Lingenau is a municipality in the district of Bregenz, in the westernmost

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n state of

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( ; ; , , or ) is the westernmost States of Austria, state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with the second-highest popu ...

Geography

Lingenau is located southeast of

Lake Constance Lake Constance (, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein (). These ...

, at an altitude of 685m. 30.8% of the area is wooded. There are no other cadastral communities in Lingenau. It is a member of the German-Austrian joint project Naturpark

Nagelfluhkette The Nagelfluhkette is a mountain range located in Bavaria, Germany and Vorarlberg, Austria, bordering on the northern edge of the Allgäu Alps. It has a maximum altitude of 1,834 m above sea level. Its name derives from the rock type Nagelfluh. ...

. The town of Lingenau borders on four other Vorarlberg communities: Langenegg, Hittisau,

Egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

and

Alberschwende Alberschwende is a municipality and a village in the district of Bregenz in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. Population Notable people * Hermann Gmeiner, Austrian philanthropist, founder of SOS Children's Villages SOS Children's Village ...

History

"Lindigenowe" was first mentioned in documents in 1227. It is the oldest settlement of the Vorderwald (also known as Vorderer

Bregenzerwald The Bregenzerwald (, ) is one of the main regions in the state of Vorarlberg (Austria). It overlaps, but is not coterminous with, the Bregenz Forest Mountains, which belong to a range of the Northern Limestone Alps, specifically the northern flys ...

) and belonged to the monastery estate of Mehrerau for a long period of time. The Habsburgs ruled parts of Vorarlberg alternately from

Tyrol Tyrol ( ; historically the Tyrole; ; ) is a historical region in the Alps of Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, f ...

and Vorderösterreich (Freiburg im Breisgau). From 1805 to 1814, Lingenau belonged to

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

, then reverted to Austria. Since the formation of the Austrian state of Vorarlberg in 1861, Lingenau has belonged to Vorarlberg. For centuries, up to the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, inhabitants benefitted from Bad Hohl, which is located at a ferruginous spring called Maxriese. From 1945 to 1955, Lingenau was part of the French occupation zone in Austria.

Culture

The parish church Hl. Johannes der Täufer ("St. John the Baptist") was built in the 19th century. The Baroque Hl. Anna Chapel was built in 1722 and is made of

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitation (chemistry), precipitate out of water in ambient temperature, unheated rivers or lakes. hot spring, Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less ...

. The tufa nature trail (Quelltuff-Naturlehrpfad) is located to a creek that has created over 40 vertical meters of massive Quelltuff (

). The wooden Gschwendtobel bridge between Lingenau and Egg, over the river Subersach, was constructed in 1834 by

Alois Negrelli Nikolaus Alois Maria Vinzenz Negrelli, Ritter von Moldelbe (born Luigi Negrelli; 23 January 1799 – 1 October 1858) was a Tyrolean civil engineer and railroad pioneer mostly active in parts of the Austrian Empire, Switzerland, Germany and I ...

, one of the main architects of the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

. Given its age, the bridge is considered to be a masterpiece of engineering and carpentry. The suspension bridge between Lingenau and Egg (over the river Subersach), a steel wire footbridge, was constructed in 1901. The bridge has a length of 57 meters and is only suitable for walkers. The Bregenzerwälder Käsekeller opened in Lingenau in 2002. More than 32,000 cheese wheels are stored for aging in this cheese cellar. It was an initiative of the Käsestraße Bregenzerwald, to preserve small-scale agriculture and the diversity of local products in the Bregenz Forest, and to support Vorarlberg's cheese culture. With more than 6.5 million euros, the cheese cellar was the largest investment ever made in the Vorarlberg dairy industry. Lingenau is part of the Bregenzerwald Umgang (literally "Bregenzerwald Walking Tour"). This walking tour offers insights into the architecture and community planning of 12 traditional villages in the Bregenzerwald. While walking over various landscapes, visiting public buildings, homes and everyday objects, walkers gain a comprehensive overview of typical Bregenzerwald architectural styles as they developed throughout the ages. Lingenau Hof Ortspanorama

Population

References

External links

Official website of Lingenau

Website of the Käsestraße society
{{Authority control Cities and towns in Bregenz District