Werfen () is a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

in the district of St. Johann im Pongau, in the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n state of

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label= Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

. It is mainly known for medieval

Hohenwerfen Castle Hohenwerfen Castle (german: Festung Hohenwerfen, lit=Hohenwerfen Fortress) is a medieval rock castle, situated on a precipice overlooking the Austrian market town of Werfen in the Salzach valley, approximately south of Salzburg. The fortress is s ...

and the Eisriesenwelt ice cave, the largest in the world.

Geography

Werfen is located in the northwest of the historic Pongau region, about south of the city of

. The settlement is situated in the

Salzach The Salzach (Austrian: �saltsax ) is a river in Austria and Germany. It is in length and is a right tributary of the Inn, which eventually joins the Danube. Its drainage basin of comprises large parts of the Northern Limestone and Central ...

valley south of the Lueg Pass, between the Berchtesgaden Alps ( Hagen Mountains and the

Hochkönig The Hochkönig is a mountain group containing the highest mountain (Mount Hochkönig) in the Berchtesgaden Alps, Salzburgerland, Austria. The Berchtesgaden Alps form part of the Northern Limestone Alps. Location It lies to the west of the town ...

massif) in the west and the Tennen Mountains in the east. The

Salzburg-Tyrol Railway {{Infobox rail line , box_width = auto , name = Salzburg-Tyrol Railway , native_name = Salzburg-Tiroler-Bahn , native_name_lang = de , image ...

line (''Giselabahn'') and the

Tauern Autobahn The Tauern Autobahn (A 10) is an autobahn (motorway) in Austria. It starts at the Salzburg junction with the West Autobahn (A1), runs southwards, crosses the Tauern mountain range on the main chain of the Alps and leads to the Süd Autobahn (A2) a ...

run parallel to the river. The region is known as the type locality of the geologic Werfen Formation, a

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago (Year#Abbreviations yr and ya, Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 ...

stone layer of the

Limestone Alps The Limestone Alps (german: Kalkalpen) are a mountain ranges system of the Alps in Central Europe. They are of economic importance, including as a watershed source of drinking water. They have many accessible dripstone and ice caves. Geography T ...

. The municipality comprises the cadastral communities (''Katastralgemeinden'') of Reitsam, Scharten, Sulzau, Werfen Markt, and Wimm.

History

Important trade routes passed through the Salzach valley since ancient times, when the area was part of the Roman

Noricum Noricum () is the Latin name for the Celtic kingdom or federation of tribes that included most of modern Austria and part of Slovenia. In the first century AD, it became a province of the Roman Empire. Its borders were the Danube to the north, ...

province. ''Werven'' was first mentioned about 1140 AD. The settlement arose south of Hohenwerfen Castle, erected from 1075 at the behest of the Archbishop

Gebhard of Salzburg Blessed Gebhard von Salzburg ( 101015 June 1088), also occasionally known as Gebhard of Sussex, was Archbishop of Salzburg from 1060 until his death. He was one of the fiercest opponents of King Henry IV of Germany during the Investiture Controver ...

during the

Investiture Controversy The Investiture Controversy, also called Investiture Contest ( German: ''Investiturstreit''; ), was a conflict between the Church and the state in medieval Europe over the ability to choose and install bishops ( investiture) and abbots of mona ...

with King

Henry IV of Germany Henry IV (german: Heinrich IV; 11 November 1050 – 7 August 1106) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1084 to 1105, King of Germany from 1054 to 1105, King of Italy and Burgundy from 1056 to 1105, and Duke of Bavaria from 1052 to 1054. He was the son o ...

. It is one of the oldest markets in the former Archbishopric of Salzburg, with market privileges documented since 1425. At about the same time, the nearby parish of Pfarrwerfen was established, like the neighbouring settlement of Werfenweng in the east. AT-25241 Pfarrkirche hl

As the seat of the local administration, Werfen and the castle were heavily attacked during the German Peasants' War in 1525/26. From 1675 onwards, numerous people in the environment of the local knacker Barbara Koller and her son Jakob were sentenced and executed in the Zaubererjackl witch trials. Werfen was also a centre of the expulsion of

Salzburg Protestants The Salzburg Protestants (german: Salzburger Exulanten) were Protestant refugees who had lived in the Catholic Archbishopric of Salzburg until the 18th century. In a series of persecutions ending in 1731, over 20,000 Protestants were expelled from ...

under the rule of Prince-Archbishop

Count Leopold Anton von Firmian Leopold Anton Eleutherius Freiherr von Firmian (11 March 1679 – 22 October 1744) was Bishop of Lavant 1718–24, Bishop of Seckau 1724–27 and Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg from 1727 until his death. Early life He was born in Munich, on his ...

in 1731. In the late 18th century, a large limonite deposit was developed in Sulzau, which from 1770 became the most important ironworks (''Konkordiahütte'') in the Salzburg archbishopric. With the lands of the

secularised In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...

prince-archbishopric, Werfen finally fell to the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence ...

by resolution of the

Vienna Congress The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...

in 1816. The Salzburg-Tyrol Railway line from Salzburg to

Wörgl Wörgl () is a city in the Austrian state of Tyrol, in the Kufstein district. It is from the international border with Bavaria, Germany. Population Transport Wörgl is an important railway junction between the line from Innsbruck to Munich, an ...

opened in 1875, with stations in Sulzau, Tenneck, and Werfen. The secluded above the village of Tenneck is the site of the Baroque , a former hunting lodge of Archbishop

Wolf Dietrich Raitenau Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau (26 March 1559 – 16 January 1617) was Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg from 1587 to 1612. Life Raitenau was born at Hofen Castle in Lochau, near Bregenz in Further Austria, the son of the Habsburg colonel Hans Werne ...

, which in 1908 was acquired by Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. After the archduke's assassination in 1914, the

Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty The House of Habsburg-Lorraine (german: Haus Habsburg-Lothringen) originated from the marriage in 1736 of Francis III, Duke of Lorraine and Bar, and Maria Theresa of Austria, later successively Queen of Bohemia, Queen of Hungary, Queen of Cr ...

sold the castle to the German Krupp industrial magnates. The Krupp dynasty held the premises until the death of

Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach (24 January 1938 – 8 May 1986) was a German heir of the Krupp dynasty. Biography The son of Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1907–1967) and Anneliese (nee Bahr) Lampert (1909–1998) (married 1937 – div ...

in 1986, today the estates are privately owned by Frederick R. Koch. A small portion of a picnic scene from ''

The Sound of Music ''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, ''The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. S ...

'' was filmed on a hillside of the village of Werfen. Julie Andrews and crew filmed the opening shots of the "

Do-Re-Mi "Do-Re-Mi" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ''The Sound of Music''. Each syllable of the musical solfège system appears in the song's lyrics, sung on the pitch it names. Rodgers was helped in its creation by long-time ...

" sequence with Hohenwerfen Castle in the background. Hohenwerfen was also the location for some filming of '' Where Eagles Dare''.

Politics

Seats in the municipal council (''Gemeinderat'') as of 2019 local elections: * Austrian People's Party (ÖVP): 10 * Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ): 6 *

Freedom Party of Austria The Freedom Party of Austria (german: Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Austria. It was led by Norbert Hofer from September 2019 to 1 June 2021.Staff (1 June 2021"Aus ...

(FPÖ): 3

Gallery

File:Werfen, straatzicht foto3 2011-07-17 15.06.JPG, Main square File:Eisriesenwelt Werfen Austria 02.jpg, Eisriesenwelt Cave File:Werfen - Burg Hohenwerfen (1).JPG,

File:Werfen 5.jpg, View from above

References

External links

Werfen official website

Werfen info website
{{authority control Cities and towns in St. Johann im Pongau District Tennen Mountains Berchtesgaden Alps Geological type localities