Linz

The capital of Upper Austria and its third-largest city, on the Danube thirty kilometres south of the Czech border, on the site of the Roman settlement of Lentia. It developed as a commercial and administrative centre within the Duchy of Austria and later the Habsburg monarchy, then industrialised heavily through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries around steel and chemicals. The economy has since broadened into services, higher education and research. It was a European Capital of Culture in 2009.