Innsbruck

s the capital of Tyrol and fifth-largest city in Austria. On the River Inn,
at its junction with the Wipp Valley, which provides access to the
Brenner Pass 30 km (18.6 mi) to the south, it had a population of
132,493 in 2018.

In the broad valley between high mountains, the so-called North

Chain in the Karwendel Alps (Hafelekarspitze, 2,334 metres or 7,657
feet) to the north and Patscherkofel (2,246 m or 7,369 ft) and Serles
(2,718 m or 8,917 ft) to the south, Innsbruck is an internationally
renowned winter sports centre; it hosted the 1964 and 1976 Winter
Olympics as well as the 1984 and 1988 Winter Paralympics. It also
hosted the first Winter Youth Olympics in 2012. The name means
"bridge over the Inn".[3]

History:
he earliest traces suggest initial inhabitation in the early Stone Age. Surviving pre-Roman place
names show that the area has been populated continuously. In the 4th century
the Romans established the army station Veldidena (the name survives in today's urban district
Wilten) at Oenipons (Innsbruck), to protect the economically important commercial road
from Verona-Brenner-Augsburg in their province of Raetia.
The first mention of Innsbruck dates back to the name Oeni Pontum or Oeni Pons which
is Latin for bridge (pons) over the Inn (Oenus), which was an important crossing point over the
Inn river. The Counts of Andechs acquired the town in 1180. In 1248 the town passed into the
hands of the Counts of Tyrol.[4] The city's arms show a bird's-eye view of the Inn bridge, a design
used since 1267. The route over the Brenner Pass was then a major transport and
communications link between the north and the south of Europe, and the easiest route across
the Alps. It was part of the Via Imperii, a medieval imperial road under special protection of the
king. The revenues generated by serving as a transit station on this route enabled the city to
flourish.

Innsbruck became the capital of all Tyrol in 1429 and in the 15th century the city became a
centre of European politics and culture as Emperor Maximilian I also resided in Innsbruck in the
1490s. The city benefited from the emperor's presence as can be seen for example in
the Hofkirche. Here a funeral monument for Maximilian was planned and erected partly by his
successors. The ensemble with a cenotaph and the bronze statues of real and mythical
ancestors of the Habsburg emperor are one of the main artistic monuments of Innsbruck. A
regular postal service between Innsbruck and Mechelen was established in 1490 by the Thurn-
und-Taxis-Post.
In 1564 Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria received the rulership over Tirol and other Further
Austrian possessions administered from Innsbruck up to the 18th century. He had Schloss
Ambras built and arranged there his unique Renaissance collections nowadays mainly part of
Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum. Up to 1665 a stirps of the Habsburg dynasty ruled in
Innsbruck with an independent court. In the 1620s the first opera house north of the Alps was
erected in Innsbruck (Dogana).
In 1669 the university was founded. Also as a compensation for the court as Emperor Leopold
I again reigned from Vienna and the Tyrolean stirps of the Habsburg dynasty had ended in 1665.
[clarification needed]

During the Napoleonic Wars Tyrol was ceded to Bavaria, ally of France. Andreas Hofer led a

Tyrolean peasant army to victory in the Battles of Bergisel against the combined Bavarian and
French forces, and then made Innsbruck the centre of his administration. The combined army
later overran the Tyrolean militia army and until 1814 Innsbruck was part of Bavaria. After
the Vienna Congress Austrian rule was restored. Until 1918, the town (one of the 4 autonomous
towns in Tyrol) was part of the Austrian monarchy (Austria side after the compromise of 1867),
head of the district of the same name, one of the 21 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in
the Tyrol province.[5]
The Tyrolean hero Andreas Hofer was executed in Mantua; his remains were returned to
Innsbruck in 1823 and interred in the Franciscan church.
During World War I, the only recorded action taking place in Innsbruck was near the end of the
war. On February 20, 1918, Allied planes flying out of Italy raided Innsbruck, causing casualties
among the Austrian troops there. No damage to the town is recorded. [6] In November 1918
Innsbruck and all Tyrol were occupied by the 20 to 22 thousand soldiers of the III Corps of the
First Italian Army.