Villach (German pronunciation: [ˈfɪlax] ⓘ; Slovene: Beljak; Italian: Villaco; Friulian: Vilac) is the seventh-largest city in Austria and the second-largest in the federal state of Carinthia.

Villach is a statutory city, on the Drau River near its confluence with the Gail tributary, at the western rim of the Klagenfurt basin.

At the time, a mansio named Sanctium was probably located at the hot spring in the present-day Warmbad quarter south of the city centre.

An 878 deed of donation, issued by the Carolingian ruler Carloman of Bavaria, mentioned a bridge (ad pontem Uillach) near the royal court of Treffen, in what is today Villach.

The bishops also held the adjacent estates along the strategically important route to Italy up to Pontafel, which they retained until 1759 while the surrounding Carinthian ducal lands passed to the Austrian House of Habsburg in 1335.

Emperor Frederick II conferred the citizens the right to hold an annual fair on the feast of 25 July (Jakobitag) in 1222.

From 1526 onwards, many citizens turned Protestant and the Villach parish became a centre of the new faith within the Carinthian estates, which entailed harsh Counter-Reformation measures by the ecclesiastical rulers.

In 1759 the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa formally purchased the Bamberg territories in Carinthia for a price of one million florins.

The city's economy was decisively promoted by a western branch of the Southern Railway line, which finally reached Villach in 1864, providing growth and expansion.