Innsbruck is Austria’s fifth-biggest city, the provincial capital of Tyrol, and one of the major cities in the Alps. It is a center of an area known for skiing and other mountain-related sports, as well as a bustling tourist attraction, located in a valley of the river Inn between mountain ranges of more than 2000 meters above sea level, midway between Bavaria and northern Italy. Its prominence as a winter sports destination was heightened by the fact that it hosted the Winter Olympics twice.
Innsbruck is a prominent tourist destination that hosts the following events each year:
- Innsbrucker Tanzsommer
- Bergsilvester (New Year’s Eve)
- Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik (Innsbruck Festival of Early Music)
- Christkindlmarkt (Christmas fair)
Because it is located in the Alps and surrounded by mountains, the city is widely recognized for its sporting options, particularly alpine sports. Several ski resorts are located inside the city limits or within a short distance. Innsbruck was one of the epicenters of the snowboard boom in the 1990s, and the resulting unique subculture has persisted to this day. As a result, the number of skateboarders, snowboarders, and people in general is above normal and nothing out of the ordinary. This culture is also honored through a number of events in and around Innsbruck, particularly during the winter season, which draw (mostly young) people from all over the globe.
Innsbruck has two universities and many colleges, with over 25,000 students in total (including a sizable Italian community), making the city’s nightlife quite active.
Innsbruck, like the rest of Central Europe, has an oceanic climate with continental influences (particularly in winter) owing to its central location and proximity to hilly terrains, which results in higher yearly temperature fluctuations. The winters are very cold (much colder than most major European cities) and snowy. Winter evenings may be very cold, with temperatures as low as 12 °C (10 °F) on rare occasions.
Spring is fleeting; days begin to warm up, frequently exceeding 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit), but nights remain frigid or even freezing.
Summer is a very fickle and unpredictable season. Days may be cold (17 °C) and wet, or bright and quite hot, with temperatures sometimes reaching 34 °C (93 °F). Summer diurnal temperature fluctuation is typically quite large, as predicted for an alpine-influenced climate, while evenings are generally chilly, averaging 12 °C (54 °F) on average but sometimes plunging as low as 6 °C (43 °F).
The average yearly temperature is 9 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit).
Innsbruck is the economic and cultural capital of western Austria. It is also a major tourist destination, with over a million overnight stays. Innsbruck is a university town, with various colleges and institutions located in the area.
There are around 78,000 people and 8,000 enterprises in Innsbruck. Every day, almost 35,000 people travel into Innsbruck from the neighboring municipalities. For the year 2012, the unemployment rate was 4.2 percent.
Statistik Austria, the national statistics agency, does not generate economic data for the City of Innsbruck alone, but rather for the whole Innsbruck-Land District, which is described as NUTS 3-region Innsbruck. In 2013, the NUTS 3-region Innsbruck had a GDP per capita of €41,400, which was around 60% more than the EU average.
Innsbruck is home to the headquarters of Tiwag (energy), Bank für Tirol und Vorarlberg (financial services), Tiroler Versicherung (insurance), and MED-EL (medical equipment). Swarovski (glass), Felder Group (mechanical engineering), and Swarco (traffic technology) all have headquarters within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the city.
By national standards, residential property is quite pricey. Innsbruck’s average price per square meter in 2015 was €4,430, making it the second most expensive per square meter in Austria, behind only Salzburg (€4,823) but ahead of Vienna (€3,980).
