Hartberg#

Hartberg, Styria, town in the district of Hartberg, alt. 359 m, pop. 6,169, area 21.51 km2, at the foot of the Ringkogel mountain (789 m), close to the border with Burgenland, in the hilly country of eastern Styria. - District Commission, district court, Employment Services, local tax office, Federal Office of Weights, Measures and Surveying, local health and social insurance office, Chamber of Labour, Economic Chamber, district Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry, woodland gardens of the provincial government of Styria, provincial home for young people, hospital, psycho-social counselling centre, Hartberg hall; schools: Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium (secondary school), 2 vocational schools, commercial college, Fachschule fuer wirtschaftliche Berufe (commercial college), Bundesanstalt fuer Kindergartenpaedagogik (kindergarten teachers´ training college), education centre of the Vocational Training Institute. 5,475 employed persons (1991), 61 % work in the service sector (particularly personal, social and public services and commerce) industry and trade: metal-working, textiles, synthetics, spectacle frames, print shop, foods and beverages, construction companies. Summer tourism (29,399 overnight stays). - Earliest settlements were pre-historic and Roman, west of Hartberg near Loeffelbach (municipality of Hartberg-Umgebung), preserved foundations of a Roman estate measuring about 50 x 60 m. 1125-1128 Hartberg was founded and laid out by Styrian Margrave Leopold I, first documented mention as town 1286; late-Gothic parish church (first documented mention 1157), 1745-1760 extensions, frescoes by J. A. Moelk, high altar (1766, remains of a Roman structure from 200 A.D. and a pier basilica of the 12th  century underneath); late-Romanesque charnel house (before 1167) with frescoes (around 1200); Capuchin church and monastery (founded 1654); Maria Lebing subsidiary church (1472, on Roman cemetery) with elaborate frescoes (1772) by J. A. Moelk; remains of the medieval city wall with corner tower (13th - 14th  centuries); museum (Roman stone lion from the 2nd  century A.D.); Hartberg castle (medieval north tract, 16th /17th  centuries). Vintage Car Museum.

Literature#