!!!Lobau

Lobau, flood-plain area (2,160 hectares) in the 22%%sup nd/%  district 
of Vienna (of which 1,261 hectares are wetland woods); since 
1875, after completion of the regulation of the Danube, exclusively 
along the north bank of the Danube. The name derives from the Old High 
German word "Lo" (= dense wood). Originally the Lobau was a primeval 
forest bordered by the arms of the Danube. Today rare animals live in 
the partly unspoilt riverside area (heron, cormorant, otter, red deer, 
peewit, kite, and others). At the beginning of the 11%%sup th/%  
century the area belonged to the Bavarian monastery of Weihenstephan, 
which was soon handed over to the bishopric Freising, with whose 
bishops Emperor Maximilian I and his successors had a legal 
dispute that extended over centuries, because they claimed the forest 
as hunting grounds. In 1745 Maria Theresia gave the Lobau to "the poor 
of Vienna". It was in the Lobau that the battle of  Aspern took place 
on May 21/22, 1809 (memorial stone at the site of Napoleon´s 
headquarters, entrenchment, powder magazine, French cemetery). In 1905 
the Lobau became a protected area as an important part of the woodland 
and meadowland belt. Since 1918 the Upper Lobau has formed part of the 
municipality of Vienna, the Lower Lobau is owned by the Republic of 
Austria. In 1938 part of the natural landscape was destroyed by the 
construction of oil tanks, a petroleum refinery, an oil port and the 
southernmost part of the planned  Donau-Oder-Kanal.

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From the Marchfeld region the Lobau is separated by the 
Gross-Enzersdorfer Arm, a dead-water arm of the Danube, towards the 
river itself the  Hubertusdamm cuts off a strip of the wetland plain 
which now forms part of the former inundation zone. In 1977 the Lobau 
was declared a "Biosphere Reserve" by UNESCO and in 1978 it was 
designated as a nature reserve by the government of the province of 
Vienna (since 1996 part of the  Danube Wetlands national park).  - In 
the centre of the nature reserve, the Lower Lobau, a ground-water 
works of the municipality of Vienna is located, in the Upper Lobau, 
natural bathing areas (naturist beaches) and recreation grounds. Part 
of the New Danube, which has a total length of 20 km and an 
average width of 200 m, was cut along the recreation area of the 
Lobau.

!Literature
E. Muellbauer, Donaustadt, 1985 (= Wiener 
Bezirkskulturfuehrer); F. Keller (ed.), Lobau - Die Nackerten von 
Wien, 1985.


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