Vienna metropolitan area
The Vienna metropolitan area is the name given to the Austrian capital Vienna and the surrounding area, the so-called closer interlinked area. According to the Eurostat definition of metropolitan areas, the population is 2,853,903 (as of 2019); it is by far the largest agglomeration in Austria , ahead of those around Linz (801,085 inhabitants) and Graz (637,532 inhabitants). A good third of the total population of Austria lives in the conurbation.
Location and development
| Population development | ||
|---|---|---|
| year | Residents | change |
| 2001 | 2,385,383 | |
| 2002 | 2,407,205 | + 0.91% |
| 2003 | 2,433,467 | + 1.09% |
| 2004 | 2,457,381 | + 0.98% |
| 2005 | 2,488,589 | + 1.27% |
| 2006 | 2,517,621 | + 1.17% |
| 2007 | 2,534,333 | + 0.66% |
| 2008 | 2,551,990 | + 0.70% |
| 2009 | 2,568,469 | + 0.65% |
| 2010 | 2,582,872 | + 0.56% |
| 2011 | 2,600,475 | + 0.68% |
| 2012 | 2,620,103 | + 0.75% |
| 2013 | 2,649,427 | + 1.12% |
| 2014 | 2,681,273 | + 1.20% |
| 2015 | 2,720,557 | + 1.47% |
| 2016 | 2,775,368 | + 2.01% |
| 2017 | 2,811,186 | + 1.29% |
| 2018 | 2,838,558 | + 0.97% |
| 2019 | 2,853,903 | + 0.54% |
The agglomeration of Vienna extends beyond the city of Vienna between the Vienna Woods in the west, the city of Korneuburg in the north and the city of Gänserndorf an der Nordbahn in the east. In the south-east it only extends as far as the city of Schwechat , which is directly adjacent to Vienna , in the south, however, to Wiener Neustadt , 50 km away , and connected to Vienna for a long time by the Wiener Neustadt Canal .
The region owes its development into one of the most important and largest conurbations in Central Europe , among other things, to its favorable geographical location in the center of the continent. Trade routes leading from north to south Europe have crossed here for a long time with traffic on the Danube as a west-east connection. In terms of landscape, the agglomeration lies between the northeastern foothills of the Alps in the northwestern area of the Vienna Basin . In the 19th century, a dense, star-shaped railway network and numerous industrial plants were built here. Immigration from all of Central Europe, especially from the rural regions of Bohemia , Moravia and Hungary , which also began in the 19th century , soon extended to settlements outside the city limits of Vienna, but along the new traffic axes.
Since the possession of an automobile was no longer reserved for the rich, the “urban flight” that began in the 1960s has played a decisive role in the densification of the metropolitan area. The demand for building sites for single-family houses that are conveniently located but in a green location caused numerous new settlements to emerge or to grow significantly. Local public transport was also greatly expanded , starting with the opening of the Vienna S-Bahn in 1962 (see: Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region , VOR).
Occasionally, it has a disadvantage that Vienna and the Lower Austrian parts of the metropolitan area are in different federal states. Uniform spatial planning for the entire metropolitan area is therefore often politically unenforceable.
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, traffic and economic relations with Austria's northern and eastern neighbors have grown significantly again. The regional authorities belonging to the Czech Republic , Slovakia , Hungary and Austria in the extended area around and with Vienna and Pressburg , the capital of Slovakia, have merged as the central area of Central Europe to form the Centrope European region. Several other centers or agglomerations of the group of states named in the EU jargon Central and Eastern Europe are also located relatively close to the metropolitan area of Vienna.
Since December 21, 2007, the day the Schengen area was expanded to include the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, it has been possible to cross the state borders of Eastern Austria for the first time since November 1918 without border controls and at any point.
Infrastructure
The Vienna metropolitan area is developed through:
- inner-city transport in Vienna ( underground , tram and bus lines) operated by the city's own Wiener Linien ;
- the tram and bus lines of the local railway Vienna – Baden
- Railway lines of the ÖBB (clockwise): Nordwestbahn , Nordbahn , Laaer Ostbahn , Marchegger Ast der Ostbahn, Pressburger Bahn , Ostbahn , Aspangbahn , Pottendorfer Linie , Südbahn , Westbahn , Franz-Josefs-Bahn - all with dense S-Bahn - and regional trains which is part of the Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region (VOR); long-distance traffic will gradually be bundled in the new Vienna Central Station ;
- Regional bus routes (also in VOR);
- Motorways and expressways: A1 , A2 , A3 , A4 , A5 , A21 , A22 , A23 , S1 , S2 ;
- the Vienna International Airport ;
- Shipping lines on the Danube .
See also
- List of municipalities in the city region of Vienna
- Greater Vienna - Municipality of Vienna at the time of National Socialism
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Population on January 1st by gender and age group . Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat) . Retrieved May 1, 2020.