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Page 6 of 14
Subdivision
 Vienna is composed of 23 districts (Bezirke). Legally these districts do not constitute autonomous administrative bodies with explicit powers (such as the districts in the other Austrian states), but mere subdivisions of the city administration. Elections at the district level give the representatives of the districts some political power in fields such as city planning and traffic.
The 23 districts are numbered in a roughly clockwise fashion starting in the city centre:
1. Innere Stadt,
2. Leopoldstadt
3. Landstraße
4. Wieden
5. Margareten
6. Mariahilf
7. Neubau
8. Josefstadt
9. Alsergrund
10. Favoriten
11. Simmering
12. Meidling
13.Hietzing
14. Penzing
15. Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus
16. Ottakring
17. Hernals
18. Währing
19. Döbling
20. Brigittenau
21. Floridsdorf
22. Donaustadt
23. Liesing
The heart and historical city of Vienna, the Innere Stadt, was once surrounded by walls and open fields in order to deny cover to potential attackers. The walls were razed in 1857, making it possible for the city to expand and eventually merge with the surrounding villages. In their place, a broad boulevard called the Ringstraße was built, along which imposing public and private buildings, monuments and parks. These buildings included the Rathaus (town hall), the Burgtheater, the University, the Parliament, the twin museums of natural history and fine art, and the Staatsoper (state opera house). It is also the location of the Hofburg, the former imperial palace. The mainly Gothic Stephansdom is located at the centre of the city, on Stephansplatz. Beyond the Ringstraße, there was another wall called the Linienwall, which was torn down in the latter half of the 19th century to make room for expanding suburbs. It is now a ring road called Gürtel.
 Industrial locations are primarily in southern and eastern districts. The Innere Stadt is situated away from the main flow of the Danube but is bounded by the Donaukanal (danube canal). Vienna's second and twentieth districts are located between the Donaukanal and the Danube River. Across the Danube are the newest districts which include the location of the Vienna International Centre.
Vienna's postal codes can be determined by the district where a given address is located; 1XXA - 1 denotes Vienna, XX the district number (if it is a single digit it has a preliminary zero), A is the number of the post office ( often irrelevant, usually zero).
Example: 1070 for Neubau. Exceptions include 1300 for the Vienna International Airport located in Lower Austria near Schwechat, 1400 for the UN Complex, 1450 for the Austria Center, and 1500 for the Austrian UN forces.
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