Vienna (/viˈɛnə/ ⓘ vee-EN-ə;[9][10] German: Wien [viːn] ⓘ; Austro-Bavarian: Wean [veɐ̯n]) is the

capital, largest city, and one of nine federal states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's most populous
city and its primate city, with about two million inhabitants[3][11] (2.9 million within the metropolitan
area,[12] nearly one-third of the country's population), and its cultural, economic,
and political center. It is the fifth-largest city proper by population in the European Union and the
largest of all cities on the Danube river by population.
The city lies on the eastern edge of the Vienna Woods (Wienerwald)—the northeasternmost
foothills of the Alps, that separate Vienna from the more western parts of Austria—at the
transition to the Pannonian Basin. It sits on the Danube, and is also traversed by the highly
regulated Wienfluss (Vienna River). Vienna is completely surrounded by Lower Austria, and lies
around 50 km (31 mi) west of Slovakia and its capital Bratislava, 60 km (37 mi) northwest
of Hungary, and 60 km (37 mi) south of Moravia (Czech Republic).

The once Celtic settlement of Vedunia was converted by the Romans into
the castrum and canaba Vindobona (province of Pannonia) in the 1st century, and was elevated
to a municipium with Roman city rights in 212. This was followed by a time in the sphere of
influece of the Lombards and later the Pannonian Avars, when Slavs formed the majority of the
region's population.[a] From the 8th century on, the region was settled by the Baiuvarii. In 976,
the Babenbergs established the Margraviate of Austria. In 1221, Vienna was granted city rights
by Leopold VI. The reign of the Habsburgs started in 1278. In 1558, Vienna became the capital of
the Holy Roman Empire, which it remained until 1806.[b] It was the capital of the Austrian
Empire from 1804 to 1867, and of the Cisleithanian part of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918,
and subsequently became the capital of Austria.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, Vienna was the largest German-speaking city in the world,
and before the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, the city had two million
inhabitants.[13] Today, it is the second-largest German-speaking city after Berlin.[14][15] Vienna is
host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations, OPEC and
the OSCE. In 2001, the city center was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In July 2017
it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger.[16]

Vienna has been called the "City of Music"[17] due to its musical legacy, as many famous classical
musicians such
as Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Mahler, Mozart, Schoenberg, Schubert and Johann
Strauss called Vienna home.[citation needed] It is well known for having played a pivotal role as a leading
European music center, from the age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the
20th century. Vienna is also said to be the "City of Dreams" because it was home to the world's
first psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud.[18] The historic center of Vienna is rich in architectural
ensembles, including Baroque palaces and gardens, and the late-19th-century Ringstraße lined
with grand buildings, monuments and parks.[19]

Etymology
See also: Names of European cities in different languages: U–Z § V
See also: Vindobona
The place is mentioned as Οϋι[υδ]όβονα (Oui[nd]obona) in the 2nd century AD
(Ptolemy, Geography, II, 14, 3) ; Vindobona in the 3rd century (Itinerarium Antonini Augusti 233,
8) ; Vindobona in the 4th century (Tabula Peutingeriana, V, 1) ; Vindomana ab. 400 (Notitia
Dignitatum, 145, 16) ; Vindomina, Vendomina in the 6th century (Jordanes, De origine actibusque
Getarum, 50, 264).

The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian name. The German
name Wien comes from the name of the river Wien, mentioned ad UUeniam in 881 (Wenia- in
modern writing).[20][21][22]
The name of the Roman settlement on the same emplacement is of Celtic extraction Vindobona,
probably meaning "white village, white settlement" from Celtic roots, vindo-, meaning "white" (Old
Irish find "white", Welsh gwyn / gwenn, Old Breton guinn "white, bright" > Breton gwenn "white"),
and -bona "foundation, settlement, village",[23][24] related to Old irish bun "base, foundation" and
Welsh bon, same meaning.[24] The Celtic word vindos may reflect a widespread prehistorical cult
of Vindos, a Celtic deity who survives in Irish mythology as the warrior and seer Fionn mac
Cumhaill.[25][26] A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in
the Czech, Slovak, Polish and Ukrainian names of the city
(Vídeň, Viedeň, Wiedeń and Відень respectively) and in that of the city's district Wieden.[27]

The name of the city in Hungarian (Bécs), Serbo-Croatian (Beč, Беч) and Ottoman
Turkish (‫بچ‬, Beç) has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in
the area.[28] Slovene speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic
languages means the river Danube, on which the city stands.

History
Main article: History of Vienna
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Vienna.

Early history
Evidence has been found of continuous habitation in the Vienna area since 500 BC,
when Celts settled the site on the Danube.[29] In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the frontier city they
called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north.

Overview of the Roman legion settlement Vindobona in the

center of today's Vienna
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.

In 976, Leopold I of Babenberg became count of the Eastern March, a district centered 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, Henry II, Duke of Austria moved
the Babenberg family residence from Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria to Vienna. From that time,
Vienna remained the center of the Babenberg dynasty.[30]

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 center for arts
and science, music and fine cuisine. Hungary occupied the city between 1485 and 1490.
 Depiction of Vienna in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

Vienna in 1683
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Christian forces twice stopped Ottoman armies outside Vienna, in
the 1529 siege of Vienna and the 1683 Battle of Vienna. The Great Plague of Vienna ravaged the
city in 1679, killing nearly a third of its population.[31]

Austrian Empire and the early 20th century

Vienna from Belvedere by Bernardo Bellotto, 1758

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. The city also saw major uprisings against Habsburg rule
in 1848, which were suppressed. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Vienna
remained the capital of what became the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city functioned as a
center of classical music, for which the title of the First Viennese
School (Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven) is sometimes applied.

Vienna's Ringstraße and the State Opera in around 1870

Color lithograph of Vienna, 1900

During the latter half of the 19th century, Vienna developed what had previously been
the bastions and glacis into the Ringstraße, a new boulevard surrounding the historical town and
a major prestige project. Former suburbs were incorporated, and the city of Vienna grew
dramatically. In 1918, after World War I, Vienna became capital of the Republic of German-
Austria, and then in 1919 of the First Republic of Austria.

From the late-19th century to 1938, the city remained a center of high culture and of modernism.
A world capital of music, Vienna played host to composers such
as Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler and Richard Strauss. The city's cultural contributions in the first half
of the 20th century included, among many, the Vienna Secession movement in art, the Second
Viennese School, the architecture of Adolf Loos, the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and
the Vienna Circle.

Red Vienna

The Karl-Marx-Hof remains symbolic for Red Vienna

The city of Vienna became the center of socialist politics from 1919 to 1934, a period sometimes
referred to as "Red Vienna" (Das rote Wien). After a new breed of socialist politicians won the
local elections they engaged in a brief but ambitious municipal experiment.[32] Social democrats
had won an absolute majority in the May 1919 municipal election and ruled the city council with
100 of the 165 seats. Jakob Reumann was appointed by the city council as city mayor.[33] The
theoretical foundations of so called Austromarxism were established by Otto Bauer, Karl Renner,
and Max Adler.[34]

In the Austrian Civil War of 1934 Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss sent the Austrian Armed
Forces to shell civilian housing such as the Karl Marx-Hof occupied by the Republikanischer
Schutzbund (socialist militia).

Anschluss and World War II

Main article: Anschluss

Crowds greet Adolf Hitler as he rides in an open car

through Vienna in March 1938.
In 1938, after a triumphant entry into Austria, the Austrian-born German Chancellor Adolf
Hitler spoke to the Austrian Germans from the balcony of the Neue Burg, a part of the Hofburg at
the Heldenplatz. In the ensuing days the new Nazi authorities oversaw the harassment of
Viennese Jews, the looting of their homes, and their on-going deportation and
murder.[35][36] Between 1938 (after the Anschluss) and the end of the Second World War in 1945,
Vienna lost its status as a capital to Berlin, because Austria ceased to exist and became part
of Nazi Germany.

During the November pogroms on 9 November 1938, 92 synagogues in Vienna were destroyed.
Only the city temple in the 1st district was spared, as the data of all Jews in Vienna were
collected in the adjacent archives. Adolf Eichmann held office in the expropriated Palais
Rothschild and organized the expropriation and persecution of the Jews. Of the almost 200,000
Jews in Vienna, around 120,000 were driven to emigrate and around 65,000 were killed. After the
end of the war, the Jewish population of Vienna was only about 5,000.[37][38][39][40]

Vienna was also the center of the important resistance group around Heinrich Maier, which
provided the Allies with plans for V-1, V-2 rockets, Peenemünde, Tiger tanks, Messerschmitt Bf
109, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet and other aircraft. The information was important to Operation
Crossbow and Operation Hydra, both preliminary missions for Operation Overlord. In addition,
factory locations for war-essential products were communicated as targets for the Allied Air
Force. The group was exposed and most of its members were executed after months of torture
by the Gestapo in Vienna.[41][42][43][44] The group around the later executed Karl Burian even tried to
blow up the Gestapo headquarters in the Hotel Metropole.[45]

On 2 April 1945, the Soviet Red Army launched the Vienna Offensive against the Germans
holding the city and besieged it. British and American air-raids, as well as artillery duels between
the Red Army and the SS and Wehrmacht, crippled infrastructure, such as tram services and
water- and power-distribution, and destroyed or damaged thousands of public and private
buildings. The Red Army was helped by an Austrian resistance group in the German Wehrmacht.
The group tried under the code name Radetzky to prevent the destruction and fighting in the city.
Vienna fell eleven days later.[46] At the end of the war, Austria again became separated from
Germany, and Vienna regained its status as the capital city of the Republic of Austria, but the
Soviet hold on the city remained until 1955,[47][48] when Austria regained full sovereignty.

Four-power Vienna
Further information: Allied-occupied Austria

Occupation zones in Vienna, 1945–55

After the war, Vienna was part of Soviet-occupied Eastern Austria until September 1945. As in
Berlin, Vienna in September 1945 was divided into sectors by the four powers: the US, the UK,
France, and the Soviet Union and supervised by an Allied Commission. The four-power
occupation of Vienna differed in one key respect from that of Berlin: the central area of the city,
known as the first district, constituted an international zone in which the four powers alternated
control on a monthly basis. The control was policed by the four powers on a de facto day-to-day
basis, the famous "four soldiers in a jeep" method.[49] The Berlin Blockade of 1948 raised Western
concerns that the Soviets might repeat the blockade in Vienna. The matter was raised in the
UK House of Commons by MP Anthony Nutting, who asked: "What plans have the Government
for dealing with a similar situation in Vienna? Vienna is in exactly a similar position to Berlin."[50]

There was a lack of airfields in the Western sectors, and authorities drafted contingency plans to
deal with such a blockade. Plans included the laying down of metal landing mats at Schönbrunn.
The Soviets did not blockade the city. The Potsdam Agreement included written rights of land
access to the western sectors, whereas no such written guarantees had covered the western
sectors of Berlin. Also, there was no precipitating event to cause a blockade in Vienna. (In Berlin,
the Western powers had introduced a new currency in early 1948 to economically freeze out the
Soviets.) During the 10 years of the four-power occupation, Vienna became a hotbed for
international espionage between the Western and Eastern blocs. In the wake of the Berlin
Blockade, the Cold War in Vienna took on a different dynamic. While accepting that Germany and
Berlin would be divided, the Soviets had decided against allowing the same state of affairs to
arise in Austria and Vienna. Here, the Soviet forces controlled districts 2, 4, 10, 20, 21, and 22
and all areas incorporated into Vienna in 1938.

Barbed wire fences were installed around the perimeter of West Berlin in 1953, but not in Vienna.
By 1955, the Soviets, by signing the Austrian State Treaty, agreed to relinquish their occupation
zones in Eastern Austria as well as their sector in Vienna. In exchange they required that Austria
declare its permanent neutrality after the allied powers had left the country. Thus they ensured
that Austria would not be a member of NATO and that NATO forces would therefore not have
direct communications between Italy and West Germany.

The atmosphere of four-power Vienna is the background for Graham Greene's screenplay for the
film The Third Man (1949). Later he adapted the screenplay as a novel and published it.
Occupied Vienna is also depicted in the 1991 Philip Kerr novel, A German Requiem.

Austrian State Treaty and afterwards

Graben in 1966
The four-power control of Vienna lasted until the Austrian State Treaty was signed in May 1955.
That year, after years of reconstruction and restoration, the State Opera and the Burgtheater,
both on the Ringstraße, reopened to the public. The Soviet Union signed the State Treaty only
after having been provided with a political guarantee by the federal government to declare
Austria's neutrality after the withdrawal of the allied troops. This law of neutrality, passed in late
October 1955 (and not the State Treaty itself), ensured that modern Austria would align with
neither NATO nor the Soviet bloc, and is considered one of the reasons for Austria's
delayed entry into the European Union in 1995.

In the 1970s, Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky inaugurated the Vienna International Center, a
new area of the city created to host international institutions. Vienna has regained much of its
former international stature by hosting international organizations, such as the United Nations
(United Nations Industrial Development Organization, United Nations Office at Vienna and United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Demographics
Historical population

Year Pop. ±%
1637 60,000 —

1683 90,000 +50.0%

1710 113,800 +26.4%

1754 175,460 +54.2%

1783 247,753 +41.2%

1793 271,800 +9.7%

1830 401,200 +47.6%

1840 469,400 +17.0%

1850 551,300 +17.4%

1857 683,000 +23.9%

1869 900,998 +31.9%

1880 1,162,591 +29.0%

1890 1,430,213 +23.0%

1900 1,769,137 +23.7%

1910 2,083,630 +17.8%

1916 2,239,000 +7.5%

1923 1,918,720 −14.3%

1934 1,935,881 +0.9%

1939 1,770,938 −8.5%

1951 1,616,125 −8.7%

1961 1,627,566 +0.7%

 1971 1,619,885 −0.5%

1981 1,535,145 −5.2%

1990 1,492,636 −2.8%

2000 1,548,537 +3.7%

2005 1,632,569 +5.4%

2010 1,689,995 +3.5%

2015 1,797,337 +6.4%

2020 1,911,728 +6.4%

2023 2,002,821 +4.8%

2023 data[3]

Vienna population pyramid in 2022

Significant foreign resident groups[51]

Population as of
Country of birth
31 December 2022

Serbia 88,715

Turkey 65,650

Germany 60,513

Bosnia and Herzegovina 50,036

Poland 48,741

Syria 40,054
 Romania 39,327

Ukraine 34,285

Afghanistan 25,084

Hungary 24,145

Because of the industrialization and migration from other parts of the Empire, the population of
Vienna increased sharply during its time as the capital of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918). In 1910,
Vienna had more than two million inhabitants, and was the third largest city in Europe after
London and Paris.[52] Around the start of the 20th century, Vienna was the city with the second-
largest Czech population in the world (after Prague).[53] After World War I,
many Czechs and Hungarians returned to their ancestral countries, resulting in a decline in the
Viennese population. After World War II, the Soviets used force to repatriate key workers of
Czech, Slovak and Hungarian origins to return to their ethnic homelands to further the Soviet bloc
economy.[citation needed] The population of Vienna generally stagnated or declined through the
remainder of the 20th century, not demonstrating significant growth again until the census of
2000. In 2020, Vienna's population remained significantly below its reported peak in 1916.

Under the Nazi regime, 65,000 Jews were deported and murdered in concentration camps by
Nazi forces; approximately 130,000 fled.[54]

By 2001, 16% of people living in Austria had nationalities other than Austrian, nearly half of whom
were from former Yugoslavia;[55][56] the next most numerous nationalities in Vienna
were Turks (39,000; 2.5%), Poles (13,600; 0.9%) and Germans (12,700; 0.8%).

As of 2012, an official report from Statistics Austria showed that more than 660,000 (38.8%) of
the Viennese population have full or partial migrant background, mostly from Ex-Yugoslavia,
Turkey, Germany, Poland, Romania and Hungary.[11][57]

From 2005 to 2015 the city's population grew by 10.1%.[58] According to UN-Habitat, Vienna could
be the fastest growing city out of 17 European metropolitan areas until 2025 with an increase of
4.65% of its population, compared to 2010.[59]

Population by migration background[60]

Population 2021

Native born 966,500

Population with 1st gen migration background 663,800

Population with 2nd gen migration background 255,100

Total 1,885,400
Religion
Religion in Vienna (2021)[61]

Unaffiliated (34%)
Catholic Church (32%)
Eastern Orthodoxy (11%)
Islam (15%)
Other (8%)

According to the 2001 census, 49.2% of Viennese were Catholic, while 25.7% were of no religion,
7.8% were Muslim, 6.0% were members of an Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, 4.7%
were Protestant (mostly Lutheran), 0.5% were Jewish and 6.3% were either of other religions or
did not reply. A 2011 report by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis showed the
proportions had changed, with 41.3% Catholic, 31.6% no affiliation, 11.6% Muslim, 8.4% Eastern
Orthodox, 4.2% Protestant, and 2.9% other.[62] One sources estimates that Vienna's Jewish
community is of 8,000 members meanwhile another suggest 15,000.[63][64]

Based on information provided to city officials by various religious organizations about their
membership, Vienna's Statistical Yearbook 2019 reports in 2018 an estimated 610,269 Roman
Catholics, or 32.3% of the population, and 200,000 (10.4%) Muslims, 70,298 (3.7%) Orthodox,
57,502 (3.0%) other Christians, and 9,504 (0.5%) other religions.[65] A study conducted by
the Vienna Institute of Demography estimated the 2018 proportions to be 34% Catholic, 30%
unaffiliated, 15% Muslim, 10% Orthodox, 4% Protestant, and 6% other religions.[66][67]

As of the spring of 2014, Muslims made up 30% of the total proportion of schoolchildren in
Vienna.[68][69]

Vienna is the seat of the Metropolitan Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna, in which is also
vested the exempt Ordinariate for Byzantine-Rite Catholics in Austria;
its Archbishop is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn. Many Catholic Churches in central Vienna
feature performances of religious or other music, including masses sung to classical music and
organ. Some of Vienna's most significant historical buildings are Catholic churches, including
the St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom), Karlskirche, Peterskirche and the Votivkirche. On
the banks of the Danube, there is a Buddhist Peace Pagoda, built in 1983 by the monks and nuns
of Nipponzan Myohoji.

Geography

Satellite image of Vienna by Sentinel-2 in 2018

Vienna is located in northeastern Austria, at the easternmost extension of the Alps in the Vienna
Basin. The earliest settlement, at the location of today's inner city, was south of the meandering
Danube while the city now spans both sides of the river. Elevation ranges from 151 to 542 m (495
to 1,778 ft). The city has a total area of 414.65 square kilometers (160.1 sq mi), making it the
largest city in Austria by area.

Climate
Vienna has a oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), bordering on humid continental
climate (Köppen: Dfb); though in recent decades the urban core has become transitional to humid
subtropical (Köppen: Cfa). The city has warm summers, with periodical precipitations that can
reach its yearly peak in July and August (66.6 and 66.5 mm respectively) and average high
temperatures from June to September of approximately 21 to 27 °C (70 to 81 °F), with a record
maximum exceeding 38 °C (100 °F) and a record low in September of 5.6 °C (42 °F). Winters are
relatively dry and cold with average temperatures at about freezing point. Spring is variable and
autumn cool, with possible snowfalls already in November. Precipitation is generally moderate
throughout the year, averaging around 550 mm (21.7 in) annually, with considerable local
variations, the Vienna Woods region in the west being the wettest part (700 to 800 mm (28 to
31 in) annually) and the flat plains in the east being the driest part (500 to 550 mm (20 to 22 in)
annually). Snow in winter is common, even if not so frequent compared to the Western and
Southern regions of Austria.

hideClimate data for Vienna (Hohe Warte) 1991–2020, extremes 1775–present

Ma Ap Ma No Yea
Month Jan Feb Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Dec
r r y v r

25. 29. 34. 36. 34. 27. 21. 18.

18.7 20.6 39.5 38.4 39.5
Record high °C 5 5 0 5 0 8 7 6
(65. (69. (103 (101 (103
(°F) (77. (85. (93. (97. (93. (82. (71. (65.
7) 1) .1) .1) .1)
9) 1) 2) 7) 2) 0) 1) 5)

10. 17. 20. 25. 21. 14.

Mean daily 3.5 6.5 26.4 26.1 8.8 4.0 15.4
7 2 7 1 1 3
maximum °C (38. (43. (79. (79. (47. (39. (59.
(51. (63. (69. (77. (70. (57.
(°F) 3) 7) 5) 0) 8) 2) 7)
3) 0) 3) 2) 0) 7)

11. 16. 20. 16. 11.

1.1 2.8 6.9 21.9 21.6 6.2 1.8 11.5
Daily mean °C 9 3 0 6 2
(34. (37. (44. (71. (70. (43. (35. (52.
(°F) (53. (61. (68. (61. (52.
0) 0) 4) 4) 9) 2) 2) 7)
4) 3) 0) 9) 2)

10. 14. 12. −0.

−1.3 −0.5 2.6 6.7 15.9 15.6 7.3 3.7 7.2
Mean daily 7 7 0 4
(29. (31. (36. (44. (60. (60. (45. (38. (45.
minimum °C (°F) (51. (58. (53. (31.
7) 1) 7) 1) 6) 1) 1) 7) 0)
3) 5) 6) 3)
 −23. −26. −16 −8. −1. −0. −9. −14 −20 −26.
3.2 6.9 6.5
Record low °C 8 0 .3 1 8 6 1 .3 .7 0
(37. (44. (43.
(°F) (−10 (−14 (2.7 (17. (28. (30. (15. (6.3 (−5. (−14
8) 4) 7)
.8) .8) ) 4) 8) 9) 6) ) 3) .8)

51. 41. 78. 70. 64. 46. 46. 46. 673.

Average precipit 42.1 38.1 77.7 69.1
6 8 9 0 1 9 0 8 1
ation mm (1.6 (1.5 (3.0 (2.7
(2.0 (1.6 (3.1 (2.7 (2.5 (1.8 (1.8 (1.8 (26.
(inches) 6) 0) 6) 2)
3) 5) 1) 6) 2) 5) 1) 4) 50)

10.
5.2 1.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 3.2 50.2
Average snowfall 15.9 13.6 0.0 0.0 8
(2.0 (0.4 (0.0 (0.0 (0.0 (0.2 (1.3 (19.
cm (inches) (6.3) (5.4) (0.0) (0.0) (4.3
) ) ) ) ) ) ) 9)
)

Average
precipitation 8.7 7.1 8.7 6.5 9.4 8.4 8.9 7.9 7.4 7.2 7.6 8.6 96.4
days (≥ 1.0 mm)

Average snowy
11.4 8.8 3.4 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 1.6 6.2 31.8
days (≥ 1.0 cm)

Average relative
57. 51. 54. 54. 58. 66. 74. 76.
humidity (%) (at 73.4 64.9 53.3 52.8 61.5
7 6 6 4 4 2 3 6
14:00)

Mean
104. 155 216 248 260 273. 266. 191 129 67. 57. 2,04
monthly sunshin 70.2
9 .1 .5 .3 .5 6 3 .7 .9 7 1 1.8
e hours

Percent possible 43. 54. 54. 56. 52. 40. 25. 22.
26.4 37.5 58.6 62.1 44.4
sunshine 0 1 4 3 2 0 1 6

Source 1: Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics[70]

Source 2: Meteo Climat (record highs and lows), [71] wien.orf.at[72]

 showClimate data for Vienna (Innere Stadt) 1991–2020, extremes 1961–2020

World heritage in danger

Vienna was moved to the UNESCO world heritage in endangered list in 2017. The main reason
was a planned high-rise development.[74] The city's social democratic party planned construction
of a 6,500 m2 (70,000 sq ft) complex in 2019.[74] The plan includes a 66.3 m (218 ft)-high tower,
which was reduced from 75 m (246 ft) due to opposition.[74] UNESCO believed that the project
"fails to comply fully with previous committee decisions, notably concerning the height of new
constructions, which will impact adversely the outstanding universal value of the site".[74] UNESCO
set the restriction for the height of the construction in the city center to 43 m (141 ft).[74]

The citizens of Vienna also opposed the construction of the complex because they are afraid of
losing UNESCO status and also of encouraging future high-rise development.[74] The city officials
replied that they will convince the WHC to maintain UNESCO world heritage status and said that
no further high-rise developments are being planned.[74]

UNESCO is concerned about the height of high-rise development in Vienna as it can dramatically
influence the visual integrity of the city,[75] specifically the baroque palaces.[75] Visual impact
studies are being done in the Vienna city center to assess the level of visual disturbance to
visitors and how the changes influenced the city's visual integrity.[75]