Country guide
Austria is 83,879 km², and its nine states fall into two kinds of trip. Vienna, Lower Austria and Upper Austria lie along the Danube on level, easily crossed gr...
Photograph · C.Stadler/Bwag · CC BY-SA 4.0
Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor
Austria is 83,879 km², and its nine states fall into two kinds of trip. Vienna, Lower Austria and Upper Austria lie along the Danube on level, easily crossed ground, with Vienna alone holding 1,931,593 of the country's roughly nine million people. Tyrol, Salzburg, Vorarlberg and Styria are the Alpine states, entered by valley rather than by plain, and their capitals — Innsbruck, Salzburg, Bregenz, Graz — are each small enough to cross on foot in an afternoon. The distinction decides an itinerary: the Danube cities sit an hour apart by train and the mountain ones do not.
Checked 2026-08-25
Every city catalogued in this country so far, ranked by how much there is to see.
Photograph · Andrzej Otrębski · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.
80 places match
Category
Typical visit duration
Interests
Stephansdom
St. Stephen’s Cathedral is Vienna’s working metropolitan church and the defining landmark of Stephansplatz. Its story reaches back to a foundation in 1137, while Gothic rebuilding began in 1359 under Duke Rudolf IV.
Wiener Staatsoper
The Vienna State Opera was hated when it opened and it killed both its architects.
Riesenrad
Wiener Riesenrad is Vienna’s historic giant wheel at the entrance to the Prater, built in 1897 for Emperor Franz Joseph’s Golden Jubilee. Harry Hitchins and Hubert Cecil Booth designed it, and Walter Basset Bassett built it.
The MuseumsQuartier is one of the largest cultural districts in the world by area, roughly 90,000 square metres, built inside the former imperial court stables, the Hofstallungen, originally constructed in the early eighteenth century under plans associated with Johann Bernhard…
Rathaus
The Rathaus is a Gothic cathedral that turned out to be a town hall, and it is the largest secular building on the Ringstrasse.
Karlskirche is Vienna’s great Baroque church on the south side of Karlsplatz, but its identity is unusually theatrical: a classical portico sits between two monumental spiral-relief columns and two tower pavilions, beneath a 70-metre dome.
Hundertwasserhaus is a private residential complex in Vienna’s 3rd district, Landstraße, at the corner of Kegelgasse and Löwengasse. Friedensreich Hundertwasser created the artistic concept with architect Joseph Krawina, and construction took place from 1983 to 1985.
Musikverein is Vienna’s celebrated concert building on Karlsplatz, opened on 6 January 1870 and designed by Danish architect Theophil Hansen in a neoclassical style inspired by a Greek temple.
The Naschmarkt is Vienna's largest and oldest continuously running market, a roughly 1.5-kilometre strip of stalls running along the covered-over bed of the Wien River between Karlsplatz and Kettenbrückengasse.
Prunksaal der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek
The Austrian National Library's Prunksaal, the State Hall, is the Baroque core of the former imperial court library, built between 1723 and 1726 by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, son of the architect who designed the Karlskirche.
Parlament
The Austrian Parliament Building is Vienna’s working national legislature, designed by Theophil Hansen in a deliberately Greek-inspired style. Construction ran from 1874 to 1883, when classical forms were used to express the building’s association with democratic government.
Secession
Vienna’s Secession Building is the purpose-built headquarters of an artist association that broke from established institutions in 1897. Joseph Maria Olbrich designed the white exhibition hall in 1897–98.
The Sigmund Freud Museum occupies the apartment and consulting rooms at Berggasse 19 in Alsergrund where Sigmund Freud lived and practised from 1891 until June 1938, when he fled Vienna for London after the Nazi annexation of Austria.
Votivkirche
The Votivkirche exists because somebody tried to kill the emperor and failed.
The Donauturm is the tallest structure in Austria, at 252 m, and it was built as a garden show attraction.
The Burgtheater is Austria's national theatre and one of the most important German-language stages in the world.
Kaisergruft
The Imperial Crypt is where the Habsburgs are buried, and it is under an ordinary friary church on a shopping street.
The Graben is a broad, elongated square in the Innere Stadt, and its name — 'ditch' — records what it once was: the moat of the Roman legionary camp of Vindobona, filled in during the Middle Ages and built over.
Heldenplatz is an unfinished square in front of the Hofburg, and it is the most politically loaded piece of ground in Austria.
Café Central is a historic Viennese coffeehouse inside the Palais Ferstel, a Neo-Renaissance building designed by Heinrich von Ferstel. The café opened in 1876 and became one of Vienna’s best-known literary meeting places before the First World War.
Augarten is a public Baroque park in Leopoldstadt, the 2nd district, laid out in its present form in the early 18th century and opened to the public by Emperor Joseph II in 1775 — one of the earliest palace gardens…
Kohlmarkt is a short pedestrian shopping street in Vienna's Innere Stadt, running from the Graben to Michaelerplatz, where it ends directly at the Michaelertor, the domed gate into the Hofburg.
Hofburgkapelle
The Hofburgkapelle, or Court Chapel, stands within Vienna's Hofburg Palace complex. It served as the Habsburg imperial family's place of worship and preserves an important connection between court ceremony, religion, and Viennese history.
The Ankeruhr is Vienna’s Art Nouveau clock on Hoher Markt, built across the gap between two buildings associated with the Anker Insurance company.
Looshaus is Adolf Loos's 1909-1911 commercial and residential building at Michaelerplatz 3, directly opposite the Michaelertor gate of the Hofburg.
Seven to ten days gives Vienna four days and leaves time for Salzburg, Innsbruck, or Graz by rail. Alpine excursions need flexible weather time and should not be treated as guaranteed additions to a tightly timed city route.
Austria follows Schengen entry rules, with document and visa requirements determined by nationality and route. Verify the current position through official Austrian or EU channels before departure.
ÖBB trains and coordinated buses link Vienna with Salzburg, Innsbruck, Graz, and other regions. Drivers need the correct motorway toll product, and some Alpine roads charge separately.
May to June and September suit many city-and-mountain routes, while December is a distinct winter-city period. Lift, pass, and high-road operating dates matter more than a national forecast for Alpine days.
Austria uses the euro (EUR). Cards are useful, but a euro cash reserve can help at smaller establishments; review the amount and currency before approving any terminal conversion.
Austria uses 112 as its general emergency line and 144 for ambulance dispatch. Its 230 V system takes Type C and F plugs. This guide holds no verified tap-water value, so leave that point unresolved until local guidance is checked.
