Eisenerz (; "Iron ore") is a market place and old

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

town in 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

Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...

, . N.W. of

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

by rail. Pop. (2001) 6,400. It is situated in the deep Erzbach Valley, dominated on the east by the

Pfaffenstein The Pfaffenstein, formerly called the ''Jungfernstein'', is a table hill,''"Der Pfaffenst ...

, on the west by the Kaiserschild , and on the south by the

Erzberg , photo=HochtorOedsteinGroup FromS HoherZinken.jpg , photo_caption=Hochtor - Ödstein Group (Gesäuse) (from right to left) as seen from Hoher Zinken in the south , country= Austria , subdivision1_type=States , subdivision1= , parent= Northe ...

. It has a medieval fortified church, a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

edifice founded by

Rudolph of Habsburg Rudolf I (1 May 1218 – 15 July 1291) was the first King of Germany from the House of Habsburg. The first of the count-kings of Germany, he reigned from 1273 until his death. Rudolf's election marked the end of the Great Interregnum which h ...

in the 13th century and rebuilt in the 16th century. At the turn of the past century the ''Erzberg'' (Ore Mountain) furnished such rich ore that it was quarried in the open air like stone, in the summer months. There is documentary evidence of the mines having been worked as far back as the 12th century. They afforded employment to two or three thousand hands in summer and about half as many in winter, and yielded some 800,000 tons of iron per annum. 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 ...

, a subcamp of

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...

was located here. It provided

slave labour Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

for local industry. Eisenerz was connected with the mines by the

Erzberg Railway , photo=HochtorOedsteinGroup FromS HoherZinken.jpg , photo_caption=Hochtor - Ödstein Group (Gesäuse) (from right to left) as seen from Hoher Zinken in the south , country= Austria , subdivision1_type=States , subdivision1= , parent= Northe ...

, a bold piece of engineering work, long, constructed on the Abt's rack-and-pinion system. It passed through the pastoral scenery, before descending to

Vordernberg Vordernberg is a municipality in the district of Leoben in the Austrian state of Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , S ...

, a center of the iron trade situated on the south side of the Erzberg. Eisenerz then possessed, in addition, twenty-five furnaces, which produce iron, and particularly steel, of high quality. Today the Erzberg is home to motocross races, called the

Erzberg Rodeo The Erzberg Rodeo is an Austrian motorcycle enduro event started in 1995 and held annually in May or June, run on ore. It is the largest of its kind in Europe. The Erzberg Rodeo is part of the Red Bull Hard Enduro Series, together with Re ...

. Eisenerz is also the home of the independent record label

Napalm Records Napalm Records is an Austrian independent record label focused on heavy metal and hard rock. Originally, Napalm focused on black metal bands, such as Abigor and Summoning, and folk metal bands, such as Falkenbach and Vintersorg. The label later ...

, which is mainly focused on heavy metal and

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

. While founded in 1992 in Eisenerz, the company has since become a prominent label in the metal scene, and today operates branch offices in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. A few miles northwest of Eisenerz stands Leopoldstein Castle, and near it Leopoldstein Lake. This lake, with its dark green water at an elevation of , and surrounded on all sides by high peaks, is not large and has a depth of .

History

In Eisenerz, copper smelting was a major activity from the 15th century to the 13th century BC.E. Aidona et al. (2006) Spatial distribution of archaeomagnetic vectors within archaeological samples from Eisenerz (Austria), Geophysical Journal International 166:1, pp. 45-5
Geophysical Journal International
/ref>

Population

References

* Cities and towns in Leoben District {{Styria-geo-stub