Linz, the capital of Upper Austria and the country's third-largest city, stands on the Danube some thirty kilometres south of the Czech border and holds about 214,000 people. Built up in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on steel and chemicals, it turned towards services, universities and festivals, and was European Capital of Culture in 2009. Its city administration funds and hosts concerts, among them a visit by the Youth Orchestra of Plovdiv in November 1993.