The New Student's Reference Work/Vienna

Vien'na, the capital of the Austrian Empire, is on the Danube River. An arm of the river, called the Danube Canal, passes through the city, and a little stream, the Wien, flows into it and gives its name to the city. Vienna is in a plain, bordered by hills, belonging to the Styrian Alps. There are two parts — the old town, and the suburbs. The streets of the old town, run to a point in the center, like the spokes of a wheel. Between the old town and the suburbs is an open space, from 600 to 1,500 feet wide, turfed, shaded with trees and laid out in walks, which occupies the place of the old wall and fortifications. The suburbs, 36 in number, completely surround the old town and are encircled by a wall 12 feet high, with 13 gates, called the "lines" of Vienna. Another wide boulevard goes around the city, which is 16 miles in circumference. The old town is the most fashionable part of the city, and contains the palaces of the emperor and nobility. The people live in flats, none but the richest nobles occupying a whole house. The apartment houses, called zinspaläste (tenement palaces), are many of them finely adorned with statues and other ornaments, and are quite a feature of Vienna. Other modern buildings are the museums of art and natural history, the palace of justice, the houses of parliament, the new court-theater, and the new opera-house, one of the finest in Europe. The most important of the old buildings is the Cathedral of St. Stephen, one of the finest specimens of Gothic architecture in Europe, with a tower 450 feet high, the catacombs where the emperors are buried and the tombs of Frederick III and Prince Eugene of Savoy. The imperial palace dates from the 13th century, though additions have been made to it at various times. It has a library of 400,000 volumes and fine collections of antiquities and curiosities. The University of Vienna, established in 1365, has 512 teachers and 8,108 students. There also are two theological seminaries, a conservatory of music, a military school, an academy of science and an academy of art. The academy of art, the Belvedere palace and some of the private galleries of the nobles have very fine collections of paintings, antiquities, and armor. The Prater is a great park of 2,000 acres on the east of the city, where the great exhibition of 1873 was held. Vienna has a large grain-trade, and also exports wine, cattle and manufactured goods, such as carriages, iron ware, and cotton and silk goods, rivaling Paris in its leather and fancy goods and being noted all over the world for its meerschaum pipes and bent-wood furniture.

Probably Vienna originally was a Celtic settlement. It was taken by the Romans, called Vindobona, and made a military post. In 180 Marcus Aurelius died there. Attila and his Huns occupied it for a time in the 5th century; the crusades made it prosperous by the large trade they brought to it; and in 1276 it became the capital of the Hapsburgs. It was besieged by the Hungarians in 1477, taken by Matthew Corvinus in 1485, defended bravely against the Turks in 1529, and again in 1683. It was the meeting-place of the congress of Vienna in 1814, where the affairs of Europe were settled after the downfall of Napoleon. Population, 2,030,850.