Linz

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This article is about the city of Linz in Austria. There is another much smaller Linz in Germany: see Linz am Rhein.

Image:Au-map.png Linz is a city and Statutarstadt in northeast Austria, on the Danube river. It is the capital of the state Upper Austria (Oberösterreich). Linz is located at Template:Coor dms. Area ca. 96 km², population of the town is 188,968, of the agglomeration about 271,000 (March 2005).

1 History
2 Economy
3 Sights
4 Culture
5 Colleges and universities
6 Miscellaneous
7 External links

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History

The city was founded by the Romans, who called it Lentia.

The city was most of the times only a provincial and local government city of the Holy Roman Empire and an important waypoint between several trade routes, spanning the river Danube from the west to the east and Czechoslovakia and Poland from north to the Balkans and Italy to the south.

Being the city where the Habsburg Emperor Friedrich III spent his last years, it was for a short period of time the most important city of the empire. It lost its status, however, back to Vienna and Prague, after the death of the emperor in 1493.

Another important milestone of the city was Johannes Kepler, who spent several years of his life as a local mathematician. There he discovered on May 15, 1618 the distance-cubed-over-time-squared (or 'third') law of planetary motion (he first made the discovery on March 8 but rejected the idea for a while). Kepler is the namesake of the local public university, the only one in Austria that embraces the campus system.

Image:Linz Donau.jpg

The third milestone of the city was Anton Bruckner, who spent the years of 1855-1868 working as a local composer and church organist in this city. The local concert hall and a local private music and arts university are named after him.

Near Linz, in the town of Leonding, the parents of Adolf Hitler were buried. Adolf Hitler lived in the area and was enrolled in the same Linz school as the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

During World War II, Linz became a major industrial area, manufacturing chemicals and steel for the Nazi war machine. Many of these factories had been dismantled in the newly acquired Czechoslovakia, and reassembled in Linz. Hitler had far reaching archtectural plans for Linz. It was his favorite city and he wanted to turn it into the cultural centre of the third reich.

The Mauthausen-Gusen camp complex, the last Nazi concentration camp to close, is located mostly around Linz, with the main camp in Mauthausen just 30 kilometres away.

After the war, the river Danube that runs through the eastern most portion of Linz, separating the Urfahr district in the north from the rest of Linz, served as the border between the American and Russian occupation troops.

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Economy

Linz today is still an industrial city. The VOEST ALPINE a large steel mill (Founded as "Hermann Göring Werke" during WWII, famous for the LD- ("Linz-Donawitz") procedure for the production of steel) and the former "Chemie Linz" a chemical group, now split up in several companies, made Linz to one of Austria's most important economical centers. Linz is also home of the famous PEZ dispensers of peppermint candy.

Linz also serves as important transportation hub for the region of both Upper Austria and, to a lesser degree, southern Bohemia. The international airport (LNZ / LOWL) lies about 10 km southwest of the town center. Direct flights include London, Frankfurt, Zurich and Vienna with additional seasonal routes added during summer and winter months. The city lies on Austria's main rail axis, the so-called 'Westbahn', linking Vienna with western Austria, Germany and Switzerland. There is also river transport on the Danube.

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Sights

Image:Linz-Untere Donaulaende.jpg

Image:Brucknerhaus.jpg The main street "Landstrasse" leads from the "Blumauerplatz" to the main square. In the middle of this square the high "Pestsäule" ("plague column", also known as "Dreifaltigkeitssäule" (Dreifaltigkeit = holy trinity) ) was built to remember the people who died in the plague epidemics.

Near the castle, which is located at the same place as the old roman fortress Lentia once was built, being the former seat of Friedrich the III, the oldest Austrian church is located - the Martins church. It was built during the early medieval carolingian times.

Other sights include:

St. Mary's Cathedral (Mariendom), Roman Catholic
Pöstlingberg-Kirche
Brucknerhaus - concert hall named after the composer Anton Bruckner, who was born in "Ansfelden", a small town right next to Linz
Gugl Stadium, home to the LASK (Linzer Athletik Sport Klub), the third-oldest soccer club in Austria

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Culture

Image:LentosNightBlue.jpg

The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Symphony No. 36 (1783) in Linz for a concert to be given there, and the work is today known as the Linz Symphony. The first version of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 1 in C minor is known as the Linz version.

The city is now home to a vibrant music and arts scene that is well-funded by the city and the state of Upper Austria.

Ars Electronica Center on the north bank of the Danube (in the Urfahr district), across from the Hauptplatz (main square), which leads to the historical part of the city (Altstadt), is home to one of the few public 3D CAVEs in Europe (the very first 3D CAVE world-wide that was publicly accessible) and attracts a large gathering of technologically oriented artists every year for the Ars Electronica Festival.

Recently built (2003) was the new modern art gallery called "Lentos". It is situated on the banks of the river Danube. The building can be illuminated in blue, pink, red, and violet at night.

The Brucknerhaus, the most important Linz concert hall, named after Anton Bruckner, is situated just some 200 meters away from the "Lentos". It is home to the "Bruckner Orchester", and is frequently used for concerts, as well as balls and other events.

Between the "Lentos" and the "Brucknerhaus", the "Donaulände", which is also referred to as "Kulturmeile" ("culture mile"), is a park, used mainly by young people to relax and meet in summer. As well as that, it is used for the Ars Electronica Festival and the "Linz Fest".

Along with the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Linz will be the European Capital of Culture in 2009.

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Colleges and universities

At the northern outskirts of Linz, the local public university can be found (The Johannes Kepler University), which hosts law, business, social sciences, engineering, and science faculties and currently has c. 11,000 students. A spinoff of the university as well as a Fachhochschule for different computer-related studies (polytechnic) can be found 20 miles north of linz in the small town of Hagenberg im Mühlkreis. There are also three other universities in Linz:

University of Arts and Industrial Design Linz, public, for arts and industrial design (c. 800 students)
Anton Bruckner Private University for Music, Drama, and Dance, private, for music (c. 800 students)
Catholic-Theological Private University Linz, private, for Catholic theology (c. 400 students), a Papal faculty since 1978

Amongst the many "Gymnasien" (High Schools), there is also the LISA - Linz International School Auhof, which is one of two IB (International Baccalaureate) schools in Austria, and uses English as the main language of instruction.

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