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Austria – Vienna International Center
1979 Silver 100 Schilling 35mm (23.89 grams) 0.640 Silver (0.4938 oz. ASW) Vienna Mint.
Reference: KM# 2944, Schön# 139 | Engraver: Edwin Grienauer
· REPUBLIK · 100 SCHILLING ÖSTERREICH, Circle of shields.
INTERNATIONALES ZENTRUM WIEN 1979, Vienna International Center.
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 The Vienna International Centre (VIC) is the campus and building complex hosting the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV; in German: Büro der Vereinten Nationen in Wien). It is colloquially also known as UNO City.
The VIC, designed by Austrian architect Johann Staber, was built between 1973 and 1979 just north of the river Danube. The initial idea of setting up an international organization in Vienna came from the Chancellor of Austria Dr. Bruno Kreisky.
Six Y-shaped office towers surround a cylindrical conference building for a total floor area of 230,000 square metres. The highest tower (“A Building”) stands 127 metres tall, enclosing 28 floors. These office towers were among the first modern skyscrapers to be built in Austria.
About 5,000 people work at the VIC, which also offers catering and shopping facilities (see Commissary below) and a post office (postal code 1400 Wien). Two banks (Bank Austria, Bawag PSK and United Nations Federal Credit Union offices), travel agents and other commercial services have offices on the premises.
The VIC is an extraterritorial area, exempt from the jurisdiction of local law.
Complementing the early 2000s asbestos removal works in the VIC, a new conference building, previously designated “C2”, now termed “M Building”, was constructed over the existing parking deck near the southern perimeter of the campus, and put into service in 2009.
The M building hosted all conferences during the renovation of the C building (previously the main conference facility) from 2009-2013. Both M and C buildings are now being used for meetings. Very large conferences can be accommodated in the neighbouring Austria Center Vienna (ACV), a separate conference and exhibition centre with a capacity of 6,000, which is with the VIC campus part of the UNO-City. The ACV has an indoor link to the VIC buildings. It is guarded by United Nations security personnel, since the VIC has exterritorial status; the ACV does not.
The VIC is served by Kaisermühlen/VIC station on line U1 of the Vienna U-Bahn (underground railway).
 Austria, officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich), is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.5 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,879 square kilometres (32,386 sq mi). Austria’s terrain is highly mountainous, lying within the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and Austrian German in its standard form is the country’s official language. Other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene.
 The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. From the time of the Reformation, many Northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. The Thirty Years War, the influence of the Kingdom of Sweden and Kingdom of France, the rise of the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Napoleonic invasions all weakened the power of the Emperor in the North of Germany, but in the South, and in non-German areas of the Empire, the Emperor and Catholicism maintained control. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria was able to retain its position as one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. Following Napoleon’s defeat, Prussia emerged as Austria’s chief competitor for rule of a larger Germany. Austria’s defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary. After the defeat of France in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Austria was left out of the formation of a new German Empire, although in the following decades its politics, and its foreign policy, increasingly converged with those of the Prussian-led Empire. During the 1914 July Crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Germany guided Austria in issuing the ultimatum to Serbia that led to the declaration of World War I.
 After the collapse of the Habsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Empire in 1918 at the end of World War I, Austria adopted and used the name the Republic of German-Austria ((Deutschösterreich, later Österreich) in an attempt for union with Germany, but was forbidden due to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919). The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919. In the 1938 Anschluss, Austria was occupied and annexed by Nazi Germany.[14] This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies and Austria’s former democratic constitution was restored. In 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral.
Today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $52,216 (2014 est.). The country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, and is a founder of the OECD. Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro in 1999.
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