Situated in the Eastern Alps, Austria, officially known as the Republic of Austria, is a nation in Central Europe. It is a federation of nine states, the most populous of which is Vienna, the capital. Germany is to the northwest of Austria, followed by the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Italy to the north and east, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. With a population of almost 9 million, the landlocked nation is 83,879 km2 (32,386 sq mi) in size.
At least the Paleolithic era marks the beginning of human habitation in the region that is now Austria. The Celts lived there around 400 BC, and the Romans annexed it in the latter part of the first century BC.
During the late Roman era in the fourth and fifth centuries, the area was first Christianized. During the Migration Period, several Germanic tribes arrived in the area. At the end of the first millennium, Austria arose as a coherent state from the ruins of the Eastern and Hungarian March. Initially a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, it became a duchy in 1156 and an archduchy in 1453.
Austria was a significant imperial force in Central Europe for centuries, having been the center of the Habsburg monarchy from the late 13th century. Vienna also served as the administrative center of the Holy Roman Empire starting in the 16th century. Austria founded its own empire, which grew to become a major power and one of the biggest powers in Europe, prior to the disintegration of the empire two years later, in 1804. Austria-Hungary was founded in 1867 as a result of the empire’s failure in wars and the loss of territory in the 1860s.
Emperor Franz Joseph declared war on Serbia following the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the outbreak of World War I. The Republic of German-Austria was established in 1918, and the First Austrian Republic was established in 1919 as a result of the empire’s defeat and subsequent collapse.
Anti-parliamentarian feelings throughout the interwar years reached a peak in 1934 with the establishment of an Austrofascist dictatorship led by Engelbert Dollfuss. Adolf Hitler incorporated Austria as a subnational division into Nazi Germany a year before the start of World War II. Following ten years of Allied occupation and its liberation in 1945, the nation reclaimed its independence and proclaimed its permanent neutrality in 1955.
With a president chosen by the people to serve as head of state and a chancellor as head of government and chief executive, Austria is a semi-presidential representative democracy. Austria boasts a good level of living and the 13th-highest nominal GDP per capita. Since 1995, the nation has been a member of the European Union and the United Nations since 1955.
It is a founding member of Interpol, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). In addition, it ratified the Schengen Agreement in 1995 and embraced the euro in 1999.
Meaning and Origin
Austria’s original name, Österreich, comes from the Old High German word Ostarrîchi, which means “eastern realm” and was first recorded in the 996 “Ostarrîchi document”. This term is most likely a local (Bavarian) dialect translation of the medieval Latin Marchia orientalis.
In 976, Austria was established as a prefecture of Bavaria. The German name “Austria” was Latinized and first documented in the twelfth century. At the time, Bavaria’s easternmost boundary was the Danube Valley, which included both Upper and Lower Austria.
History
Antiquity
Several Celtic tribes lived in what is now Austria before the Roman era; by the sixth century BC, this region was the center of the Hallstatt civilization. In actuality, the earliest Celtic archeological remains found in Europe are found in the city of Hallstatt.
The Roman Empire subjugated the Celtic Kingdom of Noricum in 16 BC, including most of present-day Austria and portions of modern-day Slovenia. Noricum became a province and remained so until 476 AD. The territories of modern-day Austria that did not fall under the province of Noricum were split between the Roman provinces of Raetia, which included the districts of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, and Pannonia, which included portions of eastern Austria.
Today Located in eastern Austria, Petronell-Carnuntum was a significant army camp that later served as the capital of Pannonia Superior. For about 400 years, there were 50,000 people living in Carnuntum.
Middle Ages
The Germanic Rugii were the first to occupy the region following the collapse of the Roman Empire, including it into their “Rugiland”. The majority of contemporary Austria was taken over by the Middle Danube-born barbarian soldier and politician Odoacer in 487, who included the majority of current Austria in his Kingdom of Italy. The Germanic Ostrogoths overran it by 493 and established the Ostrogothic Kingdom, their own independent nation. The Alemanni, Baiuvarii, Slavs, and Avars attacked the region after the fall of the Kingdom.
The region was subjugated by Charlemagne, King of the Franks, in 788, who also promoted colonization and brought Christianity. The basic territories that today make up Austria were given to the Babenberg family as part of Eastern Francia. Leopold of Babenberg received the territory, which was known as the Marchia Orientalis, in 976.
The earliest known mention of the term Austria dates back to 996 and is spelled Ostarrîchi, denoting the Babenberg March region. With the Privilegium Minus, Austria became a duchy in 1156. The Babenbergs also obtained the Duchy of Styria in 1192. The Babenberg line was ended in 1246 with the passing of Frederick II.
Consequently, the duchies of Austria, Styria, and Carinthia were essentially brought under the jurisdiction of Ottokar II of Bohemia. When he was defeated by German Rudolph I at Dürnkrut in 1278, his rule came to an end. After then, the Habsburgs, Austria’s royal family, dominated the country’s history until World War I.
The Habsburgs started to amass more territories around the Duchy of Austria in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Emperor Sigismund’s son-in-law, Duke Albert V of Austria, was selected to succeed him in 1438. With the exception of Albert, who ruled for just a year, all subsequent emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were Habsburgs.
In addition, the Habsburgs started to amass land outside of their ancestral domains. The majority of the Netherlands was acquired by Archduke Maximilian, the only son of Emperor Frederick III when he married the heiress Maria of Burgundy in 1477. With the marriage of his son Philip the Fair to Joanna the Mad, the heiress of Castile and Aragon in 1496, the Habsburgs acquired not just Spain but also its Italian, African, Asian, and New World territories.
After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Austrians took control of Bohemia and the portion of Hungary that the Ottomans had not yet conquered. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Hungary resulted in repeated clashes between the two empires, as seen by the Long War that lasted from 1593 to 1606.
Approximately twenty raids by the Turks into Styria are recorded, some of which include “burning, pillaging, and taking thousands of slaves”. Suleiman the Magnificent began the first siege of Vienna in late September 1529; Ottoman historians state that the siege ended in vain with the first winter snowfalls.
17th and 18th centuries
The Great Turkish War left Austria in possession of most of Hungary during the lengthy reign of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, who came to power after the Polish King John III Sobieski led a victorious defense of Vienna against the Turks in 1683. The 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz codified this arrangement.
Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI gave up many of the advancements the empire had gained before. He delighted at the impending fall of the Habsburg dynasty. Charles VI was prepared to acknowledge the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 in return for real benefits in terms of land and power.
Maria Theresa, his daughter, was acknowledged as his successor as a result. The competition between Austria and Prussia started in Germany with the advent of Prussia. Along with Prussia and Russia, Austria took part in the first and third of Poland’s three partitions, which took place in 1772 and 1795, respectively.
From that point on, Austria emerged as the cradle of classical music, welcoming the likes of Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Joseph Haydn, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
19th century
Afterward, Austria entered a war with Revolutionary France that was very unsuccessful. This resulted in Napoleon Bonaparte’s victories, which brought in the fall of the old Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The Austrian Empire was established two years earlier. 754,700 Austrians had been killed between 1792 and 1801. Austria was a member of the Allies who invaded France in 1814, ending the Napoleonic Wars.
As one of the four major nations on the continent and a recognized great power, it came out of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Under Austria’s leadership, the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) was established in the same year. The 1848 uprisings that sought to unite Germany caused instability throughout the German territories due to unresolved social, political, and national problems.
Greater Germany, Greater Austria, or just the German Confederation without any Austria at all were the possible outcomes of a unified Germany. Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia was offered the throne of the newly founded German Empire in 1848 because Austria was unwilling to cede its German-speaking lands to the German Empire.
Schleswig and Holstein duchies gained their independence from Denmark in 1864 thanks to joint efforts by Austria and Prussia against Denmark. However, they fought the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 because they could not agree on how the two duchies should be governed.
Austria was forced to resign from the German Confederation and stop participating in German politics after losing to Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz.
The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, also known as the Ausgleich, established a dual monarchy under Franz Joseph I between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary following the unsuccessful Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Numerous ethnic groups, including Germans, Hungarians, Croats, Czechs, Poles, Rusyns, Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes, and Ukrainians, as well as sizable Italian and Romanian minorities, were under Austrian-Hungarian authority in this heterogeneous empire.
Because of this, leading Austria-Hungary in a period of burgeoning nationalist movements became more challenging and necessitated a heavy dependence on an enlarged secret police. Nevertheless, the Austrian government made an effort to be accommodative in certain ways.
For instance, the Reichsgesetzblatt, which published Cisleithania’s laws and ordinances, was published in eight languages; additionally, all national groups were granted the right to attend schools in their native tongue and to communicate in their mother tongue in state offices.
Strong pan-Germanism was pushed by several Austrians from all socioeconomic classes, including Georg Ritter von Schönerer, in an effort to strengthen the ethnic German identity and attach Austria to Germany. Pan-Germanism is a type of populism that certain Austrians, like Karl Lueger, also employed to achieve their own political objectives.
As a way of expressing their dissatisfaction with the multiethnic empire, many Austrian pan-Germans idolized Bismarck despite the fact that his policies excluded Austria and the German Austrians from Germany. They did this by wearing cockades in the German national colors of black, red, and yellow as well as blue cornflowers, which are known to be the favorite flower of German Emperor William I, in their buttonholes.
Many Austrians struggled with their sense of national identity as a result of their country’s exile from Germany, which led Social Democratic Leader Otto Bauer to describe it as “the conflict between our Austrian and German character”.
There was ethnic conflict between German Austrians and other ethnic groups during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Many Austrians, particularly those associated with the pan-German groups, wished to strengthen their ethnic German identity and hoped that the empire would fall so that Germany might take Austria.
The 1897 language edict of minister-president Kasimir Count Badeni, which declared German and Czech co-official languages in Bohemia and mandated fluency in both languages for new government officials, was fiercely opposed by a large number of Austrian pan-German nationalists.
In reality, this meant that Czechs would be hired by the civil service virtually entirely since the majority of middle-class Czechs spoke German but not the other way around. The Away from Rome campaign, started by Schönerer’s followers and calling for “German” Christians to abandon the Roman Catholic Church, was sparked by the backing of ultramontane Catholic politicians and clergy for this change.
Early 20th century
Austria-Hungary seized the chance to conquer Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, coinciding with the start of the Ottoman Empire’s Second Constitutional Era. Leading Austrian politicians and generals used the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip to pressure the emperor to declare war on Serbia, thereby raising the possibility of and precipitating the start of World War I, which ultimately resulted in the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During World War I, almost a million Austro-Hungarian troops lost their lives.
The Provisional National Assembly for German Austria (Provisorische Nationalversammlung für Deutschösterreich) was the name given to the gathering of the elected German members of the Reichsrat, the Imperial Austrian parliament, in Vienna on October 21, 1918. By designating a government known as the Staatsrat, the parliament established the Republic of German-Austria on October 30. The Emperor offered this new cabinet to participate in the decision-making process over the anticipated armistice with Italy, but they declined.
This gave the emperor and his administration complete control over the war’s conclusion on November 3, 1918. On November 11, the emperor announced, on the advice of both the old and new governments’ ministers, that he would no longer participate in state affairs; on November 12, German-Austria formally proclaimed itself to be a democratic republic and a part of the newly formed German republic. On November 10, 1920, the constitution was ratified, renaming the Nationalversammlung as the Nationalrat (national council) and the Staatsrat as the Bundesregierung (federal administration).
The new Central European order, which had been largely established in November 1918, was reaffirmed and solidified by the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain (or, for Hungary, the 1920 Treaty of Trianon), which created new nations and modified others.
With the exception of the mostly German-speaking South Tyrol, the German-speaking regions of Austria that had been part of Austria-Hungary were consolidated into a rump state known as the Republic of German-Austria (German: Republik Deutschösterreich).
In both Austria and Germany, the general public held the view that Austria should be absorbed into Germany. German-Austria was proclaimed a republic on November 12 and Karl Renner, a social democrat, was appointed interim chancellor.
It drew up a temporary constitution the same day, declaring in Articles 1 and 2 that “German-Austria is a democratic republic” and “German-Austria is an integral part of the German Reich.” The unification of Austria and Germany was expressly forbidden by the Treaties of Saint-Germain and Versailles. The first Austrian Republic was established as a result of the treaties compelling German-Austria to change its name to the “Republic of Austria.”
More than three million German-speaking Austrians were forced to live as minorities in the recently created or expanded republics of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Italy after leaving the new Austrian Republic. These comprised German Bohemia and the South Tyrol provinces. Later on in World War II, the status of German Bohemia and Sudetenland became relevant.
The Carinthian Plebiscite, held in October 1920, determined the border between Austria and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, giving Austria the majority of the former Austro-Hungarian Crownland of Carinthia’s territory. The Karavanke mountain range was delineated by this, with a large number of Slovenes still living in Austria.
World War II and the Interwar Years
Even after the war, Austria’s currency, the Krone, started to lose value due to inflation. Austria received an international loan overseen by the League of Nations in the fall of 1922. The loan was intended to prevent bankruptcies, stabilize the value of the currency, and enhance Austria’s overall economic standing.
Due to the loan, Austria ceased to be a sovereign state and came under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations. The Austrian schilling replaced the Krone at a 10,000:1 exchange rate when it was established in 1925. Its steadiness led to it being dubbed the “Alpine dollar” later on. After Black Tuesday, the economy saw a brief upswing from 1925 to 1929, although it almost crashed.
Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss used a tactic he dubbed “self-switch-off of Parliament” to form an authoritarian government that leaned toward Italian fascism in 1933, terminating the First Austrian Republic.
The paramilitary forces of the two major parties at the period, the Social Democrats and the Conservatives, including the Republikanischer Schutzbund of the Social Democrats, which had been proclaimed illegal but continued to operate until the Austrian Civil War broke out on February 12–15, 1934.
The Social Democratic Party was banned, many of its members were imprisoned, and numerous Schutzbund members were executed in February 1934. Dollfuss’s authority was strengthened when the Austrofascists enforced a new constitution (“Maiverfassung”) on May 1, 1934. However, on July 25, he was killed in an attempted Nazi coup in Austria.
Kurt Schuschnigg, his successor, agreed that Austria was a “German state” and thought that Austrians were “better Germans,” but he also wanted Austria to stay independent. On March 9, 1938, Hitler declared that there would be a vote on Austria’s separation from Germany on March 13.
Nazi governance
Nazis from Austria seized power on March 12, 1938, and German forces invaded the nation, preventing Schuschnigg’s referendum from happening. The Anschluss, which translates to “joining” or “connection,” of Austria was formally announced on March 13, 1938.
On Heldenplatz in Vienna, two days later, Adolf Hitler, an Austrian by birth, declared the “reunification” of his homeland with the “rest of the German Reich”. In April 1938, he organized a referendum that validated the union with Germany.
On April 10, 1938, elections for the German parliament were conducted, encompassing Austria which had just been annexed. These were the last elections to the Reichstag held under Nazi administration. The referendum consisted of a single issue concerning the approval of the recent Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Austria and the creation of a single Nazi-party list for the 813-member Reichstag.
Voting was prohibited for Jews, Roma, and Sinti people. 98.9% of voters cast “yes” ballots, making the official turnout for the election 99.5%. Regarding Austria, the home country of Adolf Hitler, 4,484,475 voters cast ballots, with 99.71% of them returning a good result.
Even though the majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss, not all of Austria welcomed the German soldiers with flowers and celebration, particularly in Vienna, home to the majority of Austria’s Jewish community. Yet, there was a great deal of sincere support for Hitler in carrying out the Anschluss since many Germans from both Austria and Germany saw it as completing the long-overdue unification of all Germans into one state, despite the propaganda, manipulation, and rigging that surrounded the ballot box result.
Austria was absorbed by the Third Reich on March 13, 1938, marking the end of Austria’s independence (the Anschluss). Mid-March saw the instant Aryanization of Jewish Austrians’ money, beginning with a “wild” (i.e., extra-legal) phase.
However, it quickly underwent legal and bureaucratic structuring so that Jewish citizens’ possessions could be taken from them. Adolf Eichmann, an Austrian by birth, was sent to Vienna at that time with orders to exterminate Jews. In 1938, during the “Reichskristallnacht” pogrom in November, Jews and Jewish-related establishments, including synagogues, faced violent attacks in Vienna, Klagenfurt, Linz, Graz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, and many other cities in Lower Austria.
At the time, Otto von Habsburg—the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, a fierce opponent of the Nazis, an honorary citizen of hundreds of Austrian cities, and a candidate Schuschnigg considered for the throne—was in Belgium. After he spoke out against the Anschluss, the Nazi government sought him out.
His property would have been taken, and if he had been discovered, he would have been executed right away. Austria was dubbed the “Ostmark” by the Nazis in 1938. This name remained in use until 1942 when it was changed to the “Alpine and Danubian Gaue” (Alpen-und Donau-Reichsgaue).
Even though only 8% of the Third Reich’s population was Austrian, over 13% of the SS and 40% of the workers at the Nazi extermination camps were Austrian, as were some of the most well-known Nazis, such as Adolf Hitler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Franz Stangl, Alois Brunner, Friedrich Rainer, and Odilo Globocnik. In the Reichsgau, Jews and other captives were murdered, tortured, and exploited in a number of smaller camps spread throughout all of the provinces in addition to the major camp, KZ-Mauthausen.
Soon after, the Gestapo smashed the majority of the resistance groups. While the major group around the subsequently killed priest Heinrich Maier was able to get in touch with the Allies, the intentions of the group around Karl Burian to blow up the Gestapo’s headquarters in Vienna were discovered.
In order to help Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra—two missions that were preparatory to the launch of Operation Overlord—as well as Tiger tanks and aircraft (such as Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet)—this so-called Maier-Messner group was able to provide the Allies with information about armaments factories where V-1 flying bombs, V-2 rockets, and aircraft—were manufactured.
With the American Secret Service (OSS) in contact, this resistance cell quickly began to give intelligence about mass murders and extermination camps like Auschwitz. The organization wanted to restore Austria’s independence and force Nazi Germany to lose the war as soon as feasible.
Allied takeover
In the midst of the Soviet Vienna assault on April 13, 1945, Vienna surrendered, shortly before the Third Reich collapsed completely. The projected “Alpine Fortress Operation” building a national redoubt was to have mostly taken place on Austrian territory in the Eastern Alps mountains, according to plans made by the invading Allied powers, especially the Americans. But due to the Reich’s quick fall, it never happened.
Leopold Kunschak, the People’s Party of Austria (formerly the Christian Social People’s Party), Johann Koplenig, the Communist Party of Austria, and Karl Renner, the Socialist Party of Austria (Social Democrats and Revolutionary Socialists) announced Austria’s independence from the Third Reich on April 27, 1945, through the Declaration of Independence.
That same day, state Chancellor Renner established a provisional government in Vienna, supported by Joseph Stalin and the victorious Red Army. (The official name for this occasion is the Second Republic’s birthday.) The majority of western and southern Austria was still ruled by the Nazis by the end of April.
The Federal Constitutional Law of 1920, which dictator Dollfuss had revoked on May 1, 1934, was reinstituted on May 1, 1945. Between 1939 and 1945, Austrian military casualties totaled 260,000. Sixty-five thousand Jewish Austrians perished in the Holocaust. In 1938–39, almost 140,000 Austrian Jews left their homeland.
Chancellor Franz Vranitzky formally admitted in 1992 that thousands of Austrians had participated in significant Nazi atrocities (hundreds of thousands of people perished in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp alone).
occupied by the Allies Following World War II, Austria was split up into areas under military occupation. The Allied Commission for Austria oversaw Austria. A minor distinction in the way the Allies treated Austria was noted, as stated in the Moscow Declaration of 1943.
Vienna, which was encircled by the Soviet zone, was home to the Social Democrats, Conservatives, and Communists that made up the Austrian government. Despite worries that Karl Renner would be Stalin’s puppet, the allies of World War II recognized this Austrian administration in October 1945.
The first nationalization bill was enacted by the Austrian Parliament on July 26, 1946, and the Austrian government acquired over 70 mining and manufacturing businesses. Under the direction of Minister Peter Krauland (party ÖVP), the Ministry of Property Protection and Economic Planning (Ministerium für Vermögenssicherung und Wirtschaftsplanung) was in charge of managing the nationalized enterprises.
Independence
With the signing of the Austrian State Treaty with the Allies of World War II on May 15, 1955, Austria regained complete independence following years of negotiations that were impacted by the Cold War. After the last occupation forces withdrew on October 26, 1955, Austria’s permanent neutrality was proclaimed by a parliamentary act. Austria’s National Day is currently observed on this day as a public holiday.
One issue that continued to exist between Austria and Italy was the status of Tyrol. In commemoration of the alleged loss of the Austrian territory, there are currently twenty separate squares in Austrian cities known as “Südtiroler Platz” (South Tyrolean Square). The South Tyrolean independence movement was known to have committed terrorist attacks in the 1950s and 1960s. The Italian national government gave Tyrol a tremendous deal of autonomy.
The 1920 and 1929 constitutions, which were restored in 1945, form the foundation of the Second Republic’s political structure. Proporz, which divided most important political positions equally between members of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), came to define the system.
Hardly any legislation was approved that did not represent broad consensus since interest group “chambers” with required membership (e.g., for workers, business people, farmers) developed to substantial significance and were typically consulted in the legislative process.
There have been two periods of one-party rule since 1945: 1966–1970 (ÖVP) and 1970–1983, (SPÖ). All preceding legislative eras saw the country dominated by either a “small coalition” consisting of one of these two plus a smaller party, or a grand coalition of ÖVP and SPÖ.
From 1986 until 1992, Kurt Waldheim, a former UN secretary-general, was elected president of Austria. He was charged with war crimes during his time as an officer in the Wehrmacht during World War II.
As a result of a 1994 referendum in which two-thirds of voters approved, the nation joined the European Union on January 1, 1995.
The two main political parties, SPÖ and ÖVP, hold divergent views about the future trajectory of Austria’s military nonalignment. Although the SPÖ publicly advocates for a neutral stance, the ÖVP lobbies for further integration into the EU’s security strategy; certain ÖVP leaders, such as Werner Fasslabend (ÖVP) in 1997, even suggest that future NATO membership is not out of the question.
In actuality, Austria has ratified the constitution in accordance with its participation in the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, its involvement in peacekeeping and peace-building activities, and its membership in NATO’s “Partnership for Peace”. There are no longer any border restrictions between Austria and its neighboring nations since Liechtenstein entered the Schengen Area in 2011.
Geographical
Austria’s position in the Alps means that the majority of the nation is mountainous. Parts of the Southern Limestone Alps, Northern Limestone Alps, and Central Eastern Alps are located in Austria. Just around 25% of Austria’s 83,871 km2 (32,383 sq mi) total land area may be classified as low-lying, while 32% of the nation lies below 500 meters (1,640 feet). In the east of the nation, lowlands and plains partially replace the western Austrian Alps.
Between latitudes 46° and 49° N and longitudes 9° and 18° E is where Austria is located.
It is separated into five regions, with the Eastern Alps making up the largest at 62% of the country’s total size. About 12% of the landmass is made up of the foothills in Austria at the foot of the Alps and the Carpathians, while another 12% is made up of the foothills in the east and the regions around the Pannoni low country’s perimeter.
The second larger mountain range lies in the north and is somewhat lower than the Alps. Known as the Austrian granite plateau, it makes up 10% of Austria and is situated in the center of the Bohemian Mass. The remaining 4% of the Vienna basin is located in Austria.
Austria is located within the Boreal Kingdom’s Central European province of the Circumboreal Region. The WWF categorizes Austria’s landmass into four ecoregions: the Pannonian mixed forests, the Central European mixed forests, the Alps conifer and mixed forests, and the Western European broadleaf forests. Austria ranked 149th out of 172 nations in the world with a mean score of 3.55/10 on the 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index.
Temperature
The majority of Austria is located in the cool to moderate temperature zone, which is mostly influenced by humid westerly winds. The alpine climate predominates since the Alps cover roughly three-quarters of the nation.
The climate in the east has continental characteristics, with less rain than in the alpine regions, particularly in the Pannonian Plain and along the Danube Valley. Austria experiences frigid winters (−10 to 0 °C), but summers may be rather warm, with average highs in the mid-20s and a record high of 40.5 °C (105 °F) in August 2013.
Austria’s climate is classified as oceanic (Cfb), cool/warm-summer humid continental (Dfb), subarctic/subalpine (Dfc), tundra/alpine (ET), and ice-cap (EF) by the Köppen Climate Classification. It is crucial to remember that while Austria may have extremely harsh winters, they are often only slightly colder than those in regions with roughly similar climates, such as Eastern Europe or Southern Scandinavia.
Additionally, summers at higher elevations are often much colder than those in lowlands and at lower altitudes. The oceanic impact on this region of Europe contributes to the significantly milder winters experienced in the subarctic and tundra regions found around the Alps.
Finance
Austria’s economy is highly industrialized and has a sophisticated social market economy, which contributes to its continuously high GDP per capita ranking. Many of Austria’s biggest industrial companies were nationalized until the 1980s; however, in recent years, privatization has brought state ownership down to a level that is similar to other European economies. Labor movements have a significant impact on labor politics and economic growth decisions. They are especially powerful. Austria’s most significant economic sector is international tourism, followed by a well-developed industry.
Austria has always relied heavily on Germany as its commercial partner, which leaves it susceptible to sudden fluctuations in the German economy. Austria’s economic relations to other EU members have become stronger since the country joined the EU.
Due to Austria’s closeness to the aspirational economies of the European Union and its access to the single European market, the country has seen an influx of foreign investors since joining the EU. In 2006, GDP growth was 3.3%. Austria buys goods from other EU members to the tune of at least 67%.
Austria’s economy was also negatively impacted by the 2007–2008 financial crisis in other ways. For instance, because of credit issues, the government had to buy the Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International in December 2009 for just one euro, wiping off BayernLB’s €1.63 billion. With the HGAA issue still unsolved as of February 2014, Chancellor Werner Faymann issued a warning, stating that the failure of the scheme would be similar to the Creditanstalt catastrophe of 1931.
On November 16, 2010, Austria announced that it would not be contributing its December installment to the EU bailout of Greece. It cited the significant deterioration of Greece’s debt status and the country’s evident incapacity to collect taxes at the level it had previously committed to.
Austrian businesses have been significant actors and consolidators in Eastern Europe since the fall of communism. 4,868 mergers and acquisitions involving Austrian companies have been reported between 1995 and 2010, with a total known value of 163 billion EUR.
The three biggest deals involving Austrian businesses were the purchase of Porsche Holding Salzburg by Volkswagen Group in 2009 for 3.6 billion euros, the acquisition of Bank Austria by HypoVereinsbank for 7.8 billion euros in 2000, and the purchase of Banca Comercială Română by Erste Group for 3.7 billion euros in 2005.
In Austria, tourism makes up over 9% of the country’s GDP. Austria received 18.9 billion US dollars in foreign tourism receipts in 2007, placing it ninth in the world. Austria came in at number twelve with 20.8 million foreign visitors.
The natural resources and infrastructure
After a unanimous majority in parliament, the nation started building a nuclear power station in 1972 at Zwentendorf on the Danube River to generate energy. But in 1978, a referendum saw around 50.5% of voters vote in favor of nuclear power and 49.5% against. As a result, parliament overwhelmingly enacted legislation outlawing the use of nuclear power to produce energy, even though the nuclear power plant had already closed.
Currently, hydropower generates more than half of Austria’s electricity. When combined with other renewable energy sources like biomass, solar, and wind power, renewable energy makes up 62.89 percent of the electrical supply.
Austria is blessed with a healthy environment in comparison to much of Europe. Its biological natural capital, or biocapacity, is more than twice as high as the global average: Compared to the global average of 1.6 global hectares per person, Austria’s biocapacity per person was 3.8 global hectares in 2016.
In comparison, Austria’s ecological footprint of consumption in 2016 was 6.0 world hectares of biocapacity. In other words, Austrians consume almost 60% more biocapacity than the country has. Austria is therefore experiencing a biocapacity shortage.
Demographics
As of April 2024, Statistik Austria reported that 9,170,647 people called Austria home. Vienna, the nation’s capital, is home to more than 2 million people, or about 25% of the total population. It is renowned for both its excellent level of life and cultural activities.
Vienna is the biggest city in the nation. With 291,007 residents, Graz is the second-largest city, behind Linz (206,604), Salzburg (155,031), Innsbruck (131,989), and Klagenfurt (101,303). There are less than 100,000 people living in any other city.
1.8 million people in Austria were foreign-born as of the beginning of 2024, accounting for 22.3% of the country’s total population, according to Statistic Austria. The number of foreign-born immigrant descendants is above 620,100.
With almost 350,000 members, Turks are one of the largest ethnic communities in Austria. Nonetheless, the number of Romanian citizens in the nation has overtaken that of Turkish citizens as a result of current migratory patterns. The combined population of Bosniaks, Macedonians, Slovenes, Serbs, and Croats is around 5.1% of Austria’s overall population. According to estimates from the Council of Europe, there are about 25,000 Romani people residing in Austria.
The anticipated total fertility rate (TFR) for 2017 was 1.52 births per woman, which is still far below than the peak of 4.83 births per woman in 1873 and below the replacement rate of 2.1. 42.1% of births in 2015 were to single mothers. At an average age of 44.5, Austrians were the 14th oldest population in the world in 2020. 81.5 years was the projected life expectancy in 2016 (78.9 years for men and 84.3 years for women).
According to Statistics Austria, immigration will cause the population to increase to 10.55 million by 2080.
Largest cities
Religion
As the seat of the Roman Catholic Habsburg dynasty, which promoted Roman Catholicism, Austria was traditionally a country with a substantial Roman Catholic population. Only a small minority of Austrians remained Protestant in the 16th century, as the Protestant Reformation—which began in 1517—spread throughout Europe and many Austrians became Protestants. The Habsburgs, on the other hand, enacted Counter-Reformation measures as early as 1527 and brutally suppressed Austrian evangelicalism.
With the exception of Orthodox churches, there has been a steady decline in Christianity and an increase in other religions at least since the 1970s, a few decades after the fall of the Habsburg monarchy and the creation of Austria as a federal republic. This trend has been especially noticeable in Vienna, home to a sizable immigrant and foreign population.
Religion in Austria (2021)
Approximately 74% of Austrians were registered as Roman Catholics in 2001, with 5% identifying as Protestants. Roman Catholic and Protestant Austrian Christians are required to pay their churches an annual membership fee known as the Kirchenbeitrag (“ecclesiastical contribution”), which is determined by their income and amounts to around 1%.
There has been a decrease in the number of followers and churchgoers since the latter part of the 20th century. However, Sunday church attendance was just 605,828 (or 7% of the entire Austrian population) in 2015.
Data for 2018 from the Austrian Roman Catholic Church lists 5,050,000 members or 56.9% of the total Austrian population. Furthermore, the Lutheran church lost 74,421 members between 2001 and 2016.
Around 12% of persons identified as not practicing any religion at the time of the 2001 census; ecclesiastical data indicates that this percentage rose to 20% by 2015 and then to 22.4% (1,997,700 people) in 2021. With the majority of their origins coming from Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo, over 340,000 of the remaining population were recognized as members of various Muslim groups in 2001.
In the fifteen years leading up to 2016, the number of Muslims quadrupled to 700,000, and in 2021 it reached 745,600. A further 436,700 Austrians (mainly Serbs) identified as Eastern Orthodox Church members in 2021, along with 26,600 Buddhists, 10,100 Hindus, around 21,800 Jehovah’s Witnesses, and 5,400 Jews.
As stated in the 2010 Eurobarometer,
- In Austria, 44% of people “believe there is a God”;
- 38% “believe there is some sort of spirit or life force”; and
- 12% “do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force”.
