Bad Hall () is a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

in the

Steyr-Land Bezirk Steyr-Land is a district of the state of Upper Austria in Austria. Municipalities Towns (''Städte'') are indicated in boldface; market towns (''Marktgemeinden'') in ''italics''; suburbs, hamlets and other subdivisions of a municipality ...

district of the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n state of

Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, a ...

. Its name, Bad Hall, means "salt bath," a reference to its long history of baths and spas. It is renowned for its saline springs, strongly impregnated with

iodine Iodine is a chemical element with the symbol I and atomic number 53. The heaviest of the stable halogens, it exists as a semi-lustrous, non-metallic solid at standard conditions that melts to form a deep violet liquid at , and boils to a vi ...

and

bromine Bromine is a chemical element with the symbol Br and atomic number 35. It is the third-lightest element in group 17 of the periodic table (halogens) and is a volatile red-brown liquid at room temperature that evaporates readily to form a simila ...

. Although the springs have been known since the 8th century, Hall has been noted for them only since 1855, when the springs became the property of the government. Due to the saline springs tourism is well developed in Bad Hall. There are also some industrial companies (e.g.

AGRU Kunststofftechnik agru Kunststofftechnik Gesellschaft m.b.H. is a company with global operations in engineering plastics based in Bad Hall, Austria, and was founded in 1948 by Alois Gruber senior. AGRU manufactures and supplies pipeline systems, semi-finished pro ...

) as well as oil exploration around Bad Hall (e.g.

RAG AG RAG Aktiengesellschaft, AG, formerly Ruhrkohle AG, is the largest Germany, German coal mining corporation. The company headquarters are in Essen in the Ruhr area. The company was founded on 27 November 1968, consolidating several coalmining cor ...

Geography

The town is situated in the Traunviertel region, about 30 km south of the Upper Austrian capital

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

History

Bad Hall was first mentioned in the year 777, which makes it one of the first recorded towns in

. In 1287 Hall received the rights of a market community. In 1861 the rural parts of Hall split up. The parts that have been cut off became the municipality

Pfarrkirchen bei Bad Hall Pfarrkirchen bei Bad Hall is a municipality in the district of Steyr-Land in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. Geography Pfarrkirchen lies in the Traunviertel The Traunviertel (literally German for the ''Traun'' quarter or district) is an Aust ...

. In the 19th century people began to use the springs for commercial purposes. In order to avoid confusion in 1877 the name was changed to Bad Hall. At the end of the 19th century Bad Hall experienced a golden age like many spa towns at that time. Famous people like

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...

Adalbert Stifter Adalbert Stifter (; 23 October 1805 – 28 January 1868) was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while ...

Franz Grillparzer Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer (15 January 1791 – 21 January 1872) was an Austrian writer who was considered to be the leading Austrian dramatist of the 19th century. His plays were and are frequently performed at the famous Burgtheater in Vien ...

Franz Joseph I of Austria Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the Grand title of the Emperor of Austria, other states of the Habsburg m ...

were visiting the town at that time. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Bad Hall was a place of refuge for hospitals from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and

, because of increasing bomb attacks on big Austrian cities. In 2001 Bad Hall received the status of a town.

Culture

Theaters

* Stadttheater Bad Hall

Museums

* Forum Hall (Heimatmuseum, Haustürensammlung, Handwerkermuseum)

Architecture

* kath. Stadtpfarrkirche * Landesvilla * Kurpark * Kurhaus * Gästezentrum (Trinkhalle) * Villa Rabl * Marienhof Villa Rabl Rueckseite Bad Hall Kurpark

Population

References

External links

Official Website (German)
Cities and towns in Steyr-Land District {{UpperAustria-geo-stub