a circle of the Austrian province of Steiermark. It extends over 2134 square miles, and contains six cities, thirty market-towns, 976 villages, with 56,362 houses, and 286,442 inhabitants. The capital, of the same name, also the capital of the province. It stands on the river Mur, in a valley of great fertility and beauty. It is fortified, and contains 2521 houses; but the greater number of them are in the suburbs. The inhabitants are now about 40,000, having rapidly increased within the last twenty years. There are several religious houses, many churches and chapels, and a lyceum, with twenty-six professors of the various branches of science, a library of 70,000 volumes, and an observatory. There are manufactures of silk and cotton goods, and of fine articles in steel and iron, as well as of paper and hats. Long. 15.20. 40.E. Lat. 47. 49. N.