Austria: The Great Spa Towns of Europe

This transnational serial property comprises eleven spa towns, located in seven European countries: Baden bei Wien (Austria); Spa (Belgium); Františkovy Lázně; Karlovy Vary; Mariánské Lázně (Czechia); Vichy (France); Bad Ems; Baden-Baden; Bad Kissingen (Germany); Montecatini Terme (Italy); and City of Bath (United Kingdom). All of these towns developed around natural mineral water springs. They bear witness to the international European spa culture that developed from the early 18th century to the 1930s, leading to the emergence of grand international resorts that impacted urban typology around ensembles of spa buildings such as baths, kurhaus and kursaal (buildings and rooms dedicated to therapy), pump rooms, drinking halls, colonnades and galleries designed to harness the natural mineral water resources and to allow their practical use for bathing and drinking. Related facilities include gardens, assembly rooms, casinos, theatres, hotels and villas, as well as spa-specific support infrastructure. These ensembles are all integrated into an overall urban context that includes a carefully managed recreational and therapeutic environment in a picturesque landscape. Together, these sites embody the significant interchange of human values and developments in medicine, science and balneology.

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Austria: Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps

This serial property of 111 small individual sites encompasses the remains of prehistoric pile-dwelling (or stilt house) settlements in and around the Alps built from around 5000 to 500 B.C. on the edges of lakes, rivers or wetlands. Excavations, only conducted in some of the sites, have yielded evidence that provides insight into life in prehistoric times during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Alpine Europe and the way communities interacted with their environment. Fifty-six of the sites are located in Switzerland. The settlements are a unique group of exceptionally well-preserved and culturally rich archaeological sites, which constitute one of the most important sources for the study of early agrarian societies in the region.

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Austria: Cultural Landscape of "Innsbruck-Nordkette/Karwendel" (tentative)

Innsbruck, which was founded at the junction of several important trade routes, was the residence of dukes, German kings and emperors since the Late Middle Ages who have left their traces in the form of sumptuous buildings.

In the old part, in the arcaded Herzog-Friedrich-StraRe, there is a spectacular balcony with a gilded copper roof built by emperor Maximilian c.1500, the world famous 'Goldene Dachl". He also commissioned the magnificent sculptures called the "Schwarze Mander, or black figures, designed to be his cort(age (28 bronze statues larger than life were competed, the first in 1502, representing ancestors, relatives and political examples to the emperor- they were made after models by such significant contemporary artists as Albrecht DUrer), a never finished feat eventually set up in the Court church (1 553-1563 built to accommodate the tomb) around the empty cenotaph.

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Austria: Classical horsemanship and the High School of the Spanish Riding School Vienna

Classical horsemanship at the Spanish Riding School Vienna is the traditional art and practice of breeding, keeping, training and riding Lipizzaner horses. The School’s various social practices and culturally-shaped rituals and ceremonies are based on the long-lasting relationship between breeders, grooms, craftspeople, riders and horses. Grooms, the foals’ first point of contact, transmit basic knowledge of horse husbandry to cadets. Breeders tend to the horses and pair up stallions and mares to meet the demands of the School. Experienced riders and young cadets are responsible for the colts resulting in a special relationship between rider and horse.

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: National Park "Hohe Tauern" - tentative

 The area of the core zone of the Hohe Tauern National Park is one of Central Europe's last post-glacial primary landscapes within the geologically unique formation of the "Tauernfenster", a huge tectonic window which gives insight to the deepest tectonic layer of the Eastern Alps. Covering an area of about 900 km2 (out of which 15% are glaciated offering a complete -inventory of glacial landscape features) in the border area of the federal provinces of Carinthia, Salzburg and the Tyrol, the whole national park is a vast, on the whole unspoilt natural landscape reaching from an altitude of 1 000m in the valleys to a height of the peaks well over 3000m above sea level including Austria's highest mountain, the Grossglockner (3.798m).

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: Wachau Cultural Landscape

The Wachau is a stretch of the Danube Valley between Melk and Krems, a landscape of high visual quality. It preserves in an intact and visible form many traces - in terms of architecture, (monasteries, castles, ruins), urban design, (towns and villages), and agricultural use, principally for the cultivation of vines - of its evolution since prehistoric times.

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: Semmering Railway

The Semmering Railway, built over 41 km of high mountains between 1848 and 1854, is one of the greatest feats of civil engineering from this pioneering phase of railway building. The high standard of the tunnels, viaducts and other works has ensured the continuous use of the line up to the present day. It runs through a spectacular mountain landscape and there are many fine buildings designed for leisure activities along the way, built when the area was opened up due to the advent of the railway.

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn

From the 18th century to 1918, Schönbrunn was the residence of the Habsburg emperors. It was designed by the architects Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Nicolaus Pacassi and is full of outstanding examples of decorative art. Together with its gardens, the site of the world’s first zoo in 1752, it is a remarkable Baroque ensemble and a perfect example of Gesamtkunstwerk.

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: Historic Centre of Vienna

Vienna developed from early Celtic and Roman settlements into a Medieval and Baroque city, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, as well as the late-19th-century Ringstrasse lined with grand buildings, monuments and parks.

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: Historic Centre of the City of Salzburg

Salzburg has managed to preserve an extraordinarily rich urban fabric, developed over the period from the Middle Ages to the 19th century when it was a city-state ruled by a prince-archbishop. Its Flamboyant Gothic art attracted many craftsmen and artists before the city became even better known through the work of the Italian architects Vincenzo Scamozzi and Santini Solari, to whom the centre of Salzburg owes much of its Baroque appearance. This meeting-point of northern and southern Europe perhaps sparked the genius of Salzburg’s most famous son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose name has been associated with the city ever since.

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: Hallstatt-Dachstein - Salzkammergut Cultural Landscape

Human activity in the magnificent natural landscape of the Salzkammergut began in prehistoric times, with the salt deposits being exploited as early as the 2nd millennium BC. This resource formed the basis of the area’s prosperity up to the middle of the 20th century, a prosperity that is reflected in the fine architecture of the town of Hallstatt.

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: Fertö - Neusiedlersee Cultural Landscape

The Fertö/Neusiedler Lake area has been the meeting place of different cultures for eight millennia. This is graphically demonstrated by its varied landscape, the result of an evolutionary symbiosis between human activity and the physical environment. The remarkable rural architecture of the villages surrounding the lake and several 18th- and 19th-century palaces adds to the area’s considerable cultural interest.

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Austria: City of Graz – Historic Centre and Schloss Eggenberg

The City of Graz – Historic Centre and Schloss Eggenberg bear witness to an exemplary model of the living heritage of a central European urban complex influenced by the secular presence of the Habsburgs and the cultural and artistic role played by the main aristocratic families. They are a harmonious blend of the architectural styles and artistic movements that have succeeded each other from the Middle Ages until the 18th century, from the many neighbouring regions of Central and Mediterranean Europe. They embody a diversified and highly comprehensive ensemble of architectural, decorative and landscape examples of these interchanges of influence. 

Description by UNESCO licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0.