CAPITAL Vienna
Austria (German language: Österreich, Croatian: Austrija, Hungarian: Ausztria, Slovenian: Avstrija) is a landlocked country in central Europe. It borders Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. Its capital is the city of Vienna.
Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy consisting of nine federal states and is one of six European countries that have declared permanent neutrality and together with Switzerland only one of two countries that included the concept of everlasting neutrality in its constitution. Austria is a member of the United Nations (since 1955) and the European Union (since 1995).
GEOGRAPHY
Austria is a largely mountainous country due to its location in the Alps. The Central Eastern Alps, Northern Limestone Alps and Southern Limestone Alps are all partly in Austria. Of the total area of Austria (84 000 km² or 32,000 sq. mi), only about a quarter can be considered low lying, and only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft). The high mountainous Alps in the west of Austria flatten somewhat into low lands and plains in the east of the country.
Map of Austria
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Map of Austria
Austria may be divided into 5 different areas. The biggest area are the Austrian Alps, which constitute 62% of Austria's total area. The Austrian foothills at the base of the Alps and the Carpathians account for around 12% of its area. The foothills in the east and areas surrounding the periphery of the Pannoni low country amount to about 12% of the total landmass. The second greater mountain area (much lower than the Alps) is situated in the north. Known as the Austrian granite plateau, it is located in the central area of the Bohemian Mass, and accounts for 10% of Austria. The Austrian portion of the Viennese basin comprises the remaining 4%.
CLIMATE
The greater part of Austria lies in the cool/temperate climate zone in which humid westerly winds predominate. With over half of the country dominated by the Alps the alpine climate is the predominant one. In the East the climate shows continental features with less rain than the areas with high rainfall averages.
CULTURE
Although Austria is a small country, its history as a world power and its cultural environment have generated a broad contribution to art and science. It has been the professional birthplace of many famous composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Anton Bruckner, Johann Strauss, Sr., Johann Strauss, Jr. or Gustav Mahler as well as members of the Second Viennese School such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern or Alban Berg.
Complementing its status as a land of artists, Austria has always been a country of poets, writers and novelists. It was the home of novelists Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Thomas Bernhard or Robert Musil, of poets Georg Trakl, Franz Werfel, Franz Grillparzer, Rainer Maria Rilke or Adalbert Stifter and writer Karl Kraus. Famous contemporary playwrights and novelists are Elfriede Jelinek and Peter Handke. Among Austrian artists and architects one can find painters Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele or Friedensreich Hundertwasser, photographer Inge Morath or architect Otto Wagner.
Austria was the cradle of numerous scientists including physicists Ludwig Boltzmann, Lise Meitner, Erwin Schrödinger, Ernst Mach, Wolfgang Pauli, Richard von Mises and Christian Doppler, philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, biologists Gregor Mendel and Konrad Lorenz as well as mathematician Kurt Gödel. It was home to psychologists Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Paul Watzlawick and Hans Asperger, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, economists Joseph Schumpeter, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek (Austrian School) and Peter Drucker, and engineers such as Ferdinand Porsche and Siegfried Marcus.
