Mayerling, village on the Schwechat River in eastern Lower Austria (Niederösterreich), 24 kilometres (15 miles) southwest of Vienna. It is the site of a hunting lodge (now a Carmelite convent) where the Habsburg crown prince, Archduke Rudolf, and his paramour Mary Vetsera committed suicide under mysterious circumstances in January 1889. See Rudolf, Archduke and Crown Prince of Austria.