Etymology[edit]

See also Other names of Vienna

The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the city's name or
the French Vienne. The etymology of the city's name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some
claim that the name comes from vedunia, meaning "forest stream", which subsequently produced
the Old High German uuenia (wenia in modern writing), the New High German wien and its
dialectal variant wean.[46]
Others believe that the name comes from the Roman settlement name of Celtic
extraction Vindobona, probably meaning "fair village, white settlement" from Celtic roots, vindo-,
meaning "bright" or "fair" – as in the Irish fionn and the Welsh gwyn –, and -bona "village,
settlement".[47] The Celtic word vindos may reflect a widespread prehistorical cult of Vindos, a
Celtic God who survives in Irish Mythology as the warrior and seer Fionn mac Cumhaill. A variant
of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech, Slovak and Polish names of the city
(Vídeň, Viedeň and Wiedeń respectively) and in that of the city's district Wieden.[48]
The name of the city in Hungarian (Bécs), Serbo-Croatian (Beč; Cyrillic: Беч) and Ottoman
Turkish (Beç) has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in
the area.[49] Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic
languages means the Danube River, on which the city stands.

History[edit]
Main articles: History of Vienna and Timeline of Vienna

Early history[edit]

Depiction of Vienna in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

Vienna in 1683

Evidence has been found[by whom?] of continuous habitation in the Vienna area since 500 BC,
when Celts settled the site on the Danube River.[citation needed] In 15 BC the Romans fortified the
frontier city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north.
Close ties with other Celtic peoples continued through the ages. The Irish monk Saint Colman (or
Koloman, Irish Colmán, derived from colm "dove") is buried in Melk Abbey and Saint Fergil (Virgil
the Geometer) served as Bishop of Salzburg for forty years. Irish Benedictines founded twelfth-
century monastic settlements; evidence of these ties persists in the form of Vienna's
great Schottenstift monastery (Scots Abbey), once home to many Irish monks.
Vienna from Belvedere by Bernardo Bellotto, 1758

In 976 Leopold I of Babenberg became count of the Eastern March, a 60-mile district centering

on the Danube on the eastern frontier of Bavaria. This initial district grew into the duchy of
Austria. Each succeeding Babenberg ruler expanded the march east along the Danube,
eventually encompassing Vienna and the lands immediately east. In 1145 Duke Henry II
Jasomirgott moved the Babenberg family residence from Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria to
Vienna. From that time, Vienna remained the center of the Babenberg dynasty. [50]
In 1440 Vienna became the resident city of the Habsburg dynasty. It eventually grew to become
the de facto capital of the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) in 1437 and a cultural centre for arts
and science, music and fine cuisine. Hungary occupied the city between 1485 and 1490.
In the 16th and 17th centuries Christian forces twice stopped Ottoman armies outside Vienna
(see Siege of Vienna, 1529 and Battle of Vienna, 1683). A plague epidemic ravaged Vienna in
1679, killing nearly a third of its population.[51]

Austro-Hungarian Empire and the early 20th century[edit]

Vienna's Ringstraße and the State Opera in around 1870

In 1804, during the Napoleonic Wars, Vienna became the capital of the newly-formed Austrian
Empire. The city continued to play a major role in European and world politics, including hosting
the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Vienna
remained the capital of what became the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city functioned as a
centre of classical music, for which the title of the First Viennese
School (Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven) is sometimes applied.