Melk

Borough

Melk

coat of arms

Austria map

Basic data

Country:

Austria

State :

Lower Austria

Political District :

Melk

License plate :

ME

Surface:

25.75 km²

Coordinates :

48 ° 14 ' N , 15 ° 21' E Coordinates: 48 ° 13 '37 " N , 15 ° 20' 38" E

Height :

213 m above sea level A.

Residents :

5,630 (January 1, 2020)

Population density :

219 inhabitants per km²

Postal code :

3390

Area code :

0 27 52

Community code :

3 15 24

NUTS region

AT121

Address of the
municipal administration:

Rathausplatz 11
3390 Melk

Website:

www.melk.gv.at

politics

Mayor :

Patrick Strobl ( ÖVP )

Municipal Council : ( 2020 )
(29 members)

19th

5

4th

1

19th 5 4th 1

A total of 29 seats

ÖVP : 19
GREEN : 5
SPÖ : 4
FPÖ : 1

Location of Melk in the Melk district

town hall

Source: Municipal data from Statistics Austria

The Lower Austrian town of Melk is located on the right bank of the Danube and is referred to as “the gateway to the Wachau ” when viewed in the direction of flow . Parts of the city, such as the Melk Abbey are part of the UNESCO - World Heritage Wachau. Melk is the district capital of the eponymous district .

geography

Melk Abbey

Church of the Assumption of Mary (Melk)

The town of Melk is located between the small rivers Melk and Pielach, which flow into the Danube from the right, on an oxbow lake. The pen is located on a mountain that drops steeply to the north towards the Danube. The city center stretches down the comparatively flat western slope.

Community structure

The municipality of Melk consists of ten localities or cadastral communities (population in brackets as of January 1, 2020):

Great Priel (62)
Kollapriel (24)
Melk (3916)
Pielach (348)
Pielachberg (446)
Poeverding (115)
Rosenfeld (35)
Schrattenbruck (80)
Spielberg (476) including the Herrenmühle
Winches (128) including new winches

Neighboring communities

Love	Emmersdorf	Schönbühel-Aggsbach
Zelking-Matzleinsdorf		Dunkelsteinerwald (municipality)
	St. Leonhard	Loosdorf , Schollach

climate

Melk has a transitional climate with continental influence from the east and oceanic influence from the west. The annual mean temperature in the 30-year period 1971–2000 is 9.0 ° C, the total annual precipitation is 594.4 mm. Melk is now in one of the driest regions in Austria. While the winters are cloudy, many hours of sunshine are recorded in the summer months. With 53 cm of fresh snow per year, Melk is well below the Austrian average. Every year around 83 frost days and 22 ice days are recorded. Due to the low altitude above sea level , 56 summer days and 11 hot days are reached per year. There are around 19 thunderstorms annually , 18 of which take place from April to September. The monthly mean wind speed fluctuates from 7.6 km / h in September to 13.3 km / h in January and is 10.4 km / h as an annual mean. Days with a wind force of more than 6 Beaufort (39 km / h) are encountered annually 17. Southwest winds dominate at the Melk weather station.

Average monthly temperatures and precipitation for Melk (240 m)

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Max. Temperature ( ° C )	2.2	3.9	9.9	14.5	20.1	22.7	25.1	25.0	20.5	14.0	6.6	3.2	O	14th
Min. Temperature (° C)	-3.3	-3.0	0.9	3.7	8.3	11.5	13.1	13.2	10.2	5.5	1.3	-1.6	O	5
Temperature (° C)	-0.8	0.0	4.7	8.6	13.9	16.9	18.8	18.5	14.5	9.0	3.6	0.6	O	9.1

Precipitation ( mm )	33.6	29.8	39.2	43.2	57.4	73.5	90.1	66.4	44.0	36.4	40.7	40.1	Σ	594.4

Rainy days ( d )	7.8	6.7	7.9	7.6	8.5	10.5	11.4	8.6	7.4	6.2	8.5	9.5	Σ	100.6

T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r

2.2

-3.3

3.9

-3.0

9.9

0.9

14.5

3.7

20.1

8.3

22.7

11.5

25.1

13.1

25.0

13.2

20.5

10.2

14.0

5.5

6.6

1.3

3.2

-1.6

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

N i e d e r s c h l a g	33.6	29.8	39.2	43.2	57.4	73.5	90.1	66.4	44.0	36.4	40.7	40.1
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

Source:

history

In the year 831 Melk is mentioned for the first time as Medilica . The place with the Middle High German name Medelike is also mentioned in the Nibelungenlied . The district of Pielach is mentioned in 823 in the document Confirmatio Ludovici Pii , in which King Ludwig the Pious hands over the place to the diocese of Passau .

Leopold I , enfeoffed in 976 with the area of today's southwest Lower Austria as margrave, made the castle in Melk his residence and his successors furnished it with valuable treasures and relics.

Adalbert the Victorious , Margrave of Austria, resided in the Babenbergerburg Melk, where he died on May 26, 1055. In 1089 Margrave Leopold II handed the castle over to Benedictines from Lambach Abbey . Since then, monks have lived and worked in the Melk Abbey in uninterrupted succession according to the Rule of St. Benedict. A school has been associated with the monastery since the 12th century and valuable manuscripts were collected and made in the library.

Melk received market rights in 1227 . At the time of the Melk Reform in the 15th century, the monastery was the starting point for one of the most important medieval monastery reforms and maintained close ties to the humanists at the University of Vienna .

On December 14, 1805, there was a fire in Melk Abbey . Around two to three hundred Russian prisoners of war died. The memorial on the B1 between Melk and Winden is a reminder of this incident to this day.

In 1898 Melk was promoted to town.

Of 21 April 1944 to the evacuation on April 15, 1945 was on the premises Freiherr von Birago barracks the concentration camp Melk , a satellite camp of Mauthausen concentration camp , where the Steyr Daimler Puch AG Bearings made produce. Around 5,000 people - this number corresponds roughly to the population of Melk itself - perished as a result of forced labor building a tunnel hall during the one year existence of the concentration camp, whose crematorium is now a memorial.

At the end of the 1980s, the Melk local history museum excavated part of a courtyard on the Wachberg with dome ovens and loom weights. With around 40 complete clay pots and just as many loom weights, the Wachberg is now considered to be the most important find in Austria by the Mödling-Zöbing / Jevišovice group with little found .

Population development

Community partnerships

Herrieden in Germany since 1982

politics

The municipal council has 29 members.

With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 1990, the municipal council had the following distribution: 16 ÖVP, 10 SPÖ, 2 Greens and 1 FPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 1995, the municipal council had the following distribution: 14 ÖVP, 11 SPÖ, 3 FPÖ and 1 Greens.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2000, the municipal council had the following distribution: 15 ÖVP, 9 SPÖ, 3 Greens and 2 FPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2005 , the municipal council had the following distribution: 16 ÖVP, 7 SPÖ, 5 Greens and 1 Pro Melk list.
With the municipal elections in Lower Austria in 2010 , the municipal council had the following distribution: 16 ÖVP, 5 SPÖ, 4 Melk citizens' list, 3 Greens and 1 FPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2015 , the municipal council has the following distribution: 17 ÖVP, 5 Greens, 5 SPÖ and 2 FPÖ.

mayor

2004–2018 Thomas Widrich (ÖVP)
since 2018 Patrick Strobl (ÖVP)

Culture and sights

See also: List of listed objects in Melk

Melk Abbey : The most important sight is the baroque Benedictine monastery high above the Danube.

Collegiate church in the monastery

Catholic Church of the Assumption

Evangelical Church of the Redeemer of the Melk- Scheibbs parish .

The Kolomani fountain from 1689 is located on the town hall square in front of the town hall .

The partly historical monumental buildings with the Birago barracks , the episcopal seminary , the Jakob-Prandtauer-Volks-und-Hauptschule , the hospital , the old post office and the old bread shop are remarkable.

The renaissance castle Schallaburg and the castle Artstetten can be found in the vicinity . The famous, 6,500 year old idol with the bird's face is located in the Melk City Museum .

In 2012 it is planned to put the old town as an ensemble under monument protection .

Cultural associations in Melk
Jazz club music Society Singing Club City Chapel	Theater group Association for the promotion of beer culture Folk dance group Culture and museum association Association of Friends of the Melk Festival

Regular events

economy

State Hospital Mostviertel Melk

Melk power plant

The State Hospital Mostviertel Melk , in the east of the city, has around 170 beds. Around 54 million euros were invested in the last renovations and extensions from 2006 to 2012. Among other things, a new four-story wing was built in the west.
The VERBUND Hydro Power AG operates the Danube power plant Melk .

traffic

The city of Melk is located directly on the West Autobahn and the Westbahn . A bridge over the Danube leads to the northern part of the district and the Waldviertel. There are landing stages for Danube cruise ships on the Danube, on the side arm there is the landing stage for the Danube excursion boats, which have the end point of the watch drives here.

education

In Melk there are three kindergartens, a primary school, a polytechnic school, a secondary school and the Melk Abbey High School ; furthermore a special education center, a music school, a community college and a library. The Melker Abbey Library is also of great importance .

Sports

The Finn Jussi Kynsilehto with his Singer Chamois Sport at the Rallycross European Championship round in 1978 on the then Leruring

Motorsport: Wachauring : South of the city and directly above the A1, there is the ÖAMTC - Driving Technology Center Wachauring , where motorsport events are regularly organized. The several years ago on behalf of landlord Franz Wurz from the German Formula 1 - racetracks planners Hermann Tilke completely redesigned Wachauring situated on a plot owned by the Abbey of Melk, the terrain is why popularly known as "pin Wiesn" is called. Here was established in early 1973 by the St. Leonhard builder engineer Herbert Lord within just five weeks Rallycross -distance with the former name Leruring ( Leru stood for the Motorsport Club of the two neighboring communities of St. Le onhard am Forst and Ru precht hofen under called "RAR Team Leru") planned, built and opened with a test race on Easter Sunday, April 22nd, 1973. On May 13, 1973, the first European Rallycross Championship race in motorsport history took place on the track under the leadership of the “RRC 13 Vienna” automobile sports club. Up to and including 2009, a total of 19 European Rallycross races were held on the later Thermoton-Ring , Nordmende-Ring , Rallycross-Ring and, since 1997, Wachauring . The current rallycross organizer of the track is the "Leru Team 2 - Motorsport Club".
Popular sports: In Melk there is an outdoor swimming pool ( Wachau pool ), a tennis hall, soccer fields, tennis courts, a skate rink, an ice rink and a rugby court.
A campsite is located directly on the Danube.
There are numerous hiking trails and cycle paths in the vicinity (such as the Danube cycle path ).
A traditional running event is the Easter run , which is held every year on Easter Monday.
Melk is located on the north-south long-distance hiking trail from Nebelstein to Eibiswald .

sports clubs

Sport Union Melk
Leisure club Melk
Football club SC Melk
Army sports club Melk
Rowing Union Melk
Union Karate Academy Zen Tai Ryu Melk
Spartans Rugby Club Melk
Union tennis club Melk
Carom Billiards Club EMBSC
Ice hockey club Melk
Diving & water sports club Melk
Volleyball club UVF hagebau Schuberth Melk
Friends of nature Melk

Others

Coat of arms and motto of the Nibelungia Melk

In Melk, the K.Ö.St.V. Nibelungia Melk is a member of the Middle Schools Cartel Association .

On February 13, 1993, a serious train accident occurred at Melk station. A freight train and an express train collided head-on, resulting in 3 deaths and around 20 injuries.

The city is repeatedly hit by floods, most recently in 2002 and 2013 .

In the 1980 novel The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco , the main character Adson von Melk tells the story and often mentions the Benedictine monastery of Melk.

Personalities associated with Melk

in chronological order by year of birth

Johannes Gastgeb (≈1485–1542), doctor, dean and rector of the University of Vienna
Maximilian Stadler (1748–1833), prior and composer
Johann Dangl (1870–1944), politician
Franz Hartl (1872–1929), politician and federal railway official
Josef Adlmannseder (1888–1971), politician
Walter Prinzl (1891–1937), artist
Engelbert Dollfuß (1892–1934), politician
Maria Ferschl (1895–1982), writer and hymn poet
Johann Nagl (1905–1988), politician
Johann Navratil (1909–1992), cardiac surgeon
Anneliese Strenger (1913–1984), zoologist, anatomist and university professor
Josef Wiesmayr (1920–1994), politician
Friedrich Scheiner (1923–1985), director of the Horn Federal High School
Karl Kurzbauer (* 1934), politician
Burkhard Ellegast (* 1931), abbot and theologian
Albert Rohan (1936-2019), diplomat
Ingomar Grünauer (* 1938), composer
Helger Hauck (* 1942), physicist
Helmut Pirkner (1943–2012), manager
Herbert J. Wimmer (* 1951), writer
Elfriede Mayrhofer (* 1958), district captain
Hans Schelkshorn (* 1960), philosopher and theologian
Hannes Derfler (* 1963), politician
Otto Lechner (* 1964), musician
Gerhard Karner (* 1967), politician
Hermine Haselböck (* 1967), mezzo-soprano
Ursula Strauss (* 1974), actress
Ilse Kopatz (* 1975), soccer player
Johannes Dürr (* 1987), cross-country skier
Marina Georgieva (* 1997), soccer player