This article is about the city of Linz in Austria. There is another much smaller Linz in Germany: see Linz, Germany.
Linz (population 200,000) is a city in northwest Austria, on the Danube river. It is the capital of the state Upper Austria (Oberösterreich).
The city was founded by the Romans, who called it Lentia.
Near Linz, in the town of Leonding, the parents of Adolf Hitler are buried. Adolf Hitler himself went to school ("Fadingergymnasium") in Linz, but left before finishing it, and instead went to a school in Steyr (Upper Austria).
During World War II, Linz became a major industrial area, manufacturing chemicals and steel for the Nazi war machine. Many of these factories had been dismantled in the newly acquired Czechoslovakia, and reassembled in Linz. After the war, the river Danube that runs through the eastern most portion of Linz, separating the Urfahr district in the north from the rest of Linz, served as the border between the American and Russian occupation troops.
Mauthausen, the last Nazi concentration camp to close, is not far from Linz.
Linz today is still an industrial city. The big concern VOEST (famous for the LD- ("Linz- Donauwitz") procedure for the production of steel) and its chemical part "Chemie Linz" are the major industries in the harbour near the Danube. The city itself is not signed by these heavy industries. The city is home to a vibrant music and arts scene that is well-funded by the city and the state of Upper Austria.
The main street "Landstrasse" leads from the "Blumauerplatz" to the main square. In the middle of this square the high "Pestsäule" (also known as "Dreifaltigkeitssäule") was built to remember the people who died in the plague epidemics.
The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Symphony No. 36 (1783) in Linz for a concert to be given there, and the work is today known as the Linz Symphony. The first version of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 1 in C minor is known as the Linz version.
Ars Electronica Center on the north bank of the Danube (in the Urfahr district), across from the Alt Stadt is home to one of the few public 3D CAVEs in Europe (the very first 3D CAVE world-wide that was publicly accessible) and attracts a large gathering of technologically oriented artists every year for the Ars Electronica Festival.
Recently built (2003) was the new modern art gallery called "Lentos". It is situated on the banks of the river Danube. The building can be enlighted in every color at night.