Salzburg, city, capital of Salzburg Bundesland (federal state), north-central Austria. It is situated in a level basin on both sides of the Salzach River near the northern foothills of the Alps and the Bavarian (German) border. The historic centre of the city, with its rich mix of art and architecture, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996.

Salzburg was originally the site of a Celtic settlement and later of the Roman town of Juvavum. About 700 CE the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and the Nonnberg Nunnery were founded there by St. Rupert. Salzburg was made a bishopric by St. Boniface in 739 and was raised to an archbishopric in 798. Its archbishops were acknowledged as princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1278, and the city became the seat of their powerful ecclesiastical principality. Among the most notable of the prince-archbishops were Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau (reigned 1587–1612), who brought Italian Renaissance architecture and styles to the city, notably by offering commissions to the Italian architect Vincenzo Scamozzi for public squares, a cathedral, and other buildings; Markus Sittikus von Hohenems (reigned 1612–19), who continued to rebuild the city with another Italian architect, Santino Solari; Paris, Graf (count) von Lodron (reigned 1619–53), who founded the city’s university (1622); and Leopold Anton von Firmian (reigned 1727–44).

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