Orientation in Vienna
1., An old street sign with abbreviated district name "Innere Stadt", which is the 1st district.
Addresses in this article are written with the district number preceding the street name, the same as street signs in Vienna. So 9., Badgasse 26 is Badgasse #26 in the 9th district. Hence you can also always tell what district you are in by the first number on street signs. Districts can also be made into a postal code by substituting the XX in A-1XX0 Vienna (0X for districts below 10), for instance A-1090 Vienna for the 9th district and A-1200 the 20th, and are sometimes referred to as such.
Common points of reference are often used in Vienna in addition to districts, most noteablly public transportation stops. Reference to U1/U4 Schwedeplatz or Schwedenplatz (U1, U4) means that something is near to the Schwedenplatz stop on the underground lines 1 and 4. Normally if the place is not directly at the subway stop you can ask around and find it easily.
The Vienna Tourist Board operates information and booking booths at the airport Arrival Hall, 7AM-11PM and in the center at 1., Albertinaplatz/Maysedergasse. Information and free maps are also avialible from the ÖBB InfoPoints and offices at train stations.
Vienna has 23 districts or wards know singularly as Bezirk in Austrian German. These function subordinatly to the city as decentralized adminstrative branches of the commune, as well as making local decisions. They vary immensely in size and each has its own flair.
- Innere Stadt (1st District)
- Leopoldstadt (2nd District)
- Landstraße (3rd District)
- Wieden (4th District)
- Margareten (5th District)
- Mariahilf (6th District)
- Neubau (7th District)
- Josefstadt (8th District)
- Alsergrund (9th District)
- Favoriten (10th District)
- Simmering (11th District)
- Meidling (12th District)
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- Hietzing (13th District)
- Penzing (14th District)
- Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus (15th District)
- Ottakring (16th District)
- Hernals (17th District)
- Währing (18th District)
- Döbling (19th District)
- Brigittenau (20th District)
- Floridsdorf (21st District)
- Donaustadt (22nd District)
- Liesing (23rd District)
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The city has a very centralized layout radiating from the historic first district, or Inner-City with the Stephansdom and Stephansplatz at the centre of a bullseye. It is encircled by the Ringstraße (Ring Road), a grand boulevard constructed along the old city walls, which were torn down at the end of the 19th century. Along the Ringstraße are many famous and grand buildings, including the Rathaus [City Hall], the Austrian Parliament, the Hofburg Palace, the Natural History Museum, the Museum of Art History (Kunsthistorisches Museum), and the State Opera House.
2., Leopoldstadt's Prater boasts the
Riesenrad
Districts 2-9 are considered the core districts and are gathered within the Gürtel (Belt Road), which encircles the core districts as an outer ring concentric to the Ring around the first district, with the noteable exception of Leopoldstart (District 2).
Leopoldstadt (the 2nd District) is the southern half of the island that is formed between the Danube and the Danube Canal. It streches from the more wild forests of the Prater in the south up through the point where the Prater becomes a more formal park and amusement park where the transportation hub Praterstern is located. Going onward to the North are several neighborhoods from the Gründerzeit with dense housing including impressive Neo-Baroque buildings. Towards the north of the district along the Danube Canal across from Schwedenplatz is the Karmeliterviertel (Karmeliter Quarter) which was once a Jewish ghetto and today is the hub of Jewish life in Vienna. This area is indeed quite diverse across the board and is becomming gentrified. At the edge of that area is the Augarten. The area past that has been hand-picked for an intense development project that will turn several former freight yards into entire new neighborhoods. Along the Danube are numerous massive housing projects from the twenties onward.
Landstraße (District 3) is a rather large district to the southeast of the center separated more or less by the Wien River (which is partially underground and otherwise chanellized. Streching from the station Wien Mitte and the surrounding business and financial district where the lively Landerstraßer Haupstraße shopping street begins, over quiet residential areas where the Hundertwasser Haus is located, all the way to the industrial hinterlands and the bus station at Erdberg in southeast, through neighborhoods countaining examples of public housing like the Rabenhof and many embassies to the Belvedere Palace and the Soviet Memorial at Schwarzenbergplatz.
6., Mariahilf's Rooflines
Wieden (District 4) and Margareten (District 5) run from the area around the Opera south to where a the gigantic new central station is being built, with energetic pockets of businesses and squares to be discovered from the University of Technology to artsy galleries to a cluster of hair-cutting salons to even Vienna's miniture version of a Chinatown. These districts are bordered by the Wien River to the north.
Mariahilf (Distric 6) contrasts between the more raw areas around the Wien River where the Naschmarkt is. The district covers neighborhoods of bars and other popular bohemian and queer haunts along the Gumpfendorfer Straße, and it borders Neubau along Vienna's most popular shopping street the Mariahilferstraße up the the hill from the Gumpfendorfer Straße.
22., Transdanubian: U.N. Headquarters in Donaustadt
Neubau (District 7) starts with the aclaimed MuseumsQuartier next to the center and spreads across popular hip areas to the Westbahnhof (Western Railway Station).
Josefstadt (District 8) is the smallest district. Alsergrund (District 9) is known to be more affluent and also includes much of the University of Vienna several cozy business districts.
The outer 14 districts are largely less urban but are equally as diverse streching from Floridsdorf (21st District) which radiates from its own town center in the northeast on the eastern bank of the Danube and Donaustadt (22nd District) which includes a mix of farms, suburbia, soviet-style housing blocks, villages, the United Nations Headquarters and the Donauturm (Danube Tower) and includes the largest development project in Central Europe at Aspern, through tarditional worker-oriented districts like Simmering (11th District) and Favoriten (10th District) in the south to more mixed urban areas with much immigrant culture like Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus (15th District) and Ottakring (16th District) in the West and Brigittenau (20th District) in the northeast and Döbling (19th District) on the adjacent side of the Danube famous for its vineyards, working class history and architecture, as well as its upper class neighbourhoods. Don't miss Schönbrunn Palace to the West along the Wien River in Hietzing (13th district).
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Vienna
