Graz, Kunsthaus (“Art Gallery”) Graz, Graz, Austria.Kunsthaus
Graz / Zepp-Cam. 2004/Graz, Austriacity, capital of Bundesland
(federal state) Steiermark, southeastern Austria. The country’s
second largest city, it lies on the Mur River between the
Styrian Alps and a wide, fertile basin, the Grazerfeld, about 95
miles (155 km) south-southwest of Vienna. In the 9th century
there was probably a fortress on the Schlossberg (“Castle
Hill”), a rocky cone some 1,550 feet (470 metres) high that
dominates the city. The name Graz is derived from gradec, a
Slavic word meaning “small fortress.” First mentioned about
1128–29, it received town rights about 1240 and became the
centre of Steiermark (Styria) during the Middle Ages and the
residence of the Leopoldine Habsburgs after 1379. Its
fortifications, built in the 15th–16th century, successfully
withstood numerous sieges by the Hungarians and the Turks.
Protestantism was established in Graz about 1530 and flourished
until oppressive measures by the archduke Karl of Inner