Linz, Austria

Evergreen city guide with quick facts, travel, business, and culture.

AustriaUpper Austria

Overview

Linz is Upper Austria's capital and the country's third-largest city — a Danube river port that has remade itself into a UNESCO City of Media Arts around the Ars Electronica Center, the Lentos Kunstmuseum and the Anton-Bruckner-anchored Brucknerhaus, all within walking distance of the baroque Hauptplatz and the Pöstlingbergbahn that climbs to the basilica above the city.

Media Arts and Future Tech

Ars Electronica Center, the Deep Space 8K hall and the UNESCO City of Media Arts ecosystem on the Danube.

Classical Music

Brucknerhaus, Anton-Bruckner-Privatuniversität and the annual Brucknerfest with the Donaulände Klangwolke.

Modern Art at the Lentos

Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and Beuys in the translucent waterfront Lentos Kunstmuseum on the southern bank.

Pöstlingbergbahn Adhesion Tramway

City-centre-to-summit ride on one of the steepest non-rack tramways in the world to the basilica panorama.

Tabakfabrik and Creative Industries

Repurposed Peter Behrens steel-and-glass tobacco factory hosting design, tech and music programmes year round.

Linzer Torte and Café Tradition

World's oldest documented cake recipe, served daily at Jindrak and Café Traxlmayr in the central Linz cafés.
Travel Overview

Linz is the capital of Upper Austria and the country's third-largest city — a Danube river port and steel town whose European Capital of Culture year in 2009 and subsequent UNESCO City of Media Arts designation (the first such designation in the German-speaking world) catalysed a deliberate reinvention. The Ars Electronica Center on the north bank and the Lentos Kunstmuseum on the south face one another across the river; the Brucknerhaus concert hall and the Tabakfabrik creative-industries campus give the city year-round musical and contemporary-art rhythms; and the Pöstlingbergbahn — one of the steepest adhesion tramways in the world — climbs from the central Hauptplatz to the pilgrimage basilica above the city. The baroque Hauptplatz with its Trinity Column is one of the largest enclosed squares in central Europe, and the Linzer Torte recipe (the world's oldest documented cake recipe, written down in 1653) anchors the city's pastry tradition.

Discover Linz

The Hauptplatz is one of the largest enclosed market squares in central Europe — 13,000 square metres of baroque burgher houses around the white Pestsäule (the 1723 Trinity Column commemorating the end of the plague). The Altes Rathaus, the Schmidtberger Haus and the Feichtinger Haus with its glockenspiel face one another across the open space, and the narrow lanes north toward the Donaulände open out onto the river.

Diplomatic missions in Linz

20 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.