Present-Day Austria
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Present-Day Austria
Austria (Österreich) is a small, predominantly mountainous country located in south-central Europe. With a total area of 51,993 square miles (83,859 square kilometers), it is about twice the size of Switzerland and slightly smaller than the state of Maine. The landlocked country shares national borders with Switzerland and the tiny principality of Liechtenstein to the west (124 miles together), Germany (486 miles) and the Czech Republic and Slovakia (352 miles together) to the north, Hungary to the east (215 miles), and Slovenia (193 miles) and Italy (267 miles) to the south.
The westernmost third of the country consists of a narrow corridor between Germany and Italy that is between 20 and 37 miles wide. The rest of Austria lies to the east and has a maximum north-south width of 174 miles. The country measures almost 372 miles in length, extending from Lake Constance on the Austrian-Swiss border in the west to the Neusiedler See on the Austrian-Hungarian border in the east. The contrast between these two lakes—one in the Alps and the other a typical steppe lake on the westernmost fringe of the Hungarian Plain—illustrates the diversity of Austria's landscape.
Seven of Austria's nine provinces have long historical traditions predating the establishment of the Republic of Austria in 1918: Upper Austria (Oberösterreich), Lower Austria (Niederösterreich), Styria (Steiermark), Carinthia (Kärnten), Salzburg, Tirol, and Vorarlberg. The provinces of Burgenland and Vienna (Wien) were established after World War I. Most of Burgenland had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary, but it had a predominantly German-speaking population and hence became part of Austria. Administrative and ideological reasons played a role in the establishment of Vienna as an independent province. Historically the capital of Lower Austria, Vienna was a socialist stronghold, whereas Lower Austria was conservative, and both socialists and conservatives wanted to consolidate their influence in their respective provinces. Each province has a provincial capital with the exception of Vienna, which is a province in its own right in addition to being the federal capital. In Vienna, the City Council and the mayor function as a provincial parliament and provincial governor, respectively.
