Linz, Austria

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 Culture.

Geography

Linz is in the centre of Europe, lying on the Paris– Budapest west–east axis and the Malmö– Trieste north–south axis. The Danube is the main tourism and transport connection that runs through the city.

Approximately 29.27% of the city's wide area is grassland. A further 17.95% are covered with forest. All the rest areas fall on water (6.39%), traffic areas and land.

Districts

Since January 2014 the city has been divided into 16 statistical districts:

Before 2014 Linz was divided into nine districts and 36 statistical quarters. They were:

#Ebelsberg
#Innenstadt: Altstadtviertel, Rathausviertel, Kaplanhofviertel, Neustadtviertel, Volksgartenviertel, Römerberg-Margarethen
#Kleinmünchen: Kleinmünchen, Neue Welt, Scharlinz, Bergern, Neue Heimat, Wegscheid, Schörgenhub
#Lustenau: Makartviertel, Franckviertel, Hafenviertel
#Pöstlingberg: Pöstlingberg, Bachl-Gründberg
#St. Magdalena: St. Magdalena, Katzbach, Elmberg
#St. Peter
#Urfahr: Alt-Urfahr, Heilham, Hartmayrsiedlung, Harbachsiedlung, Karlhofsiedlung, Auberg
#Waldegg: Freinberg, Froschberg, Keferfeld, Bindermichl, Spallerhof, Wankmüllerhofviertel, Andreas-Hofer-Platz-Viertel

History

The city was founded by the Romans, who called it ''Lentia''. The name ''Linz'' was first recorded in AD 799.

It was a provincial and local government city of the Holy Roman Empire, and an important trading point connecting several routes, on either side of the river Danube from the east to the west and Bohemia and Poland from north to the Balkans and Italy to the south. Being the city where the Habsburg Emperor Friedrich III spent his last years, it was, for a short period of time, the most important city in the empire. It lost its status to Vienna and Prague after the death of the Emperor in 1493.

One important inhabitant of the city was the age of discovery-era astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, who spent several years of his life in the city teaching mathematics. He discovered, on 15 May 1618, the distance-cubed-over-time-squared—or "third"— law of planetary motion. The local public university, Johannes Kepler University Linz, is named after him.

Another noted citizen was Anton Bruckner, who spent the years between 1855 and 1868 working as a local composer and organist in the Old Cathedral, Linz. The Brucknerhaus is named after him.

Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn (an Austrian town near the German border) and moved to Linz during his childhood. Hitler spent most of his youth in the Linz area, from 1898 until 1907, when he left for Vienna. The family lived first in the village of Leonding on the outskirts of town, and then on the ''Humboldtstrasse'' in Linz. After elementary education in Leonding, Hitler was enrolled in the '' Realschule'' (secondary or high school), as was the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Notorious Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann