A photograph of Vienna

City guide · Austria

Theme: History, Up to 1 hour in Vienna, Austria — page 4

Vienna is 414.78 km² holding 2,028,499 people, and almost everything a visitor comes for sits inside a single ring road less than a kilometre across. The Inner...

Photograph · Andrzej Otrębski · CC BY-SA 4.0

5,640 Places
23 Districts
Suggested stay
3–4 days
Getting around
U-Bahn and tram

Turn this list into a plan

Set your days, your pace and the hours you actually want to be out. The planner works around closing days and travel time, and leaves room to eat.

Plan Vienna

Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor

Vienna is 414.78 km² holding 2,028,499 people, and almost everything a visitor comes for sits inside a single ring road less than a kilometre across.

The Innere Stadt — the 1st district — is the medieval core, and the Ringstrasse that surrounds it was built in the second half of the nineteenth century on the line of the demolished bastions. The 371-hectare historic centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001; it was on the endangered list from 2017 to 2026.

The wider urban area holds 2,223,236 people and the metropolitan area 2,890,577, which makes Vienna the tenth largest city in Europe and by a long way the largest in Austria.

Checked 2026-08-23

Practical information

Language spoken
German
German is Austria's official language; Croatian, Slovenian and Hungarian also have official status in some regions
Dialling code
+43 1
Vienna landlines; drop the leading 0 of 01 when calling from abroad
Currency
Euro (€, EUR)
Austria introduced euro banknotes and coins in 2002
Emergency number
112
One number across the country; 144 reaches an ambulance directly
Plug type
Not recorded
No verified national official source was found
Tap water
Safe to drink
Austria's national tourism authority states that tap water is drinkable in every region

Planning a visit

September · September in Vienna has mean high 20.3°C, mean low 11.7°C, rainfall 53.5 mm, 7.0 rain days. Comfortable daytime temperatures support Vienna's parks, boulevards, and outdoor café culture. September supports a full day of outdoor stops in Vienna.

  1. January: viable with meaningful trade-offs
  2. February: viable with meaningful trade-offs
  3. March: good time to visit
  4. April: good time to visit
  5. May: best time to visit
  6. June: best time to visit
  7. July: good time to visit
  8. August: good time to visit
  9. September: best time to visit — current month
  10. October: good time to visit
  11. November: viable with meaningful trade-offs
  12. December: viable with meaningful trade-offs

Sources

Top things to see

Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.

  1. Pestsäule Pestsäule
    57 10 min

    Pestsäule

    The Pestsäule is a promise made by an emperor who had left town.

    • High
    • Historic monument
    • Innere Stadt
  2. Stephansplatz Stephansplatz
    58 20 min

    Stephansplatz

    Stephansplatz is the square at the geographic and historic centre of Vienna, formed around St. Stephen's Cathedral and taking its name directly from it.

    • High
    • Historic monument
    • Innere Stadt
  3. Stadttempel Stadttempel
    59 45 min

    Stadttempel

    The Stadttempel is Vienna's main synagogue, and it survived 1938 because it is hidden.

    • Notable
    • Place of worship
    • Innere Stadt
  4. Architekturzentrum Wien Architekturzentrum Wien
    60 1 hour

    Architekturzentrum Wien

    The Architekturzentrum Wien, usually shortened to Az W, is Austria's centre for the exhibition and documentation of architecture, inside the MuseumsQuartier in the 7th district.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Neubau
  5. Schloss Wilhelminenberg Schloss Wilhelminenberg
    61 45 min

    Schloss Wilhelminenberg

    Schloss Wilhelminenberg sits on a wooded hill above Ottakring, Vienna's 16th district, built in the 1730s for Field Marshal Guido Starhemberg and later named for Archduchess Wilhelmine, who owned it in the nineteenth century.

    • Notable
    • Historic monument
    • Ottakring
  6. Palais Schwarzenberg Palais Schwarzenberg
    62 15 min

    Palais Schwarzenberg

    Palais Schwarzenberg is a Baroque garden palace at the edge of the Belvedere district, begun for Count Heinrich Franz von Mansfeld-Fondi and continued after his death by the Schwarzenberg family, who gave it its present name.

    • Notable
    • Historic monument
    • Landstraße
  7. Vienna Künstlerhaus Vienna Künstlerhaus
    63 1 hour

    Vienna Künstlerhaus

    Künstlerhaus Wien

    The Kunstlerhaus is Vienna's oldest surviving purpose-built exhibition hall for the fine arts, standing on Karlsplatz next to the Musikverein.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Innere Stadt
  8. Winter Palace of Prince Eugene Winter Palace of Prince Eugene
    64 1 hour

    Winter Palace of Prince Eugene

    Winterpalais

    The Winter Palace of Prince Eugene (Winterpalais des Prinzen Eugen) is a Baroque town palace at Himmelpfortgasse 8 in Vienna's first district, built between 1695 and 1724 as the city residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Habsburg field marshal…

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Innere Stadt
  9. Schottenstift Schottenstift
    65 1 hour

    Schottenstift

    Schottenstift is a working Benedictine abbey on Freyung square in the Innere Stadt, founded in 1155 by Duke Henry II Jasomirgott.

    • Notable
    • Historic monument
    • Innere Stadt
  10. Hermesvilla Hermesvilla
    66 1 hour

    Hermesvilla

    Hermesvilla is a villa built 1882-1886 inside the Lainzer Tiergarten, the walled game reserve on Vienna's western edge, commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph I as a retreat for Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi").

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Hietzing
  11. Palais Kinsky Palais Kinsky
    67 30 min

    Palais Kinsky

    Palais Kinsky is a Baroque palace at Freyung 4 in Vienna's first district, built between 1713 and 1716 by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt for Count Philipp Vinzenz Daun, a Habsburg field marshal, and later passed by marriage to the Kinsky…

    • Notable
    • Historic monument
    • Innere Stadt
  12. Palais Todesco Palais Todesco
    68 15 min

    Palais Todesco

    Palais Todesco is a Ringstrasse-era palace facing the Vienna State Opera across Kärntner Straße, built between 1861 and 1864 by Ludwig Förster and Theophil Hansen for the brothers Eduard and Hermann Todesco, Jewish bankers ennobled by Franz Joseph I as…

    • Notable
    • Historic monument
    • Innere Stadt
  13. Strudlhofstiege Strudlhofstiege
    69 10 min

    Strudlhofstiege

    The Strudlhofstiege is a public outdoor Art Nouveau stairway in Alsergrund, connecting the upper street Strudlhofgasse to the lower Liechtensteinstrasse across a steep slope.

    • Notable
    • Historic monument
    • Alsergrund
  14. Hofburg Palace Hofburg Palace
    70 20 min

    Hofburg Palace

    Schweizertor

    The Hofburg is not a palace but a district of palaces, and the Austrian president works in it.

    • Notable
    • Historic monument
    • Innere Stadt
  15. Wasserturm Wasserturm
    73 45 min

    Wasserturm

    Wasserturm Favoriten

    • High
    • Historic monument
    • Favoriten
  16. Palais Schönburg Palais Schönburg
    77 45 min

    Palais Schönburg

    Palais Starhemberg-Schönburg

    • High
    • Historic monument
    • Wieden
  17. Schloss Essling Schloss Essling
    78 45 min

    Schloss Essling

    Schloss Eßling

    • High
    • Historic monument
    • Donaustadt
  18. St. Anne's Church St. Anne's Church
    79 30 min

    St. Anne's Church

    Klosterkirche hl. Anna

    • High
    • Place of worship
    • Innere Stadt

Source: OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata ·

Where to base yourself

District boundaries come from OSM administrative relations, so a district page holds exactly the places inside it — plus, for the islands and the coast, the nearest district by proximity.

How the city is laid out

Twenty-three districts, numbered roughly in the order they were absorbed, arranged around the 1st.

The Innere Stadt is the 1st and holds the cathedral, the Hofburg, the opera and most of what a short visit will see. Districts 2 to 9 and 20 were incorporated in 1850 and lie inside the Gürtel, the outer ring road; they are the inner districts and are where most visitors sleep and eat. Districts 10 to 19 and 21 to 23 came in between 1874 and 1938, mostly in 1892.

Districts 21 and 22 are across the Danube on the left bank — Floridsdorf is the northernmost part of the city and Donaustadt the largest by area. Districts 2 and 20 sit on the island between the Danube and the Donaukanal.

The postal code gives the district: 1XXA, where the middle two digits are the district number. An address at 1070 is in the 7th.

Checked 2026-08-23

Getting around

The U-Bahn, the trams, and a ticket that covers both.

The U-Bahn has five lines, 109 stations and 83.9 km of track, and it opened on 25 February 1978. It carried 404.8 million passengers in 2023. Trains run from about 05:00 to 01:00 at intervals of two to fifteen minutes, and run all night at fifteen-minute intervals on Friday and Saturday nights and before public holidays.

A sixth line, the U5, is under construction for completion between 2026 and 2032; the network will then be 90 km with 116 stations.

Tickets are integrated with the trams, the buses and the S-Bahn through the VOR system, so one ticket covers the whole journey. Some airport services are outside it.

Inside the Ring, walking beats all of it.

Checked 2026-08-23

More city guides

Common questions

How many days does Vienna need?

Three to four. Two days cover the Innere Stadt and the Ring — the cathedral, the Hofburg, the opera, the museums on the Maria-Theresien-Platz. A third takes Schönbrunn and the Belvedere, and a fourth allows a proper concert or an afternoon in the wine villages.

How do the districts work?

Twenty-three of them, numbered roughly in the order they joined the city. The 1st is the medieval centre, districts 2–9 and 20 came in 1850 and lie inside the Gürtel, and the rest arrived between 1874 and 1938. The postal code carries the number: 1070 is the 7th district.

What is the Ringstrasse?

The boulevard built in the second half of the nineteenth century on the line of the demolished city bastions, encircling the Innere Stadt. Most of Vienna's great public buildings face onto it.

Is the U-Bahn the best way around?

For anything beyond the Ring, yes. Five lines, 109 stations, 83.9 km, running from about 05:00 to 01:00 and all night at weekends. Inside the Ring, walking is faster.

When is the best time to come?

April to June and September to October. Summer afternoons reach 27–32°C and the palace gardens have little shade; winter hovers around freezing but brings the concert season and the Christmas markets.

How big is Vienna really?

414.78 km² with 2,028,499 people in the city proper, 2,223,236 in the urban area and 2,890,577 in the metropolitan area — the tenth largest city in Europe.