Information - Vienna
Vienna (Wien), capital of the Republic of Austria, lies at the foot of the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods), the north-easternly foothills of the Alps. On the banks of the Danube, which here emerges, the city spreads into the Viennese Basin. Some 50 km/30 miles downstreams the Danube enters Slovakia at Bratislava. Situated at the intersection of the old traffic routes from the Baltic to the Adriatic and from the Alpine Foreland to the Hungarian Plain made Vienna the gateway for trade between the different provinces which meet here and the natural nucleus of the Habsburg Empire with its far-ranging territories, extending from the Alps and the Bohemian Forest by way of the Danube Valley to the Carpathians.
Although Vienna is the smallest in area of the Austrian provinces it is the most densely populated and the most heavily industrialised. Thus it is in spite of its peripheral location in present-day Austria, very much the metropolis and the political, economic, intellectual and cultural hub of the Republic. It is also seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop and the headquarters of a number of international organisations, such as the United Nations.
In recent years Vienna has played some important part as a mediator between east and west, and has been the venue of many top-level international meetings and countless conferences and congresses, while continuing to attract lots of visitors throughout the year with its great tourist sights and its busy programs of entertainment and events. Beeing one of the world's great tourist cities of unmistakably cosmopolitan atmoshpere, it still retains a distinctive charm and a native flair of which - no less than the notable elegance of Viennese women - every visitor is at once aware.
