Until 1918, Viennese politics were shaped by the Christian Social Party, in particular long-term mayor Karl Lueger. Vienna is today considered the centre of the Social Democratic Party of Austria. During the period of the First Republic (1918-1934), the Vienna Social Democrats undertook many overdue social reforms. At that time, Vienna's municipal policy was admired by Socialists throughout Europe, who therefore referred to the city as "Red Vienna" (Rotes Wien).
For most of the time since the First World War, the city has been governed by the Social Democratic Party with absolute majorities in the city parliament. Only between 1934 and 1945, when the Social Democratic Party was illegal, mayors were appointed by the austro-fascist and later by the Nazi authorities. The current mayor of Vienna is Michael Häupl. The Social Democrats currently hold 55% of the seats with a 49% share of the vote. Many Austrian political experts believe that if not for the Social Democrats' nearly unbreakable hold on Vienna, the rival Austrian People's Party would dominate Austrian politics.
An example of the city’s many social democratic policies is its low-cost residential estates called Gemeindebauten.
Ever since Vienna obtained federal state (Bundesland) status of its own in 1921, the mayor has also had the role of the state governor (Landeshauptmann). The Rathaus accommodates the offices of the mayor and the state government (Landesregierung). The city is administered by a multitude of departments (Magistratsabteilungen).
The University of Applied Arts Vienna (German: Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, or informally just Die Angewandte) is an institution of higher education in Vienna, the capital of Austria. It was founded in 1867 as Akademie für angewandte Kunst and has had university status since 1970.
The Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna is a botanical garden in Vienna, Austria. It covers 8 hectares and is immediately adjacent to the Belvedere gardens.
The gardens date back to 1754 when Empress Maria Theresa founded the Hortus Botanicus Vindobonensis with renowned botanist Nikolaus von Jacquin as one of its first directors. His son, Joseph von Jacquin, succeeded him as director, as did a number of other leading botanists in turn, including Stefan Endlicher, Eduard Fenzl, Anton Kerner von Marilaun, Richard von Wettstein, Fritz Knoll, Karl von Frisch, and Lothar Geitler. The Institute of Botany building was opened in 1905. However, at the end of the Second World War, the institute, all the greenhouses, and the entire garden area were bombed and destroyed, and thus required to be completely rebuilt.
Vienna lies in eastern Austria, at the easternmost extension of the Alps in the Vienna Basin. The earliest settlement, at the location of today's inner city, were south of the meandering Danube while the city now spans both sides of the river. Elevation ranges from 151 to 542 m.
Vienna has temperate climate with warm summers and cold winters. The average temperatures in the summer highs is into the mid 20Cs (upper 70Fs) and overnight lows into the high 10Cs (lower 60Fs); although the winter highs are just above freezing and the overnight lows just below.
Due to industrialization and immigration from other parts of the Empire, the population of Vienna increased sharply during its time as capital of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918). In 1910, Vienna had more than 2 million inhabitants and was one of the five largest cities in the world. However, after World War I, many Czechs and Hungarians returned to their ancestral countries, resulting in a decline in the Viennese population. At the height of the immigration, about one third of the people living in Vienna were of Slavic or Hungarian descent. By 2001, only 16% of people living in Vienna had nationalities other than Austrian, nearly half of which were from the former Yugoslavia; the next most numerous nationalities in Vienna were Turkish (39,000 or 2.5%), Polish (13,600 or 0.9%) and German (12,700 or 0.8%).
Vienna is the capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city; with a population of about 1.7 million (2.3 million within the metropolitan area), it is by far the largest city in Austria as well as its cultural, economic and political center. It is the 10th largest city by population in the European Union and was listed by Mercer Human Resource Consulting as having the 2nd highest quality of living (as of 2008). Vienna is host to many major international organizations such as the United Nations and OPEC. Vienna lies in the very east of Austria and is close to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Sit and an Economist Intelligence Unit study of 127 world cities ranked it first equal with Vancouver for the quality of life.
