Welcome to the Heart of Europe

International Deja Vu's

Yes, I have been to Mars. Not the planet though, but a village in Butler County in Western Pennsylvania. And to Bethlehem, not in the Holy Land but in Ohio's Amish County. Remembering a street sign there with the crossed out car to mark spaces for carriage parking only. Also, I have not been to ancient Greece but to Sparta, in Kent County in Western Michigan. Anyway, stopping there for dinner, I managed to confuse the restaurant owner by asking for home fries instead of American fries and for Greek salad dressing instead of French. As a colleague pointed out, my trip was moving between Epic and Myth! A while ago, this may have been easily 10 years now, the mother of a friend had mentioned to me that there was a village called Esterhazy in Canada, named after the Hungarian magnate family, the biggest landowners in the Habsburg Empire with possessions in what is today the eastern Austrian province of Burgenland, the land of castles. She actually came up with it when I told her about the Austrian Nationality Room in the Cathedral of Learning, which belongs to the University of Pittsburgh. A great ambience for classes on Austrian history, culture and (German) language. Its ceiling fresco would be a miniature version of the painting in the Haydn hall in Esterhazy Castle in Eisenstadt, while the furniture copies interior from Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna. Touring the Iron City Brewery in the former steel town Pittsburgh impressed me even more. And back in Austria walking through the park of Eisenstadt I was stopped by a stranger, asking me where I got my Iron City Beer shirt from (for Iron City represents a direct translation of Eisenstadt).

The tiny community of Vienna, Michigan, one of many tributes to European cities.

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, Henry Ford Museum, Detroit, Michigan.

On the other hand there is a part of Kittsee in Burgenland/Austria, which is called Chikago (misspelled) with a few numbered streets, meant to honor the returned emigrants in the early 20th century. In Washington D.C. we had seen a subway map going west to a place called Vienna, Virginia. A fair sized town within the D.C. metro area, which is among the country's largest high-tech centers after Silicon Valley in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area and the Route 128 region around Boston. But we didn't actually go visit the place, that kind of sightseeing activity started as following. Once upon a time (well, a long time ago, last century, but this is no fairy tale), as part of an outing, my in-laws-surprised us by taking us to Vienna, Ohio, near Youngstown at the Ohio Turnpike, to take a picture in front of a Vienna Township sign. As far as I remember, the local infrastructure included a gas station and a fire station, in case there is a problem with the gas station, I suppose. From a book I would learn about the ten largest Viennas in the US, so I found out there were at least ten cities or villages with the same name. As source the article mentioned "Als Oesterreich die Welt benannte - When Austria gave the world a name," a truly bold title for a 1996 exhibition in Marchfeld. After touring Detroit and in its one street-Greek town eating my first Souflaki in years, we would again go to a place with a very familiar name. But the local metropolis of Vienna, Michigan, turned out to be just one road in Erie, north of Toledo. About 20 houses and one railroad crossing blocked by a train, almost keeping us from seeing the city we had expected behind it. As the online route planner had suggested: "Turn RIGHT onto VIENNA RD. End at Vienna, MI US." But there wasn't anything, really. Just my sympathetic Spanish colleague, teasing me about the impressive skyline and a brick house almost looking like the cathedral. As we were assured later at the Erie Restaurant on South Dixie Hwy, that road was all there was! While this Vienna really was different (thinking of the billboard campaign "Wien ist anders - Vienna is different" in the original Vienna), there is still hope though to find bigger ones, as there's plenty of Viennas around...

Here is a list of Viennas in the United States:

• 1. Vienna (Georgia, Dooly County, south of Macon) population 3,000
• 2. Vienna (Illinois, Johnson County, south of Carbondale) population 1,230
• 3. Vienna (Kansas, Pottawatomie County, north of Topeka, near Onaga) population 90
• 4. Vienna (Louisiana, Lincoln Parish, west of Monroe, near/in Dubach) population 420
• 5. Vienna (Maine, Kennebec County, west of Waterville and China) population 530
• 6. Vienna (Maryland, Dorchester County, between Cambridge and Salisbury) population 280
• 7. Vienna (Michigan, Monroe County, north of Toledo, Community of Vienna in Erie) population around 60
• 8. Vienna (Missouri, Maries County, south of Jefferson City) population 630
• 9. Vienna (aka Great Meadows-Vienna, New Jersey, Warren County, west of Parsippany-Troy Hills, between Great Meadows and Hackettstown) population 1,260
• 10. Vienna (New York State, Oneida County, between Syracuse and Rome) population 5,820
• 11. Vienna (North Carolina, Forsyth County, west of Winston-Salem) population 12,000
• 12. Vienna (aka Vienna Center, Ohio, Trumbull County, north of Youngstown) population 1,000
• 13. South Vienna (Ohio, Clark County, east of Springfield) population 470
• 14. Vienna (South Dakota, Clark County, north of Sioux Falls, between Naples and Willow Lake) population 80
• 15. Vienna (Texas, Lavaca County, between San Antonio and Houston, near/in Hallettsville) population 40
• 16. Vienna (Virginia, Fairfax County, also a subway station west of Washington D.C., further below is Vienna Woods as well) population 14,450
• 17. Vienna (West Virginia, Wood County, near Parkersburg) population 10,850
• 18. Vienna (Wisconsin, Dane County, north of Madison, near/in DeForest) population 1,300

Learning from the above mentioned experience, I would research the approximate population of the Viennas I had found on the web so far, while I could not imagine that there would be possibly a place even smaller than Vienna, MI. For the Alabama Vienna though I was unable to determine the number of inhabitants. In the end I found it on a website about ghost towns!

Others had a notably large population compared to the average size. That was for being no actual towns but townships. Township in the US refers to a local government unit ("Landkreis") with basic regulatory responsibilities as for road upkeep, an administrative subdivision of a county ("Bezirk") of usually six miles square that is relying on property taxes. Which explains their higher population in relation to the other Vienna cities and villages. With name variations, I found New Vienna close enough to list here. In Wisconsin there is even a city called Wien, the German spelling of Vienna. And the Canadian Vienna on the northern bank of Lake Erie is just an encore for it is famous as electrifying home of inventor Thomas Alva Edison...

• 19. Vienna (Alabama, Pickens County, between Jackson and Birmingham, near/in Aliceville, at the intersection between Vienna Road and Upper Vienna Road; also New Hope in Madison County was originally called Vienna) population 0, ghost town
• 20. Vienna (Idaho, Blaine County) population 0, ghost town
• 21. New Vienna (Iowa, Dubuque County, east of Dubuque) population 400
• 22. New Vienna (Ohio, Clinton County, between Columbus and Cincinnati, east of Martinsville) population 1,300
• 23. Vienna Township (Indiana, Scott County, south of Indianapolis, between Scottsburg and Underwood) population 9,200
• 24. Vienna Township (Michigan, Montmorency County, east of Gaylord, M-32 E Vienna Corners, between Johannesburg and Bigelow, near/in Lewiston) population 570
• 25. Vienna Charter Township (Michigan, Genesee County, off I-75 half way between Flint and Saginaw, south of Frankenmuth, near/in Clio) population 13,100
• 26. Vienna Township (Minnesota, Rock County, east of Sioux Falls, near/in Luverne) population 180
• 27. Vienna Township (Ohio, Trumbull County, north of Youngstown, cities in this township include the above listed Vienna Center) population 4,000
• 28. Vienna, Canada (Ontario, Elgin County, south of London, together with Port Burwell the village of Vienna is part of the expanded township of Bayham) population 480
• 29. Wien (Wisconsin, Marathon County, west of Wausau, south of Athens) population 780

...and probably there are even more.

Let me just encourage all those who by chance stumble over this outrageous collection, to e-mail me pictures of their closest Vienna nearby, be it in the heart of Michigan, Virginia, or even on the moon.

Going places in Ohio: Vienna all over.

Go to the next page to read about Vienna in the Movies
or jump right to Viennese cuisine, represented by Wieners & Co.