Vienna

Tourist attractions in Vienna

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Historic Centre of Vienna

Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List

The St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom) marks the centre of Vienna.

Type Cultural

Criteria ii, iv, vi

Reference 1033

UNESCO region Europe and North America

Inscription history

Inscription 2001 (25th Session)

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn

Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List

Schönbrunn Palace and the city of Vienna, view from Gloriette

Type Cultural

Criteria i, iv

Reference 786

UNESCO region Europe and North America

Inscription history

Inscription 1996 (20th Session)

The tourist attractions of Vienna concentrate in three distinct areas. The largest cluster, centred around Schönbrunn Palace, attracted around five million visitors in 2009, down from six million in 2008. Museums and exhibitions of Hofburg Palace accounted for nearly two million visitors in 2008, with a significant decline in 2009. The third, and the newest, cluster of modern art museums in Museumsquartier attracted less than one million visitors.[note 1] Nearby duo of Kunsthistorisches and Naturhistorisches museums, located halfway between Museumsquartier and Hofburg, also reported around one million visitors. The Landstraße district, which lies south-east of the old city, is home to art exhibitions at the Belvedere Palace and the KunstHausWien.

Vienna stands out among other European tourist destinations for being a "new old city", a city in transition from an older "picture city" like Florence and Venice to being a global city like Paris and London.[1] For six consecutive years, 2003–2008, tourism industry was on the rise, but in 2009 the global financial crisis caused a sharp decline, especially in long-distance tourism from Asia and North America. The new museums of modern art retained or even increased their attendance, but museums of classical art lost more than a third of their former ticket sales. According to preliminary data for the first half of 2010, Vienna is already past the bottom of the crisis and visitor numbers are rising again.