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Location: Central Europe, north of Italy and Slovenia
Geographic coordinates: 47 20 N, 13 20 E
Map references: Europe
Area:
total: 83,858 sq km
land: 82,738 sq km
water: 1,120 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Maine
Land boundaries:
total: 2,562 km
border countries: Czech Republic 362 km, Germany 784 km,
Hungary 366 km, Italy 430 km, Liechtenstein 35 km, Slovakia 91 km,
Slovenia 330 km, Switzerland 164 km
Coastline: 0 km (landlocked)
Maritime claims: none (landlocked)
Climate: temperate; continental, cloudy; cold winters with
frequent rain in lowlands and snow in mountains; cool summers with
occasional showers
Terrain: in the west and south mostly mountains (Alps);
along the eastern and northern margins mostly flat or gently sloping
Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Neusiedler See 115 m
highest point: Grossglockner 3,798 m
Natural resources: iron ore, oil, timber, magnesite, lead,
coal, lignite, copper, hydropower
Land use:
arable land: 17%
permanent crops: 1%
permanent pastures: 23%
forests and woodland: 39%
other: 20% (1996 est.)
Irrigated land: 40 sq km (1993 est.)
Natural hazards: NA
Environment - current issues: some forest degradation caused
by air and soil pollution; soil pollution results from the use of
agricultural chemicals; air pollution results from emissions by
coal- and oil-fired power stations and industrial plants and from
trucks transiting Austria between northern and southern Europe
Environment - international agreements:
party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air
Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile
Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change,
Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification,
Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer
Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber
94, Wetlands, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: Air Pollution-Persistent Organic
Pollutants, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Climate Change-Kyoto
Protocol
Geography - note: landlocked; strategic location at the
crossroads of central Europe with many easily traversable Alpine
passes and valleys; major river is the Danube; population is concentrated
on eastern lowlands because of steep slopes, poor soils, and low
temperatures elsewhere
Geography
Austria is located in Central Europe, north of Italy and Slovenia
.The Geographic coordinates are 47 20 N, 13 20 E. The total area
that surrounds Austria is 83,858 sq km, land is 82,738 sq km and
the remaining is water 1,120 sq km. Border countries are Czech Republic
362 km, Germany 784 km, Hungary 366 km, Italy 430 km, Liechtenstein
35 km, Slovakia 91 km, Slovenia 330 km, Switzerland 164 km.
Climate
The Austrian climate varies with altitude, continent, and Mediterranean
influences. Spring and fall are usually mild throughout the country
while summers are short, with moderate temperatures. Winters are
often cold and severe and last about three months in the valleys,
where they are usually ended by the foehn, a warm, dry wind from
the south that is often accompanied by damp fog and sudden thaws
that precipitate avalanches. Average annual temperatures range between
about 7ºC and 9ºC (about 44ºF and 48ºF) throughout the country.
Background: Once the center of power for the large Austro-Hungarian
Empire, Austria was reduced to a small republic after its defeat
in World War I.
Following annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938 and subsequent occupation
by the victorious Allies, Austria's 1955 State Treaty declared the
country "permanently neutral" as a condition of Soviet military
withdrawal.
Neutrality, once ingrained as part of the Austrian cultural identity,
has been called into question since the Soviet collapse and Austria's
increasingly prominent role in European affairs. A prosperous country,
Austria joined the European Union in 1995 and the euro monetary
system in 1999.
Austria
GEOGRAPHY
Size: Approximately 83,859 square kilometers.
Topography: Most of country Alpine or sub-Alpine;
heavily wooded mountains and hills cut by valleys of fast-flowing
rivers. Plains around Vienna and Danube Valley in northeast only
lowland areas and contain most of population. Danube, flowing east
through northern provinces and Vienna, principal river. Of total
area, 20 percent arable land, 29 percent pasture, 44 percent forest,
and 7 percent barren.
Climate: Continental weather systems predominate;
temperatures and rainfall vary with altitude. Temperate, cloudy,
cold winters with frequent rain in lowlands and snow in mountains;
cool summers with occasional showers. Humidity highest in wetter
western regions, diminishing toward east.
Data as of December 1993
Austria
GEOGRAPHY
Austria is a small, predominantly mountainous country located in
south-central Europe. It has a total area of 83,859 square kilometers,
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
(200 kilometers together), Germany (784 kilometers) and the Czech
Republic and Slovakia (568 kilometers together) to the north, Hungary
to the east (346 kilometers), and Slovenia (311 kilometers) and
Italy (430 kilometers) to the south.
The westernmost third of the somewhat pear-shaped country consists
of a narrow corridor between Germany and Italy that is between thirty-two
and sixty kilometers wide. The rest of Austria lies to the east
and has a maximum north-south width of 280 kilometers. The country
measures almost 600 kilometers 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, Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Tirol,
and Vorarlberg . The provinces of Burgenland and Vienna 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 Austrian. Administrative and ideological reasons
played a role in the establishment of Vienna as an independent province.
Vienna, historically the capital of Lower Austria, 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.
Data as of December 1993
Austria
Landform Regions
The two best-known features of the Austrian landscape are the Alps
and the Danube River . The Danube has its source in southwestern
Germany and flows through Austria before emptying into the Black
Sea. It is the only major European river that flows eastward, and
its importance as an inland waterway has been enhanced by the completion
in 1992 of the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal in Bavaria, which connects
the Rhine and Main rivers with the Danube and makes possible barge
traffic from the North Sea to the Black Sea.
The major rivers north of the watershed of the Austrian Alps (the
Inn in Tirol, the Salzach in Salzburg, and the Enns in Styria and
Upper Austria) are direct tributaries of the Danube and flow north
into the Danube Valley, whereas the rivers south of the watershed
in central and eastern Austria (the Gail and Drau rivers in Carinthia
and the Mürz and Mur rivers in Styria) flow south into the drainage
system of the Drau, which eventually empties into the Danube in
Serbia. Consequently, central and eastern Austria are geographically
oriented away from the watershed of the Alps: the provinces of Upper
Austria and Lower Austria toward the Danube and the provinces of
Carinthia and Styria toward the Drau.
The Alps cover 62 percent of the country's total area. Three major
Alpine ranges--the Northern Alps, Central Alps, and Southern Alps--run
west to east through Austria. The Central Alps, which consist largely
of a granite base, are the largest and highest ranges in Austria.
The Central Alps run from Tirol to approximately the Styria-Lower
Austria border and include areas that are permanently glaciated
in the Ötzal Alps on the TiroleanItalian border and the High Tauern
in eastern Tirol and Carinthia. The Northern Alps, which run from
Vorarlberg through Tirol into Salzburg along the German border and
through Upper Austria and Lower Austria toward Vienna, and the Southern
Alps, on the Carinthia-Slovenia border, are predominantly limestone
and dolomite. At 3,797 meters, Grossglockner in Carinthia is the
highest mountain in Austria. As a general rule, the farther east
the Northern Alps and Central Alps run, the lower they become. The
altitude of the mountains also drops north and south of the central
ranges.
As a geographic feature, the Alps literally overshadow other landform
regions. Just over 28 percent of Austria is moderately hilly or
flat: the Northern Alpine Foreland, which includes the Danube Valley;
the lowlands and hilly regions in northeastern and eastern Austria,
which include the Danube Basin; and the rolling hills and lowlands
of the Southeastern Alpine Foreland. The parts of Austria that are
most suitable for settlement--that is, arable and climatically favorable--run
north of the Alps through the provinces of Upper Austria and Lower
Austria in the Danube Valley and then curve east and south of the
Alps through Lower Austria, Vienna, Burgenland, and Styria. Austria's
least mountainous landscape is southeast of the low Leitha Range,
which forms the southern lip of the Viennese Basin, where the steppe
of the Hungarian Plain begins. The Bohemian Granite Massif, a low
mountain range with bare and windswept plateaus and a harsh climate,
is located north of the Danube Valley and covers the remaining 10
percent of Austria's area.
Data as of December 1993
Austria
Human Geography
Land-use patterns in Austria change from Alpine to non-Alpine regions.
Approximately one-tenth of Austria is barren or unproductive, that
is, extremely Alpine or above the tree line. Just over two-fifths
of Austria is covered by forests, the majority of which are in Alpine
regions. Less than one-fifth of Austria is arable and suitable for
conventional agriculture. The percentage of arable land in Austria
increases in the east as the country becomes less Alpine. More than
one-fifth of Austria is pastures and meadows located at varying
altitudes. Almost onehalf of this grassland consists of high-lying
Alpine pastures.
Historically, high Alpine pastures have been used during the summer
for grazing dairy cattle, thus making space available at lower altitudes
for cultivating and harvesting fodder for winter. Many of the high
pastures are at altitudes of more than 1,000 meters.
Although agriculture in mountainous areas was at one time economically
viable, in recent decades it has survived only with the help of
extensive subsidies. A concern of farmers in these mountainous regions
is that membership in the European Union (EU--
) might entail a curtailment of these subsidies and the end of Alpine
agriculture. If this occurs, many areas will be reclaimed by nature
after centuries of cultivation.
Although the Alps are beautiful, they make many areas of Austria
uninhabitable. Austria's so-called areas of permanent settlement--regions
that are cultivated, continuously inhabited, and used for transportation,
but do not include forests, Alpine pastures, or barren land--cover
only four-tenths or 35,000 square kilometers of the country. The
great majority of the area of permanent settlement is in the Danube
Valley and the lowlands or hilly regions north, east, and south
of the Alps, where approximately two-thirds of the population live.
In the country's predominantly Alpine provinces, most of the population
live in river valleys: Bregenz on the shores of Lake Constance in
Vorarlberg; Innsbruck on the Inn River in Tirol; Salzburg on the
Salzach River in Salzburg; and Klagenfurt on the Gail River in Carinthia.
The higher the Alps are, the less inhabitable they become in terms
of soil, microclimate, and vegetation. Conversely, the lower and
broader the Alpine valleys are, the more densely populated they
become.
Tirol illustrates most clearly the relationship between Alpine
geography and habitation. As the most mountainous province (less
than 3 percent of the land is arable), it is the most sparsely inhabited,
with an area of permanent settlement of only 15 percent.
Because of the Alps, the country as a whole is one of the least
densely populated states of Western and Central Europe. With ninety-three
inhabitants per square kilometer, Austria has a population density
similar to that of the former Yugoslavia.
Austria's national borders and geography have corresponded very
little. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, the Alps and the Danube
have not served to mark political boundaries. Even within Austria,
provincial borders were only occasionally set by the ranges and
ridges of the Alps.
Although the Alps did not mark political boundaries, they often
separated groups of people from one another. Because in the past
the Alps were impassable, inhabitants isolated in valleys or networks
of valleys developed distinct regional subcultures. Consequently,
the inhabitants of one valley frequently maintained dialects, native
or traditional dress, architectural styles, and folklore that substantially
differed from those of the next valley. Differences were great enough
that the origins of outsiders could easily be identified. However,
mass media, mobility, prosperity, and tourism have eroded the distinctness
of Alpine regional subcultures to a great extent by reducing the
isolation that gave them their particular character.
Despite the Alps, Austria has historically been a land of transit.
The Danube Valley, for centuries Central Europe's aquatic link to
the Balkan Peninsula and the "Orient" in the broadest sense of the
word, has always been an avenue of eastwest transit. However, Europe's
division into two opposing economic and military blocs after World
War II diminished Austria's importance as a place of transit. Since
the opening of Eastern Europe in 1989, the country has begun to
reassume its historical role. By the early 1990s, it had already
experienced a substantial increase in the number of people and vehicles
crossing its eastern frontiers.
Within the Alps, four passes and the roads that run through them
are of particular importance for north-south transit. The Semmering
Pass on the provincial border of Lower Austria and Styria connects
the Viennese Basin with the Mürz and Mur valleys, thus providing
northeast-southwest access to Styria and Slovenia, and, via Carinthia,
to Italy.
The Phryn Pass between the provinces of Upper Austria and Styria
and the Tauern Pass between the High Tauern Range and the Low Tauern
Range of the Central Alps in Salzburg, provide access to the Mur
Valley in Styria and the Drau Valley in Carinthia, respectively.
The highways that run through these passes are important northwest-southeast
lines of communication through the Alps. The Phyrn highway has been
nicknamed the "foreign workers' route" because millions of "guest
workers" in Germany use it to return to their homes in the Balkans
and Turkey for vacation. Many Germans and northern Europeans also
use it in the summer months to reach the Adriatic coast. After the
outbreak of hostilities in Yugoslavia in the summer of 1991, however,
a substantial amount of this traffic was rerouted through the Danube
Valley and Hungary.
The most important pass in the Austrian Alps is the Brenner Pass,
located on the Austrian-Italian border in Tirol. At 1,370 meters,
it is one of the lowest Alpine passes. The Inn Valley and the Brenner
Pass historically have been an important and convenient route of
north-south transit between Germany and Italy, and they provide
the most direct route between Europe's two most highly industrialized
regions--Germany and northern Italy.
Data as of December 1993
Austria
Climate
The Alps serve as a watershed for Europe's three major kinds of
weather systems that influence Austrian weather. The Atlantic maritime
climate from the northwest is characterized by lowpressure fronts,
mild air from the Gulf Stream, and precipitation. It has the greatest
influence on the northern slopes of the Alps, the Northern Alpine
Foreland, and the Danube Valley. The continental climate is characterized
by low-pressure fronts with precipitation in summer and high-pressure
systems with cold and dry air in winter. It affects mainly eastern
Austria. Mediterranean high-pressure systems from the south are
characterized by few clouds and warm air, and they influence the
weather of the southern slopes of the Alps and that of the Southeastern
Alpine Foreland, making them the most temperate part of Austria.
One peculiarity of the Mediterranean weather systems is the föhn,
a warm air mass that originates in the African Sahara and moves
north rapidly, periodically raising temperatures up to 10°C
in a short period of time. Many people respond to this rapid weather
change with headaches, irritability, and circulatory problems. During
the winter, the rapid warming that accompanies a föhn can thaw the
snow cover in the Alps to such an extent that avalanches occur.
Given the importance of Alpine skiing for the Austrian tourist
industry, December is the month during which the weather is watched
with the greatest anticipation. As a rule, Atlantic maritime weather
systems bring snow, and continental weather systems help keep it.
However, a predominance of cold, dry continental systems or warm
Mediterranean ones inevitably postpone the beginning of the ski
season. In the summer, Mediterranean high-pressure systems bring
warm, sunny weather.
Data as of December 1993
Austria
Ecological Concerns
Austrians face a number of ecological problems in the 1990s. One
of the most pressing is the pollution caused by the staggering increase
of traffic through the country. Traffic on the superhighway going
through the Brenner Pass has, for example, increased from 600,000
vehicles per year in the early 1970s to over 10 million per year
in the early 1990s. One-quarter of the traffic crossing Austria
consists of semitrailers used for heavy transport. The opening of
Eastern Europe has only exacerbated the problem of transit traffic.
The Alpine valleys through which much of this traffic passes are
unusually vulnerable to ecological damage. Narrow valleys are not
conducive to dissipation of noise or pollutants caused by motor
vehicles. Inversions--cold layers of air that trap warm layers of
air or warm layers of air that trap cold layers in the valleys and
lowlands--also seasonally contribute to the magnitude of the pollution
problem.
Austria has negotiated with the EU to set limits on the amount
of commercial transit traffic, especially through Tirol. Work is
also under way to develop a "piggy-back" system of loading semitrailers
on to flatbed railroad cars in southern Germany and northern Italy,
transporting them through Tirol by rail. Environmentalists have
pushed for measures that are more far-reaching. They advocate, for
example, digging a tunnel from Garmisch Partenkirchen in southern
Germany to Bolzano in northern Italy.
Pollution is also brought by the weather systems that determine
the country's climate. Atlantic maritime weather systems carry pollution
into Austria from northwestern Europe. Austria's proximity to industrialized
regions of former Communist states, with negligible or no pollution
control policies or equipment, combined with the influence of continental
weather systems also have proved to be extremely harmful. Mediterranean
weather systems transmit industrial pollutants from northern Italy.
As a result of domestic and foreign pollution, 37 percent of Austria's
forests had been damaged by acid rain and/or pollutant emissions
by 1991. The damage to forests has had dire consequences, including
the decimation of forests that for centuries had protected many
Alpine communities from avalanches, erosion, mud slides, or flooding
caused by runoff.
The seriousness of the ecological problems confronting the country
gave rise in the 1970s to an environmentalist movement. Political
parties were formed, and representatives were elected to parliament
. A referendum in 1978 closed down a newly completed nuclear power
plant and turned the country away from the exploitation of nuclear
energy. Public opposition in 1984 stopped the planned construction
of a hydroelectric power plant in a wetlands region.
The country's long-standing commercial use of the Alps for recreational
purposes has also come under examination. Extensive tourism places
an inordinate amount of pressure on sensitive Alpine ecosystems.
Ski runs damage forests, as do summer sports such as off-trail mountain
hiking or mountain biking. Many Alpine villages have also grown
greatly because of the tourist industry. In extreme cases, they
have up to twenty hotel beds for each inhabitant, a ratio that places
a disproportionate seasonal burden on communal infrastructures and
the environment. For these reasons, efforts have been made to introduce
"green" or "soft" forms of tourism that are more compatible with
the Alpine environment.
Part of the solution to Austria's ecological problems is being
sought in stricter environmental legislation at the domestic level.
Ultimately, however, pan-European and global cooperation in the
realm of pollution and emission control will be necessary to protect
the country's environment.
Data as of December 1993
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