Other important buildings of the Ringstrasse include the Opera (1861-69), in French early Renaissance style. On the eastern side lies the Town park, rich in monuments. The Inner town and its immediate neighbourhood is still, unlike the older parts of most European towns, the fashionable quarter, containing many of the embassies and legations, the government offices and the principal hotels; it is also the richest in handsome buildings.
Across the Danube canal and between it and the main stream lie Leopoldstadt and Brigittenau, the only districts on the left bank of the canal. The former is the chief commercial quarter and is still inhabited to a great extent by Jews. Around the Ring stretches a girdle of nine inner suburbs once bound to the inner town by a second line of fortifications (1706) known as the Lines. These were rased in 1893 and a second wide boulevard (Giirtelstrasse) follows their course around the city.
Vienna is richly endowed in museums, picture-galleries and other marks of cultural leadership, stored with masterpieces represen tative of all types, masters and periods In addition it possesses many private exhibitions of note. Every form of intellectual de velopment, artistic, musical and scientific in all its branches, has its representative collections supplemented by large libraries be longing to the state, city, private societies or monastic orders. In itself it is a museum of architecture and a city of open spaces and parks, amongst which may be mentioned the Prater (2,000 ac.), a wooded park on the west side of the river between the Danube and the Danube canal.
Situated at an altitude of about 55o it. above sea-level, it has a healthy and agreeable climate. The mean annual temperature is 49.4° F and the range about 40° F. The climate is change able but stimulating, liable to rapid falls of temperature and sudden storms especially in spring and autumn, and the rainfall amounts to 27 in. a year. Its water supply is drawn from the Alps by aqueducts.
Though it has suffered loss both in population and trade by the war Vienna has gathered to itself much of the industrial life of Austria and still holds a high place amongst the world's cities as a producer of artistic fancy goods, notably leather, jewellery, objets d'art, silks, clothing, millinery and other luxury goods. In addition it has manufactures of optical instruments, metal wares, heavy iron and steel machinery and rolling stock, furniture, paper, beer, textiles and chemicals and is an important publishing centre and also has a thriving film industry. As a transit centre it is recovering its old importance. The revival of the Industrial Fair, electrification of the city belt railway, the transformation of palaces, even parts of the Hofburg, into offices, shops and public halls, of old imperial gardens into public parks, schemes of hous ing, these and many other activities for ultimate social welfare are indicative of a progressive spirit somewhat foreign to popular ideas of the Viennese.
The population of Vienna numbered in 1934 1,874,581 inhabi tants on an area of 107 sq.m., compared with the population of 2,031,498 in 1910 and 1,841,326 in 1920. By virtue of its situation the population of Vienna has always been of a very cosmopolitan character with a preponderance of the German element. The break up of the empire caused many of the Hungarians, Czechs and other Slays to leave the city but increased the proportion of Jews, which rose from 9% (1910) to I % in 1923.
See F. Heiderich, Wien als Europiiischer Verkehrsknotenpunkt. "Handelsmuseum" (Vienna, 192o) ; Collection by Vienna University Wien, sein Boden and seine Geschichte (Vienna, 2924) ; and the vol umes of the Heiderich-Festschrift "Zur Geographie des Wiener Beck ens" (Vienna, 1923), which treat of all aspects of the geography of Vienna ; League of Nations, The Financial Reconstruction of Austria (Geneva, 1926). (W. S. L.) Under the name of Vindobona Vienna was a Celtic settlement and later Roman garrison town. The Roman fortress stood on the small eminence bounded N. by the modern Salzgries, E. by the Rotenturmstrasse, S. by the Graben and W. by the Tiefer Graben. Here Marcus Aurelius is supposed to have died (A.D. 18o). During the period of the Great Migrations and the suc ceeding centuries its traces were lost; but tradition ascribes the foundation of the St. Peter's Church to Charlemagne (A.D. 800), the Church of St. Rupprecht being older still. After the estab lishment of the Ostmark (see AUSTRIA) it revived. In 1137 "Wienne" is mentioned as a "civitas." In that year Henry Jasomirgott chose it as capital of the duchy of Austria, establishing his court Am Hof outside the old walls. The cathedral (Stefanskirche) was founded in the same year; a commercial town grew up round it, and a ghetto round the present Judenplatz. Later, under the Babenberger, Vienna became an important trading centre, largely thanks to new relations between East and West established by the Crusades. It was also the centre of a brilliant court life and of an important school of lyric poetry (Walter von der Vogelweide, etc.), while the great epics of the Niebelungen and the Gudrun were composed near its walls. By the end of this period it had grown to about the size of the present Innere Stadt ; many monastic orders were established here, and many churches built ; although owing to the numerous fires and later rebuilding, none of these have kept their original form.