Innsbruck, city, capital of Bundesland (federal state) Tirol, western Austria, on the Inn at the mouth of the Sill River in the Eastern Alps. First mentioned in 1180 as a small market town belonging to the Bavarian counts of Andech, it developed rapidly because of its strategic position at the junction of the great trade routes from Italy to Germany via the Brenner Pass and from Switzerland and western Europe. The bridge (Brücke) over the Inn originally carried this traffic and gave the city its name and its insignia. Innsbruck was chartered in 1239, passed to the Habsburgs in 1363,