Overview
Schönbrunn Palace stands in Hietzing, Vienna, Austria, on the site of a hunting lodge the Habsburgs expanded after the failed 1683 Ottoman siege. Empress Maria Theresa remodelled the palace in the 1740s–50s into the chief summer residence of the Austrian monarchy. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Nicolaus Pacassi shaped the yellow façade stretching 180 metres.
State rooms include the Great Gallery where Mozart performed as a child and where metternich-era diplomacy unfolded. The gardens feature the Neptune Fountain, Roman Ruin folly, maze, and the Gloriette colonnade on the hill. Franz Joseph was born and died here; the last Habsburg emperor Karl I signed his abdication in 1918.
UNESCO inscribed the Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn in 1996. Visitor numbers rank among Europe's highest for historic houses. The zoo (Tiergarten) on the grounds is the world's oldest continuously operating menagerie.