In an ever-changing world, one thing stays constant: taxes the huge Christmas tree in front of the Rathaus (city hall), an annual gift to Vienna from one of the other provinces in Austria or the Italian province of South Tyrol.
- Giant Christmas tree sits at the heart of the Christkindlmarkt
- Supplied by a different province each year
- Lower Austria provided the last tree
- …which had 2000 LED lights and 1000 baubles
- Expect those lights to go on around mid-November
- Book a classical concert experience* for your Vienna trip
- See also:
A tree of friendship
(Festive illumination of the Christmas tree in 2024 with Vienna’s Mayor, Michael Ludwig, and Lower Austria’s Governor, Johanna Mikl-Leitner; press photo © Stadt Wien / Christian Jobst)
As the capital and the biggest city by far, Vienna can have a tense relationship with the eight other provinces that form the rest of Austria.
But it’s all sweetness and light at Christmas: every year, a different province sends Vienna a tree for the festive season in a tradition that dates back to 1959. The Italian province of South Tyrol also joins the rotation, since it has close connections to Austria.
Not just any tree turns up, of course, but a giant of a specimen…a tree to tower over the square in front of the city’s Rathaus and form the centrepiece of the most popular Christmas market in the country: the Christkindlmarkt.
The lighting of the tree marks the unofficial start of the Viennese advent season, with many Christmas markets beginning around the same time. The tree lights usually switch around the same time the surrounding market opens.
The tree went up on October 29th last year. The 34m 80-year-old spruce came from Rastenfeld in the Waldviertel: an area of Lower Austria noted for its idyllic and mystical landscape.
Staff from the city gardens then decorated the tree with lights. Normally that’s the only arboreal decoration. In 2024, however, they added around 1000 Christmas baubles, too.
The official switching on of the lights took place on November 16th in the presence of the governors of Vienna and Lower Austria, Michael Ludwig and Johanna Mikl-Leitner.
Previous years
(The Vienna Christmas tree back in 2019)
- The 2023 tree arrived from South Tyrol. The 28m spruce in question came from the Fanes-Sennes-Prags nature park in the Dolomites
- The province of Styria provided the 2022 tree, which came from Admont in Upper Styria
- The 2021 tree grew in the easternmost part of Austria: Burgenland. Foresters harvested the spruce from woodland belonging to the Esterházy family in the Wiesen area of the province
- In 2020, a 200-year-old tree from the forests of the Schlägl Abbey in the district of Klaffer am Hochficht in Upper Austria had the honour of gracing the square and market. Originally some 40m in length, around 33m of the spruce made it to the Rathausplatz
How to get to the tree
Follow the lights. Well, not exactly. Simply wend your way to the Rathaus and it’s hard to miss the tree, it being rather tall and tree-shaped. A nativity scene decorates the base.
Subway: The Rathaus has its own subway station: the appropriately-titled Rathaus stop on the U2 line
Trams: Lines 1, 71 and D that travel around the giant Ring boulevard all stop at Rathausplatz/Burgtheater, which is opposite the entrance to the Christmas market. Line 2 also stops at Rathaus
Address: Rathausplatz, 1010 Vienna