Vienna Ring Road

The Vienna Ring Road (Ringstraße, lit. ring road) is a 5.3 km (3.3 mi) circular grand boulevard that serves as a ring road around the historic Innere Stadt (Inner Town) district of Vienna, Austria. The road is located on sites where medieval city fortifications once stood, including high walls and the broad open field ramparts (glacis), criss-crossed by paths that lay before them. It was constructed after the dismantling of the city walls in the mid-19th century. From the 1860s to 1890s, many large public buildings were erected along the Ringstrasse in an eclectic historicist style, sometimes called Ringstraßenstil ("Ring Road style"), using elements of Classical, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture. Because of its architectural beauty and history, the Vienna Ringstrasse has been called the "Lord of the Ring Roads" and is designated by UNESCO as part of Vienna's World Heritage Site. This grand boulevard was built to replace the city walls, which had been built during the 13th century and funded by the ransom payment derived from the release of Richard the Lion Heart, Richard I of England, and reinforced as a consequence of the First Turkish Siege in 1529 and the Thirty Years' War in 1618. The walls were surrounded by a glacis about 500m wide, where buildings and vegetation were prohibited for military defensive reason. But by the late 18th century these fortifications had become obsolete. Under Emperor Joseph II, streets and walkways were built in the glacis, lit by lanterns and lined by trees. Craftsmen built open-air workshops, and stalls were set up. But the Revolution of 1848 was required to trigger a more significant change. In 1850, the suburbs or Vorstädte (today the Districts II to IX) were incorporated into the municipality, which made the city walls an impediment to traffic. In 1857, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria issued the decree "I have resolved to command" (Es ist Mein Wille at Wikisource) ordering the demolition of the city walls and moats.