritage, having been home to many celebrated classical composers, such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Joseph Haydn, Gustav Mahler, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Arnold Schoenberg, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss I, and Johann Strauss II. It was a leading European music centre from the Viennese Classical period through the early 20th century. The city was also the home of the world's first psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. Vienna's historic centre features a wealth of architectural ensembles, including Baroque palaces and gardens, and the late-19th-century Ringstrasse, lined with grand buildings, monuments, and parks.

The name "Vienna" comes from the Romans' Vindobona, which itself borrowed a Celtic toponym meaning either "white place" or "place of Vindos" (a personal name). That name disappeared from records after the 6th century, last appearing in Jordanes's Getica. The German name Wien—of which "Vienna" is a Latinised form—is unrelated; it derives from the River Wien, similar to other Austrian towns named after rivers. It first appears in the Salzburg Annals, noting a battle at a place called Wenia in 881.

This name may ultimately mean "forest river," from the Celtic Vedunia. The Hungarian name Bécs (borrowed into Serbo-Croatian as Beč and into Ottoman Turkish as Beç) probably comes from a word meaning "kiln," possibly dating from a period of temporary Hungarian control in the 10th century. In Romanian, the city is called Viena, but the archaic names Bec and Beciu appear in chronicles; Romanian also has beci, a common noun meaning "cellar," and linguist Dan Alexe suggests both it and the Hungarian-derived names ultimately come from a Turkic Avar word meaning "fortified place" or "treasury."

In Slovene, the city is called Dunaj, which in other Slavic languages refers to the Danube River. In the Bavarian dialect of eastern Austria, the city is called Wean, though this name is hardly used in the local Viennese German dialect anymore.

In the 1st century, the Romans established the military camp of Vindobona in Pannonia on the site of today's Vienna city centre near the Danube, along with an adjoining civilian town, to secure the Empire's borders. Construction of the legionary camp began around AD 97. At its peak, Vindobona had about 15,000 people and was part of a trade and communications network across the Empire. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius may have died here in AD 180 during a campaign against the Marcomanni. After a Germanic invasion in the 2nd century, the city was rebuilt. It served as a seat of Roman government until the 5th century, when the population fled due to the Huns' invasion of Pannonia. The city was then abandoned for several centuries. Evidence of the Romans remains plentiful, including remains of the military camp under the city, fragments of the canal system, and figurines.

Irish Benedictines established monastic settlements in the 12th century; evidence of these connections includes the Schottenstift ("Scots Abbey") in Vienna, originally home to a community of Irish monks. In 976, Leopold I of Babenberg was appointed Margrave of the Eastern March, a frontier district.