| Page Views: 25 Last Visit to Rattenberg: May, 2009 | One of Austria's smallest cities by lotharlerch - last update: Jun 6, 2009 |
One Street and 436 Inhabitants Rattenberg has good chances to reach the top in the ranking of Austria's smallest cities. A strong competitor was Hardegg in Lower Austria but it lost its chance through a reform of the regional administration which joined Hardegg with a few tiny villages around forming now a "Grossgemeinde" with about 1400 inhabitants (the original city of Hardegg hosts today 102 inhabitants).
Rattenberg had its maximum with 879 inhabitants in 1951 and it is continuously decreasing since. |
|  | Surely not more rats than elsewhere Speakers of German would immedialtely imagine Rattenberg being somehting like a mountain (= Berg) with rats ( = Ratten) what this name immediately suggests. To prevent this the heraldic symbol of the city shows a wheel (= Rad) on top of a mountain. This looks far more unstable than rats occupying a mountain. To make the wheel more believable than the rats the neighbouring village has the name Radfeld meaning wheel and field (= Feld). And believe me, I did not see a single rat in the city but even very few wheels because the only one street which forms the tiny city is a pedestrian zone where vehicles are banned. And the city is not even situated on a mountain but in the almost eternal shadow of a huge rock which is strongly defining the quality of life here and maybe the most important reason why the city never grew beyond its tight limits. |
Ancient Customs Post - Tourists and Glass today This fortified late Gothic city of the Inn-Salzach type (comparable in this sense with Innsbruck, Hall in Tirol, Wasserburg, Braunau, Passau, Burghausen, Tittmoning, Hallein and Salzburg) was once the frontier post at the frontier of Tyrol and Bavaria (the districts downstream - Kufstein and Kitzbühel- became part of Tirol in 16th century). Because Rattenberg is unfavourably situated at a place where there is shadow most of the year it did not further develop when it lost its funcition as a frontier post because people perferred to settle in the sunny Kramsach at the left banks of the river Inn. | | |
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| Pros: | "Idyllic small city of the Inn-Salzach type" | | Cons: | "Most of the year in the shadow" | | In A Nutshell: | "Worth a stop for a stroll if you are passing the area" |
lotharlerch's Rattenberg Travel Tips
 Comments for lotharlerch about Rattenberg | | | | |
globetrott Tue Jun 9, 2009 14:07 UTC
an interesting page, Lothar, vor kurzem war ich auch da, bin dann aber nur bis Innsbruck gekommen ! | hunterV Sat Jun 6, 2009 17:23 UTC
Na ja, noch ein schöner Ort im wunderbaren Österreich.... |
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