History of Upper Austira

The territories in the east of present-day Austria first came into the possession of the Babenbergs in 976. The province was steadily expanded by land purchases. Upper Austria was separated from Lower Austria during the reign of King Ottokar II Přemysl. From 1489 to 1493 the Habsburg Emperor Frederick III ruled the Holy Roman Empire from Linz.

The Mondseeland region was acquired in 1504. The Innviertel became part of Upper Austria after the War of Bavarian Succession in 1779. Since then the province has existed within its present borders. It was given the name Upper Austria in 1919.

Linz

Linz is a city and Statutarstadt in northeast Austria, on the Danube river. It is the capital of the state Upper Austria (Oberosterreich). Linz is located at 48°18′11?N, 14°17′26?E. Area ca. 96 km², population of the town is 188,968, of the agglomeration about 271,000 (March 2005).

History of Linz

The city was founded by the Romans, who called it Lentia.

The city was most of the times only a provincial and local government city of the Holy Roman Empire and an important waypoint between several trade routes, spanning the river Danube from the west to the east and Czechoslovakia and Poland from north to the Balkans and Italy to the south.

Being the city where the Habsburg Emperor Friedrich III spent his last years, it was for a short period of time the most important city of the empire. It lost its status, however, back to Vienna and Prague, after the death of the emperor in 1493.