Steyr

Steyr stands at the meeting of the Enns and Steyr rivers beneath a castle first recorded in 980. The Otakar rulers of Styria made it their residence and controlled iron mining at the Erzberg. After their line died out in 1192, Steyr lost its place as a ducal seat but remained a centre of ironworking. Smiths made knives and weapons, and merchants carried the town's iron goods throughout the empire and to Venice.

Reformation teaching spread among the citizens around 1525, followed by pressure from Habsburg rulers during the Counter-Reformation. The iron trade suffered during the Thirty Years' War and the Upper Austrian Peasants' War of 1626. In 1727 fire devastated the old castle, which was replaced by the Baroque Lamberg Castle. French troops occupied Steyr several times during the Napoleonic wars, and an armistice was signed here on Christmas Day 1800.