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Austria

Specialty Definition: Austria

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Republic of Austria is a landlocked country in Central Europe, a federation of 9 states.
Austria is bordered by Liechtenstein and Switzerland in the west, Italy and Slovenia in the south, Hungary and Slovakia in the east, and Germany and the Czech Republic in the north.

Republik Österreich

(In Detail) (Full size)
''National motto: None''
Official language	German
Capital	Vienna
President	Thomas Klestil
Chancellor	Wolfgang Schüssel
Area  - Total  - % water	Ranked 112nd 83,858 km² 1.3%
Population  - Total (2000)  - Density	Ranked 86th 8,150,835 97/km²
Independence  - Date	July 27, 1955
Currency	Euro¹, Austrian euro coins
Time zone	UTC +1
National anthem	Land der Berge, Land am Strome
Internet TLD	.AT
Calling Code	43
(1) Prior to 1999: Austrian schilling

History

Main article: History of Austria

After being conquered by the Romans, Huns, Lombards, Ostrogoths, Bavarians and Franks, Austria came under the rule of the Babenbergs from the 10th to the 13th century, which were succeeded by the Habsburgs. The line of this family continued to govern Austria until the 20th century.

After the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire, Austria became part of the double-monarchy Austria-Hungary in 1867. This nation was split up after being on the losing side of World War I, forming Austria as it is today. Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938 (the "Anschluss").

The Allies occupied Austria at the end of World War II until 1955, when the country again became fully independent under the condition that it remained neutral. However, after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, Austria became increasingly involved in European affairs, and in 1995, Austria joined the European Union, and the euro monetary system in 1999.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Austria

Head of state is the president, who is elected every 6 years by popular vote. The president chooses the chancellor, traditionally the leader of the largest party in the elections for parliament. The Austrian parliament consists of two chambers, the Bundesrat (federal council), which consists of 64 representatives of the states, based on population, and the Nationalrat (national council), which has 183 directly elected members.

After three decades of social-democratic majority (SPÖ) a right-wing coalition was formed in 2000, consisting of the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) and the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ). However, after some turmoil within the FPÖ concerning party policy and leadership, Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) announced on September 9, 2002 that general elections would be held prematurely at the end of November. In the elections of November 24, 2002, the ÖVP won a landslide victory (42.3% of the vote), whereas the FPÖ was reduced to a mere 10.1%.

The new Austrian parliament (Nationalrat, 183 seats) will be made up as follows:

• 79 seats ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) (42.3% of the vote)
• 69 seats SPÖ (Austrian Social Democratic Party) (36.51%)
• 18 seats FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party) (10.1%)
• 17 seats Die Grünen (Austrian Green Party) (9.47%)

On February 28, 2003, the coalition between the ÖVP and the FPÖ has been continued, again with Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) as Federal Chancellor. His Vice Chancellor was Herbert Haupt (FPÖ) until replaced by Hubert Gorbach (FPÖ) on October 20, 2003. Prior to that, long-lasting "probing talks" ("Sondierungsgespräche") took place between the ÖVP and the other major parties FPÖ, SPÖ and the Green Party.

States

Main article: States of Austria

Map

A federal republic, Austria is divided into nine states, or Bundesländer. These are:

• Burgenland
• Carinthia
• Lower Austria
• Salzburg
• Styria
• Tyrol
• Upper Austria
• Vienna
• Vorarlberg

Geography

Main article: Geography of Austria

Being situated in the Alps, Austria's west and south are mountainous making Austria a well-known winter sports destination. The highest mountain is the Grossglockner, at 3,798 m. The north and east of the country are mostly rolling terrain. The climate is temperate, with cold winters and cool summers.

The main cities are capital Vienna, situated on the Danube, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Graz and Linz.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Austria

Austria, with its well-developed market economy and high standard of living, is closely tied to other European Union economies, especially Germany's. Membership in the EU has drawn an influx of foreign investors attracted by Austria's access to the single European market and proximity to EU aspirant economies. Slowing growth in Germany and elsewhere in the world slowed the economy to only 1.2% growth in 2001. To meet increased competition from both EU and Central European countries, Austria will need to emphasize knowledge-based sectors of the economy, continue to deregulate the service sector, and lower its tax burden.

An Austrian town (Kaprun, 786 metres, 2580 feet) in the state of Salzburg
Larger version

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Austria

About ten percent of the Austrians are of non-Austrian descent, many from surrounding countries, especially from the former East Bloc nations. Over 50,000 indigenous Slovenians live in the Austrian provinces of Carinthia and Styria. A large group of labour immigrants is also present. The official language, German, is spoken by everybody; the dialect is similar to that spoken in southern Germany.

There is, however, a separate standard for Austrian German with differences to the German spoken in Germany.

More than three-quarters of Austrians are Roman Catholic. Other important religions are Islam and Protestantism.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Austria

Austria has been the birthplace for several famous composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Strauss, Sr & Johann Strauss, Jr and Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg (last 3 were in the famous Second Viennese School). Other famous Austrians include physicists Ludwig Boltzmann and Erwin Schrödinger as well as philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and Kurt Goedel, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, poet Peter Rosegger (see Music of Austria), and painter Gustav Klimt.

Being situated in the Alps, Austria has been the homeland of many great alpine skiers, such as Toni Sailer, Hermann Maier, Annemarie Moser-Pröll and Anita Wachter.

Holidays

Date	English Name	Local Name	Remarks
January 1	New Year's Day	Neujahr
January 6	Epiphany	Epiphanie	Heilige Drei Könige
Moveable	Easter Sunday	Ostersonntag	Good Friday work-free for Protestants
Moveable	Easter Monday	Ostermontag
May 1		Staatsfeiertag	also, Labour day
Moveable	Ascension	Christi Himmelfahrt	Thursday 40 days after Easter
Moveable	Pentecost	Pfingstsonntag
Moveable	Whit Monday	Pfingstmontag
Moveable	Corpus Christi	Fronleichnam	Thursday 11 days after Pentecost
August 15	Assumption of Mary	Mariae Himmelfahrt
October 26	National day	Nationalfeiertag	Law on neutrality passed in 1955
November 1	All Saints	Allerheiligen
December 8	Immaculate Conception	Mariae Empfängnis
December 25	Christmas	Christtag, Weihnachten
December 26	Boxing Day	Stephanitag

Miscellaneous topics

• List of Austrians
• Communications in Austria
• Transportation in Austria
• Military of Austria
• Foreign relations of Austria
• Austria/Language
• Tourism in Austria
• Stamps and postal history of Austria

Much of the material in these articles comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003 U.S. Department of State website.

External links

• Worldwide Press Freedom Index - Rank 26 out of 139 countries (3 way tie)
• Library of Congress Portals on the World - Austria
• The Symbols of Austria

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European Union:
Austria  |  Belgium  |  Denmark  |  Finland  |  France  |  Germany  |  Greece  |  Ireland
Italy  |  Luxembourg  |  Netherlands  |  Portugal  |  Spain  |  Sweden  |  United Kingdom

Countries acceding to membership on May 1, 2004:
Cyprus  |  Czech Republic  |  Estonia  |  Hungary  |  Latvia  |  Lithuania  |  Malta  |  Poland  |  Slovakia  |  Slovenia

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Countries of the world  |  Europe  |  Council of Europe

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Austria."

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Austria-Hungary

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Flag of Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary was a loose federation (1867-1918) in which the kingdom of Hungary enjoyed self-government and proportional representation in joint affairs (principally foreign relations and defence) with the western and northern lands of the Austrian Empire under the Emperors (who were also Kings of Hungary) of the Habsburg dynasty.

The non-Hungarian part is often referred to as Cisleithania because most of its territory lay west (or to "this" side, from an Austrian perspective) of the Leithe river (though Galicia to the north-east was also a part), but in official Austrian parlance its constituent provinces were known collectively as "the lands represented in the Reichsrat (the Imperial council)", Cisleithania's parliament.

The Ausgleich ("compromise") of February 1867 which inaugurated the Empire's dualist structure in place of the former unitary Austrian Empire (1804-1867) was a result of the latter's declining strength and loss of power in Italy (war of 1859) and Germany (Austro-Prussian War, 1866) and continued Hungarian dissatisfaction with rule from Vienna following Austria's suppression (with Russian support) of the Hungarian revolution of 1848-1849.

In particular, Hungarian leaders demanded and received the Emperor's coronation as King of Hungary as a reaffirmation of Hungary's historic privileges, and the establishment of a separate parliament at Budapest with the powers to enact laws for the historic lands of the Hungarian crown, though on a basis which would preserve the political dominance of ethnic Hungarians (more specifically of the country's large nobility and educated elite) and the exclusion from effective power of the country's large Romanian and Slav minorities.

Relations over the next half-century between the two halves of the Empire (in fact the Cisleithan part contained about 57% of the combined realm's population and a rather larger share of its economic resources) were punctuated by repeated disputes over shared external tariff arrangements and the financial contribution of each government to the common treasury. Under the terms of the Ausgleich, these matters were determined by an agreement which was to be renegotiated every ten years, which created political turmoil each time the agreement was up for renewal. The disputes between the halves of the empire culminated in the mid-1900s in a prolonged constitutional crisis triggered by disagreement over the language of command in Hungarian army units, and deepened by the advent to power in Budapest (April 1906) of a Hungarian nationalist coalition. The common arrangements were renewed provisionally (October 1907, November 1917) on an "as is" basis.

The dominant ethnic group in each part of the Empire constituted a minority in the area which it controlled: Germans numbered only some 36% of Cisleithania's population, and Magyars slightly under a half of Hungary's.

Czechs (the majority in the Austrian crownlands of Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia), Poles and Ukrainians (in Galicia), Slovenes (in Carniola, Carinthia and southern Styria, mostly today's Slovenia) and Croats, Italians and Slovenes in Istria each sought a greater say in Cisleithan affairs.

The ethnic distribution of Austria-Hungary

German	24%
Hungarian	20%
Czech	13%
Polish	10%
Ruthenian	8%
Romanian	6%
Croat	5%
Slovak	4%
Serb	4%
Slovene	3%
Italian	3%

At the same time, Magyar dominance was contested by the majorities of Romanians in Transylvania and eastern Banat, Slovaks in today's Slovakia, Croats and Serbs in crownlands Croatia and Dalmatia (today's Croatia), Bosnia and Herzegovina and provinces known as Vojvodina (today's northern Serbia). The Romanians and the Serbs were looking also to union with their fellows in the newly-founded kingdoms of Romania and Serbia, respectively.

Though Hungary's leaders were on the whole less willing than their German Austrian counterparts to share power with their subject minorities, they granted a large measure of autonomy to the kingdom of Croatia in 1868, parallelling to some extent their own accommodation within the Empire the previous year.

The Imperial (Austrian) and Royal (Hungarian) governments differed also to some extent in their attitude toward the Empire's common foreign policy, leaders in Budapest fearing particularly annexations of territory which would add to the kingdom's non-Hungarian populations, though the Empire's alliance with Germany against Russia from October 1879 (see Dual Alliance, 1879) commanded general acceptance, the latter power being seen as the principal external military threat to both parts.

The territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces since August 1878 under the Treaty of Berlin was annexed in October 1908 as a common holding under the control of the finance ministry rather than being attached to either government, an anomalous situation which led some in Vienna to contemplate its combination with Croatia in a third component of the Empire combining its southern Slav regions under the domination of Croat leaders who might be more sympathetic to Vienna than Budapest.

Coat of Arms of Austria-Hungary

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, heir to his childless uncle the Emperor Franz Josef, visited the Bosnian capital Sarajevo where he was assassinated by Bosnian Serb militants of the nationalist group Black Hand.

The Empire had previously lost ethnically Italian areas to Piedmont due to nationalist movements sweeping through Italy, and the threat of losing the southern territories inhabited by Slavs to Serbia was rather imminent. The leadership of the country, backed by its ally Germany, decided to confront Serbia militarily before it could incite a revolt: using the assassination as an excuse, they presented a list of demands they knew Serbia would never entirely accept and declared war when one of them was turned down.

These events brought the Empire into conflict with Serbia and over the course of July and August 1914, caused the start of the World War I, as Austria-Hungary and Germany sided against Russia and France, soon pulling in the United Kingdom, Italy and a number of other countries.

Austro-Hungarian troops initially defended the routes into Hungary and repulsed Italian advances in Gorizia. The army suffered very serious casualties throughout the war, especially in 1914. However, they were relatively successful (albeit with German aid and direction) even advancing into enemy territory following German-led victories in Galicia (May 1915) and at Caporetto (October 1917). Throughout the war, the Austro-Hungarian war effort had become more and more subordinate to the direction of German planners. Supply shortages, low morale, and the high casualty rate began to seriously affect the operational abilities of the army by the last years of the war.

The strain of war, enemy blockade and increasing anti-war agitation among socialists and national minorities intent on taking power, led to the Empire's disintegration in October-December 1918. The war officially concluded for Austria-Hungary when it entered an armistice with the Allies on November 3, 1918.

The Czechs first proclaimed independence on October 28. Hungary followed shortly thereafter, although Transylvania's majority joined Romania, taking with them a large Hungarian minority. The south Slavs formed the State of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, soon united with Serbia and Montenegro as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Both Austria and Hungary became republics, exiling the Habsburg family in perpetuity. A pro-monarchist revival in Hungary after the communist revolution and Romanian intervention of 1919 led to the country's formal reversion to a kingdom (March 1920), but with the throne vacant. Attempts by the last Emperor, Charles I, to regain power in Budapest (March, October 1921) ended in his deportation to Madeira, where he died the following year.

Historical views of Austria-Hungary have varied throughout the 20th century:
— Historians in the early part of the century tended to view the Habsburg polity as despotic and obsolete.
— Subsequent experience of the region's inter-war "Balkanization", Soviet domination, and more recent nationality conflicts, coupled with wider efforts at Europeanan federalism, have resulted in a more favourable assessment of Austria-Hungary.
— One controversy among historians remains whether the Empire's collapse was the inevitable result of a decades-long decline or whether it would have survived in some form in the absence of military defeat in World War I.

External links

• "Distribution of Races in Austria-Hungary" from the Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, 1911

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Austria-Hungary."

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Austrian School

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Austrian School is a school of economic thought founded in 1871 with the publication of Carl Menger's Principles of Economics, which helped start the Neoclassical Revolution in economics in the late nineteenth century. Austrian economics is currently closely associated with advocacy of radical laissez faire views. This was not always the case as the earlier Austrian economists were more cautious compared to later economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. The early Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk said that he feared that unbridled free competition would lead to "anarchism in production and consumption." However the Austrian School, especially through the works of Friedrich Hayek would be influential in the free market revival of the 1980s.

Austrians view entrepreneurship as the driving force in economic development, see private property as essential to the efficient use of resources, and often see government interference in market processes as counterproductive. The school originated in Vienna and owes its name to members of the Historical School of economics who during the Methodenstreit, where the Austrians defended the reliance that classical economists derisively called it the "Austrian School" to emphasize its departure from mainstream German thought and to suggest a provincial approach.

Menger was closely followed by contributions from Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich von Wieser. Austrian economists developed a sense of themselves as a school distinct from neoclassical economics during the economic calculation debate, with Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek representing the Austrian position. The school was no longer centered in Austria after Hitler came to power. Austrian economics was ill-thought of by most economists after World War II. Its reputation has lately risen with work by students of Israel Kirzner and Ludwig Lachmann, as well as an interest in Hayek after he won the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Carl Menger was one of a group of economists founding neoclassical economics in the 1870s. Neoclassical economists reject classical cost of production theories, most famously the labor theory of value. Instead they explain value by subjective preferences of individuals. This psychological aspect to Menger's economics may be partly explained by the schools birth in turn of the century Vienna. Supply and demand are explained by aggregating over the decisions of individuals, following the precepts of methodological individualism and marginalist arguments, which compare the costs and benefits for incremental changes.

Contemporary neo-Austrian economists claim to adopt Economic subjectivism more consistently than any other school of economics and reject many neoclassical formalisms. For example, while neoclassical economics formalizes the economy as an equilibrium system, Austrian economists emphasize its dynamic, perpetually dis-equilibrated nature.

The Austrian economists were the first liberal economists to systematically challenge the Marxist school. This was partly a reaction to the Methodenstreit when they attacked the Hegelian doctrines of the Historical School. Though many Marxist authors have attempted to portray the Austrian school as a bourgeois reaction to Marx, such an interpretation is untenable: Menger wrote his Principles of Economics at almost the same time as Marx was completing Das Kapital. The Austrian economists were, however, the first to clash directly with Marxism, since both dealt with such subjects as money, capital, business cycles, and economic processes. Boehm-Bawerk wrote extensive critiques of Marx in the 1880s and 1890s, and several prominent Marxists--including Rudolf Hilferding--attended his seminar in 1905-06. In contrast, the classical economists had shown little interest in such topics, and many of them did not even gain familiarity with Marx's ideas until well into the twentieth century.

Probably the most consistent and influential Austrian School body is the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Some contributions of Austrian economists:

• A theory of distribution in which factor prices result from the imputation of prices of consumer goods to goods of "higher order", that is goods used in the production of consumer goods, goods used in the production of those producers goods, etc.

• An emphasis on opportunity cost and reservation demand in defining value, and a refusal to consider supply as an otherwise independent cause of value. (The British economist Philip Wicksteed adopted this perspective.)

• An emphasis on the forward-looking nature of choice, seeing time as the root of uncertainty within economics (see also time preference).

• A fundamental rejection of mathematical methods in economics seeing the function of economics as investigating the essences rather than the specific quantities of economic phenomena. This was seen as an evolutionary, or "genetic-causal", approach against the stresses of equilibrium and perfect competition found in mainstream Neoclassical economics.

• Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk's critique of Marx centered around the untenability of the labor theory of value in the light of the transformation problem. There was also the connected argument that capitalists do not exploit workers; they accommodate workers by providing them with income well in advance of the revenue from the output they helped to produce.

• Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk's capital theory which equates capital intensity with the degree of roundaboutness of production processes.

• The Mises-Hayek business cycle theory which explains depression as a reaction to an intertemporal production structure fostered by monetary policy setting interest rates inconsistent with individual time preferences.

• Hayek's concept of intertemporal equilibrium. (J. R. Hicks took over this theory in his discussion of temporary equilibrium in Value and Capital, a book very influential on the development of neoclassical economics after World War II.)

• Mises and Hayek's view of prices as permitting agents to make use of dispersed tacit knowledge.

• The time preference theory of interest which explains interest rates through intertemporal choice.

• Stressing uncertainty in the making of economic decisions, rather than relying on "homo oeconomicus" or the rational man who was fully informed of all circumstances impinging on his decisions. The fact that perfect knowledge never exists, means that all economic activity implies risk.

• Seeing the entrepreneurs' role as collecting and evaluating information and acting on risks.

• The economic calculation debate between Austrian and Marxist economists, with the Austrians claiming that Marxism was doomed to fail because prices could not be set to recognise opportunity costs of factors of production, and so socialism could not calculate best uses in the same way capitalism does.

Major Austrian Economists

• Carl Menger
• Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
• Friedrich von Wieser
• Ludwig von Mises
• F. A. Hayek
• Ludwig Lachmann

Other related economists

• Frederic Bastiat (precursor)
• Henry Hazlitt (introduced the Austrian School to the USA)
• Salamanca school (medieval precursors)
• Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
• Louis Say
• Leon Walras
• Jules Dupuit
• Joseph Schumpeter

Contemporary Austrian Economists

• Murray N. Rothbard
• Israel Kirzner
• Hans Hermann Hoppe
• Llewelyn Rockwell
• Walter Block

Seminal Works

• Principles of Economics by Carl Menger
• Capital and Interest by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
• Human Action by Ludwig von Mises

See also

• classical liberalism

External Links

• The Austrian Economists by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk 1891
• The Mises Institute - A large selection of material on Austrian economics
• The Origins of the Austrian School of Economics by John Moser

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Austrian School."

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Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Larger version

Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who may also be referred to as Francis von Habsburg or Emperor Franz I of Austria (February 12, 1768 - March 2, 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until August 6, 1806, when the Empire was disbanded. He was also Francis I, first Emperor of Austria (ruling from 1804 to 1835).

He was a son of Leopold II of Austria (1747-1792) and his wife Maria Luisa of Spain (1745-1792).

Francis II was the last of the Holy Roman Emperors. As the leader of a large multi-ethnic nation (he was also Francis I of Austria), Francis felt threatened by Napoleon's call for liberty and equality in Europe. He led Austria into the French Revolutionary Wars and was defeated by Napoleon. At the Treaty of Campo Formio, he ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France in exchange for Venice and Dalmatia. He again fought against France during the Second Coalition, and, after meeting crushing defeat at Austerlitz, agreed to the Treaty of Lunéville, which dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, weakening Austria and decentralizing Germany.

In 1809, Francis attacked France again, hoping to take advantage of the conflict embroiling Napoleon in Spain. He was again defeated, and this time forced to ally with Napoleon, ceding territory to the Empire, joining the Continental System, and wedding his daughter Marie Louise to the Emperor. Francis was essentially subjected to being a groveling vassal to the Emperor of France. The Napoleonic wars drastically weakened Austria and reduced its prestige, which would lead to Prussia acquiring the edge in the contest for dominance of Germany.

In 1813, for the fourth and final time, Austria turned against France and joined England, Russia, and Prussia in their war against Napoleon. Austria played a major role in the final defeat of France — in recognition of this, Francis, represented by Clemens von Metternich, presided over the Congress of Vienna, helping to form the Concert of Europe and the Holy Alliance, ushering in an era of conservatism and reactionism in Europe.

He married four times:

• January 6, 1788, to Elisabeth of Württemberg (April 21, 1767) - February 18, 1790, who died bearing a short-lived daughter, Ludovika (1790-1791)
• August 15, 1790, to Maria Theresa of the Two Sicilies (June 6, 1772 - April 13, 1807), with whom he had twelve children, including his successor Ferdinand I and the French Empress Marie-Louise
• January 6, 1808, to Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este (December 14, 1787 - April 7, 1816) with no issue
• October 29, 1816, to Karoline Charlotte Auguste of Bavaria (February 8, 1792 - February 9, 1873) with no issue

Preceded by: Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

List of German Kings and Emperors

Succeeded by: Ferdinand I of Austria

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor."

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History of Austria

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

This is the history of Austria. See also the history of Europe and history of present-day nations and states.

Much of present-day Austria was once the Roman territory of Noricum. Under the Franks, parts of modern-day Austria were considered first part of Bavaria and later the Eastern Frankish Kingdom and the Ostmark, or Eastern March. The Marches were overseen by a comes or dux as appointed by the king. The most normal translation of these offices is count or duke, but these titles conveyed very different meanings in the Early Middle Ages, and the Latin terminology is preferable to any modern translation. In German-speaking countries, the title was eventually regularized to Margrave (Ger. Markgraf). (ie "Mark count"). In 1154 the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy ruled by the Babenberg family.

The first record showing Austria is appr. 955 where it is written down as Ostaricci.

Following the extinction of the Babenbergs in the 13th century, Austria came briefly under the rule of the Czech King Ottokar II. Ottokar was defeated and killed by German King Rudolf I of Habsburg, who took Austria and gave it to his sons in 1278. Austria was ruled by the Habsburgs for the next 640 years. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of Austria proper, which was a small Duchy along the Danube - Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Tyrol, and other smaller provinces. These provinces, together, became known as the Habsburg Hereditary Lands, although they were sometimes all lumped together simply as Austria.

In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund. Although Albert himself only reigned for a year, from then on, every emperor was a Habsburg, with only one exception. The Habsburgs began also to accumulate lands far from the Hereditary Lands. In 1477, the Archduke Maximilian, only son of Emperor Frederick III, married the heiress of Burgundy, thus acquiring most of the Low Countries for the family. His son Philip the Fair married the heiress of Castile and Aragon, and thus acquired Spain and its Italian, African, and New World appendages for the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs' hereditary territories, however, were soon separated from this enormous empire when, in 1520, Emperor Charles V left them to the rule of his brother, Ferdinand.

In 1526, following the Battle of Mohacs, in which Ferdinand's brother-in-law Louis II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, was killed, Ferdinand expanded his territories, bringing Bohemia and that part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans under his rule. Habsburg expansion into Hungary, however, led to frequent conflicts with the Turks, particularly the so-called Long War of 1593 to 1606.

Austria and the other Habsburg hereditary provinces (and Hungary and Bohemia, as well) were much affected by the Reformation. Although the Habsburg rulers themselves remained Catholic, the provinces themselves largely converted to Lutheranism, which Ferdinand I and his successors, Maximilian II, Rudolf II, and Mathias largely tolerated. In the late 16th century, however, the Counter-Reformation began to make its influence felt, and the Jesuit-educated Archduke Ferdinand, who ruled over Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, was energetic in suppressing heresy in the provinces which he ruled. When, in 1619, he was elected Emperor to succeed his cousin Mathias, Ferdinand II, as he became known, embarked on an energetic attempt to re-Catholicize not only the Hereditary Provinces, but Bohemia and Habsburg Hungary as well. Although carried out in the midst of the Thirty Years War, which had greatly negative consequences for Habsburg control of the Empire itself, these campaigns within the Habsburg hereditary lands were largely successful, leaving the Emperors with much greater control within their hereditary power base.

The long reign of Leopold I (1657-1705) saw the culmination of the Austrian conflict with the Turks. Following the successful defense of Vienna in 1683, a series of campaigns resulted in the return of all of Hungary to Austrian control by the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699. At the same time, Austria was becoming more involved in competition with France in Western Europe, with Austria fighting the French in the Third Dutch War (1672-1679), the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697) and finally the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which the French and Austrians (along with their British and Dutch allies) fought over the inheritance of the vast territories of the Spanish Habsburgs. Although the French secured control of Spain and its colonies for a grandson of Louis XIV, the Austrians also ended up making significant gains in western Europe, including the former Spanish Netherlands (now called the Austrian Netherlands, including most of modern Belgium), the Duchy of Milan in Northern Italy, and Naples and Sardinia in Southern Italy. (The latter was traded for Sicily in 1720).

The latter part of the reign of Emperor Charles VI (1711-1740) saw Austria whittle away many of these fairly impressive gains. This was largely due to Charles's apprehensions at the imminent extinction of the House of Habsburg. Charles was willing to trade concrete advantages in order to secure other powers' worthless recognitions of the Pragmatic Sanction that made his daughter Maria Theresa his heir. The most notable instance of this was in the War of the Polish Succession whose settlement saw Austria cede Naples and Sicily to the Spanish Infant Don Carlos in exchange for the tiny Duchy of Parma and Spain and France's adherence to the Pragmatic Sanction. The latter years of Charles's reign (1736-1739) also saw an unsuccessful war against the Turks, which resulted in the Austrian loss of Belgrade and other border territories.

And, as many had anticipated, when Charles died in 1740, all those assurances from the other powers proved of little worth to Maria Theresa. The peace was initially broken by King Frederick II of Prussia, who invaded Silesia. Soon other powers began to exploit Austria's weakness. The Elector of Bavaria claimed the inheritance to the hereditary lands and Bohemia, and was supported by the King of France, who desired the Austrian Netherlands. The Spanish and Sardinians hoped to gain territory in Italy, and the Saxons hoped to gain territory to connect Saxony with the Elector's Polish Kingdom. Austria's allies - Britain, Holland, and Russia, were all wary of getting involved in the conflict. Thus began the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), one of the more confusing and less eventful wars of European history, which ultimately saw Austria holding its own, despite the permanent loss of most of Silesia to the Prussians.

For the next eight years, Maria Theresa plotted revenge on the Prussians. The British and Dutch allies who had proved so reluctant to help her in her time of need were dropped in favor of the French in the so-called Reversal of Alliances of 1756. That same year, war once again erupted on the continent as Frederick, fearing encirclement, launched a pre-emptive invasion of Saxony. The Seven Years War, too, was indecisive, and saw Prussia holding onto Silesia, despite Russia, France, and Austria all combining against him, and with only Hanover as a significant ally on land.

The War of Bavarian Succession was ended on May 13, 1779 when Russian and French mediators at the Congress of Teschen negotiated an end to the war. In the agreement Austria receive a part of its territory that was taken from them (the Inn District).

Following its defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, on November 12, 1918 Austria became a republic.

On October 20, 1920 a plebiscite in Carinthia was held, where the population of this state denied the claims of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Another plebiscite was held in Sopron earlier this year, which ended in favour of Hungary.

During World War II Austria was part of Nazi Germany, on March 30, 1945 Red Army forces occupied the country and took the capital, Vienna. In the same year, Austrian independence was restored. The country was then under official Allied occupation from May 9, 1945 to July 27, 1955.

See also: History of Italy, History of Slovenia, History of Switzerland, History of Germany, History of the Czech Republic, History of Slovakia, History of Hungary, History of Croatia.

Reference

• Some of the material in this article comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003 U.S. Department of State website.

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "History of Austria."

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List of cities in Austria

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

• Amstetten
• Bad Aussee
• Bad Ischl
• Baden
• Bischofshofen
• Bludenz
• Braunau
• Bregenz
• Bruck an der Mur
• Deutschlandsberg
• Dornbirn
• Ebensee
• Eisenerz
• Eisenstadt
• Enns
• Feldkirch
• Freistadt
• Fürstenfeld
• Gmunden
• Gmünd
• Graz
• Hallein
• Hartberg
• Hollabrunn
• Horn
• Imst
• Innsbruck
• Judenburg
• Kapfenberg
• Kitzbühel
• Klagenfurt
• Klosterneuburg
• Knittelfeld
• Krems
• Kufstein
• Landeck
• Leoben
• Leonding
• Lienz
• Liezen
• Mariazell
• Mittersil
• Mödling
• Mürzzuschlag
• Poysdorf
• Ried
• Salzburg
• Sankt Pölten
• Schärding
• Schwaz
• Spittal an der Drau
• Steyr
• Stockerau
• Traun
• Vienna
• Villach
• Wels
• Wien
• Wiener Neustadt
• Wolfsberg
• Wörgl
• Ybbs
• Zeltweg
• Zwettl

map

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "List of cities in Austria."

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Stamps and postal history of Austria

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

(pre-stamp postal history here)

3-kreuzer stamp of 1850;
note the rough surface
larger version

The postage stamp issues of Austria began on June 1, 1850 with a series of imperforate typographed stamps featuring the coat of arms. At first they were printed on a rough hand-made paper, but after 1854 a smooth machine-made paper was used instead. Issues between 1858 and 1861 used a profile of Emperor Franz Josef, then switched back to the coat of arms, in an oval frame.

Franz Josef profiles reappeared in 1867, as a side-effect of the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (at this point Hungary began issuing its own stamps), and continued until 1907, with various changes, including a change of monetary system in 1899 - from 60 kreuzer to the gulden to 100 heller to the krone.

72-heller stamp of 1904,
on granite paper and
showing varnish bars
larger version

1899 also saw the appearance of varnish bars, as diagonal shiny yellowish strips applied to the stamp paper before printing, intended to prevent cleaning and reuse of stamps. In the illustration to the left, the bars are so prominent that they appear to be on top of both design and cancellation, but of course this is impossible; note especially the "72" in the lower right, where even the brief soaking that removed the stamp from the letter caused the ink of the design to start flaking off. The experiment was abandoned with the 1908 issue.

In 1908, Austria issued a series of large pictorial stamps to commemorate the 60th year of Franz Josef's reign, depicting previous emperors, Franz Josef at various ages, Schönbrunn Palace, and the Hofburg (both in Vienna). The designs were reused in 1910 for a Birthday Jubilee issue celebrating Franz Josef's 80th birthday, the dates "1830" and "1910" being added at top and bottom.

A series in 1916 depicted Franz Josef, the Austrian crown, and the coat of arms, and between 1917 and 1919 Emperor Charles I briefly made an appearance on stamps before the republic was established.

15-heller of Charles I
overprinted in 1918-19
larger version

The first issues of German Austria were overprints reading "Deutschösterreich" on stamps of the empire, issued beginning in December 1918.

In 1919 the republic issued new designs; a post horn, the coat of arms, a kneeling man representing the new republic, and the Parliament building, all done in a vaguely Art Nouveau style, and inscribed "DEUTSCHÖSTERREICH" ("ÖSTERREICH" appeared in 1922).

2000 kroner of 1922
"Art and Science" design
larger version

However, Austria was caught in the hyperinflation of the early 1920s, and was forced to print new stamps in ever-increasing denominations, topping out at a 10,000 kroner value in 1924. (Even so, Austria was still better off than neighbor Germany, who was issuing stamps of 50 milliard(!) marks at the time.)

In 1925, a new monetary system was introduced, 100 groschen to the schilling, which continued in use until replaced by the euro in 2002. New stamps were printed also, featuring numerals (for the low values), a field crossed by telegraph wires, a white-shouldered eagle, and a church of the Minorite Friars. Subsequent issues depicted scenic views (1929), and costumes of various districts (1934). The assassinated chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was commemorated in both 1934 and 1936.

Anschluss-era cover, May 1938, mixed
franking of Austrian and German stamps
larger version

In early 1938 the Anschluss put a sudden end to Austria's stamps. Although the entry of German troops in March was sudden, the transition of the postal system took several months; and included a period where German stamps were required in addition to Austrian stamps (a mixed franking). The cover to the right, for instance, was mailed on 6 May 1938 from Vienna to Freiburg im Breisgau, then was forwarded to Hamburg. (Receiving marks on the back indicate that it arrived in Hamburg on the 8th of May.) After the transition period was over, Austrians used stamps of Germany until the end of the Third Reich in 1945.

1945 overprint on
"Hitler Head" of Germany

The wreckage of World War II included the postage stamp production system, and the Allied occupation forces handled the situation in different ways; the Soviets overprinted German stamps before issuing locally-printed stamps, while the American/British/French zone used stamps printed in the United States.

1945 overprint,
improved

In the Soviet occupation zone, starting on 2 May 1945, the stamps of Germany were overprinted. Initially the overprint consisted of just "Österreich", or "Österreich" and a bar obliterating the "Deutches Reich" inscription. Hitler's face remained visible, and this was objectionable, so after 4 June postal clerks were expected to blot out Hitler's face manually, until on 21 June a new series of overprints came out with a set of stripes over Hitler. In the meantime, some semi-postal stamps of Germany were also surcharged. In Graz, an additional set of overprints with "Österreich" vertical were issued on 22 May for use in Styria.

8pf stamp of the Soviet
occupation, used in
Vienna 2 August 1945
larger version

New stamps inscribed "REPUBLIK ÖSTERREICH" were issued on 3 July by the Soviet Union, for use in Vienna and surrounding areas, still denominated in German currency.

1g stamp of the AMG
occupation

On the other side of occupied Austria, the Allied Military Government issued a series 28 June depicting a posthorn, for use in areas under Allied occupation (Upper Austria, Salzburg, Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Styria, and Carinthia). These stamps were produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington DC, and valid for postage into 1947.

(Despite the relatively short period of use, almost all of the occupation-related issues are common and inexpensive to collect today.)

General issues produced by the Second Republic became available on 24 November 1945.

Since that time Austria has issued a steady stream of stamps with a variety of subjects, many of them attractively engraved.

Lombardy-Venetia

Lombardy-Venetia was a kingdom in the north of Italy that was part of the Austrian empire. The inhabitants used the Italian lira for money, so in 1850 the government issued stamps identical to those for the rest of Austria, but denominated in values from 5 to 45 centesimi. The monetary system changed in 1858, 100 soldis to the florin, which required a new issue of stamps, designs otherwise identical to the contemporary Austrian issues. Lombardy was annexed to Sardinia in 1859, and Venetia to the new kingdom of Italy in 1866, at which point the Lombardy-Venetia stamps went out of use.

Because of the early date and limited area, all Lombardy-Venetia stamps are uncommon, especially unused, the cheapest costing US$3 or so. The rarest type of newspaper tax stamp last sold for US$100,000.

Italian Occupation

Near the end of World War I, Italy captured the Austrian territories of Trentino and Venezia Giulia. In 1918, Italy issued overprinted stamps for these areas. Stamps sold at Trieste were overprinted "Regno d'Italia / Venezia Giulia / 3. XI. 18." on Austrian stamps of 1916, and then just "Venezia / Giulia" on Italian stamps, while in the Trentino the overprint was "Regno d Italia / Trentino / 3 nov 1918" on Austrian stamps and then just "Venezia / Tridentina" on Italian stamps. In January 1919 the Italians issued overprinted stamps for all of the occupied territories, the overprint consisting of, for instance, "5 / centesimi / di corona". This lasted until September, when the Trentino was permanently assigned to Italy and used Italian stamps thereafter, while Trieste became a free city.

Offices in Crete

Along with several other nations, Austria maintained its own postal offices in Crete. Since the unit of money in Crete was the franc, the post office issued Austrian stamps surcharged in centimes and francs, from 1903 on, and in 1908 issued stamps similar to the 60th-year issue of Austria proper, but denominated in the local currency. These were used until the end of the empire.

Offices in the Turkish Empire

As with Crete, Austria and other European nations maintained an extensive system of post offices in the Ottoman Empire, typically motivated by the unreliable postal system of the Ottomans. For Austria, the practice started in 1748 with the establishment of a post office in Galata outside of Constantinople, and eventually extended to dozens of locations throughout the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean.

Beginning in 1863, stamps of Lombardy-Venetia were used, but after the losses of these areas in 1867, Austria had to issue special stamps; in appearance identical to contemporary Austrian stamps, but denominated in soldis and florins. In 1886 this was changed to paras and piasters to match Turkish money, first by surcharging the existing offices stamps, then regular Austrian stamps. Regular issues began in 1906, by using Austrian stamps missing the denomination (at this point the denomination of Austrian stamps was printed in a second step), and as for Crete there was an issue in 1908 distinguished only by being denominated in paras and piasters.

While early issues are not common, the volume of mail by the end of the empire was such that both used and unused stamps are still commonly available.

See also: list of people on stamps of Austria

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Stamps and postal history of Austria."

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Tourism in Austria

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Tourism > Tourism in Austria

Visits to Austria mostly include trips to Vienna with its Cathedral, its "Heurigenschenken" (wine pubs) and romantic Waltz music flair. Worth a visit are Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart, Innsbruck, capital of Tyrol, surrounded by the Alps and Danube valley with its vineyards, for example the Wachau, which is between Melk und Krems. In the western part of the country Austria the province Vorarlberg reaches the Lake Constance, in the eastern part Neusiedler See. Austria also is famous for its skiing and hiking resorts in the Alps and for its lakes (Woerther See in Carinthia).

For visitors interested in Mediaart, the Ars Electronica Center in Linz is an absolute must. Since 1979 this center has organized the Ars Electronica Festival and presented the Prix Ars Electronica, the worldwide highest-ranked price for mediaart.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Tourism in Austria."

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Transportation in Austria

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Railways:
total: 6,123 km (3,523 km electrified)
standard gauge: 5,639 km 1.435-m gauge (3,429 km electrified)
narrow gauge: 484 km (13 km 0.600-m gauge, 468 km 0.760-m gauge - 94 km electrified, and 3 km 0.600-m gauge) (1999)

City with underground railway system: Vienna, Serfaus

Highways: 200,000 km
paved: 200,000 km (including 1,613 km of expressways)
unpaved: 0 km (1999)

Waterways: 358 km (1999)

Pipelines: crude oil 777 km; natural gas 840 km (1999)

Ports and harbors: Linz, Vienna, Enns, Krems

Merchant marine:
total: 20 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 65,284 GRT/91,951 DWT
ships by type: bulk 1, cargo 15, combination bulk 2, container 2 (1999 est.)

Airports: 55 (1999 est.)

Airports - with paved runways:
total: 22
over 3,047 m: 1
2,438 to 3,047 m: 5
1,524 to 2,437 m: 1
914 to 1,523 m: 3
under 914 m: 12 (1999 est.)

Airports - with unpaved runways:
total: 33
914 to 1,523 m: 4
under 914 m: 29 (1999 est.)

Heliports: 1 (1999 est.)

Reference

Much of the material in this article comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000.

See also : Austria

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Transportation in Austria."

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Abbreviations & Acronyms: Austria

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Modern Usage: Austria

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Commercial Usage: Austria

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Image Slideshow: Austria

Photos: Austria More pictures...

Illustrations: Austria More pictures...

Computer Images: Austria More pictures...

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Photo Album: Austria

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Figure 8. L. Linsbauer's photometer. Left: a picture of the unit. Right: a picture of the internal photometer mechanism. This instrument was invented by Ludwig Linsbauer for use in fresh water. It was used in Lake Traunsee in the northern part of Austria in 1904 at small depths. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now.		Figure 38. Stahlberger rheobathometer, invented in 1873 by Emil Stahlberger to measure currents, measure depth, and collect deep water samples. It was first used on board the Austrian corvette MINERVA in 1873 in the Gulf of Fiume. The original device was made by Mathias Skull of Fiume, Austria. Several versions of this instrument were tested at various depths. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now.
	U.S. American National Red Cross Hospital No.5, Paris, France. : Showing a patient from Austria. Credit: National Library of Medicine.		The pharmacy at the St. Elizabeth Hospital in Vienna, Austria. / WHO p. Credit: National Library of Medicine; photo by B. Zeppilli..
	Photographed in U.S. waters, with the river steamer Angler in the background, circa the 1880s or 1890s. This class of small cruisers included the Infanta Isabel (1885-1926), Isabel II (1886-1902), Cristobal Colon (1887-1895), Conde del Venadito (1888-1902), Don Antonio de Ulloa (1887-1898), and Don Juan de Austria (1887-1898). The latter two ships were lost in the Battle of Manila Bay, 1 May 1898, along with the Velasco (1881-1898), a ship of similar design. Credit: NAVY.		Austria and Italy facing one another across a map of the Adriatic area. Credit: Library of Congress.
	A Ukrainian girl prepares a meal for her family on a make shift stove in a concentration camp at Salzburg, Austria / Signal Corps photo. Credit: Library of Congress.		Tomb of Maximilian I in the Hofkirche, Innsbruck, Austria. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Don Juan de Austria, Naval Reserves, state of Mich. Credit: Library of Congress.		Detroit Naval Reserves, Don Juan de Austria, Detroit, Mich. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: Austria
 

"Landscape in austria" by Frank Fonteyn Commentary: "Nice picture from a house in the Austrian mountains =D."	"Austria" by Guenter M. Kirchweger Commentary: "Austria, wagrain, "zwieselegg"."
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Historic Usage: Austria

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Use in Literature: Austria

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Non-Fiction Usage: Austria

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Speeches: Austria

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Usage Frequency: Austria

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Name Usage Frequency: Austria

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Usage in Company Names: Austria

Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.

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Expressions: Austria

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Austria