Lustenau

Lustenau is a town in Vorarlberg, the westernmost state of Austria, in the district of Dornbirn. It lies on the eastern bank of the Alpine Rhine, which forms the border with Switzerland, and four bridges link it to the Swiss side. It is the fourth largest town in Vorarlberg. The territory stretches about 8.5 kilometres from north to south and 4 kilometres from east to west on the flat floor of the Rhine valley at an altitude of 404 metres, with the Dornbirner Ach on its northeast edge. The name comes from a document of 24 January 887 in which the Carolingian king Charles the Fat refers to a royal court of Lustenau. For centuries the place was ruled by the Knights of Ems and later the Hohenems line, and it stayed an independent county until 1830, when it passed to Austria. That long isolation left a distinctive dialect and a few dominant family names, and the town grew rich on embroidery before turning to new technologies.