Klagenfurt (since 2008 renamed Klagenfurt am Wörthersee or Celovec ob Vrbskem jezeru) is a city in southern Austria and the capital of the Austrian province of Carinthia. It's name is pronounced Klognfuat in the local Bavarian-Austrian dialect, and Glanforte in Italian. With 102,138 inhabitants (2021), it is the largest city in Austrian Carinthia and the sixth largest city in Austria. The urban area is located in the center of the Klagenfurt Basin and covers 120 km².
Klagenfurt was first mentioned in a document in 1192/1199 and was largely an insignificant market town until 1518, when Maximilian I donated it to the Carinthian estates. This donation and the later Protestant Reformation movement in the 16th century marked a steep rise of the city: Klagenfurt became the capital of Carinthia and many buildings were erected that are still important today, such as a country house and a cathedral.
Today, Klagenfurt is also important for tourism due to its attractive city center with squares and old city buildings, as well as its cultural offer and proximity to Lake Wörth.
Klagenfurt is located on Celovško polje in the center of the Klagenfurt basin at an altitude of 450 m and stretches for about 15 km in the north-south and east-west directions. The town also covers the entire eastern shore of Lake Wörthersee.
Klagenfurt is the historical, cultural and political center of Slovenes in Carinthia and was an all-Slovene religious and cultural center in the middle of the 19th century, where the Slovene language was nurtured in theology, and the Mohor Society was based in Klagenfurt from 1851 to 1918. Even today, all Slovene central organizations of Carinthian Slovenes have their headquarters in Klagenfurt. Of special importance are the Slovenian publishing houses Drava, Mohorjeva založba and Wieser, which offer a wide range of books in various languages and are focused on intercultural dialogue. In addition to Austrian educational institutions, there are Slovene kindergartens Mohorjeva and Naš dijete, Slovene / bilingual primary schools in Šentpeter and Mohorjeve, and in 1957 a Slovene grammar school (Federal Gymnasium for Slovenes in Klagenfurt) and later a bilingual Federal Trade Academy were established. The All-Klagenfurt Slovenian parish is dedicated to Saints Cyril and Methodius. The Slovenian Scientific Institute, the Urban Jarnik Ethnographic Institute and the Slovenian Study Library in Klagenfurt are also of special importance.
Jožef Stefan, Ingeborg Bachmann and Robert Musil are three famous personalities born in Klagenfurt. The city also gave its name to one of the 191 islands of the Land of Franz Joseph in the Arctic Ocean, which belongs to Russia (Russian: Остров Клагенфурт - otok Klagenfurt).
Etymologically, the name Klagenfurt is of Roman origin and came into German with a translation from Slovene name Celovec. Heinz-Dieter Pohl linguistically reconstructed the origin of the Slovene name Celovec, first documented in 1615 as V Zelovzi. The starting point for this was the Romanesque l'aquiliu meaning "place by the water" - but not Lake Wörth, but the Glan River. The initial Romanesque form was first transformed into la quilio and adopted into Slovene.
The Klagenfurt legend of the founding tells of a dragon living in a swamp and feeding on people from the surrounding villages who approached it. The monster could only be killed with a trick: a tower was built, on top of which an ox was tied as bait, and the chain also had a large hook. When the dragon came out of its swamp to eat the ox, it was caught on a chain and then killed. This legend finds its heraldic expression in the city coat of arms of Klagenfurt, and its artistic expression in the sculpture Lindwurmbrunnen placed on the Neue Platz in the city center.
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