Due to its relatively high percentage of Jewish inhabitants before the Holocaust (38.5 percent in 1923), Leopoldstadt gained the nickname Mazzesinsel ('Matzo Island').

[2] Places of interest include the Wiener Prater (from Latin pratum "meadow"), former imperial hunting grounds to which the public was denied access until 1766.

The area of the Prater closest to the city centre contains a large amusement park, known as the Volksprater ("People's Prater") or Wurstelprater (after the Harlequin-type figure of Hanswurst), and at its entrance there is the giant Wiener Riesenrad Ferris wheel opened in 1897 which features prominently in the movie The Third Man and which has become one of Vienna's landmarks.

Another, smaller, park in Leopoldstadt is the topiary-type Augarten, which is the home of the Vienna Boys' Choir and of a porcelain manufactory ("Augarten-Porzellan").

The hatred that Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor held for the Jews led to the forceful expulsion of the Jewish community in 1670 (Vienna Gesera, from Hebrew: גזרה, 'decree'), with the popular support of the local non-Jewish population.

The high number of Jewish inhabitants led to the area being called Mazzesinsel ('Island of Matzo', referring to the unleavened bread eaten during Passover).

With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, and renewed immigration from Eastern Europe, especially the former Soviet Union, the Jewish population of Leopoldstadt was able to grow again.

Today, many members of Vienna's Jewish community live there again, and there are a number of shops and restaurants selling kosher food.

Several parts of the old residential areas have been gentrified, resulting in a gentle shift from Leopoldstadt's traditional, predominantly working class roots towards a somewhat wealthier population.

The U2 metro line, opened in May 2008 in time for the European Football Championship, links Leopoldstadt with the northern edge of the city centre and runs south east over the Donaustadtbrücke.

In the great hall of the former Agricultural Products Exchange (Taborstraße 10), the team of Serapions Ensembles to Erwin Piplits and Ulrike Kaufmann with the assistance of the City Council until 1988, created the Odeon, a flexible theater space of considerable proportions.

Opened in 1845 and destroyed by fire in 1848, it was the largest dance hall in Vienna at that time, with room for several thousand persons.