Geography

Slightly smaller than Maine, Austria

Austria flag symbol

includes much of the mountainous territory of the eastern Alps (about 75% of the area). The country contains many snowfields, glaciers, and snowcapped peaks, the highest being the Grossglockner (12,530 ft; 3,819 m). The Danube is the principal river. Forests and woodlands cover about 40% of the land.

Government

Federal republic.

History

Settled in prehistoric times, the central European land that is now Austria was overrun in pre-Roman times by various tribes, including the Celts. After the fall of the Roman Empire, of which Austria was part, the area was invaded by Bavarians and Slavic Avars. Charlemagne conquered the area in 788 and encouraged colonization and Christianity. In 1252, Ottokar, king of Bohemia, gained possession, only to lose the territories to Rudolf of Hapsburg in 1278. Thereafter, until World War I, Austria's history was largely that of its ruling house, the Hapsburgs. Austria emerged from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as the continent's dominant power. The Ausgleichof 1867 provided for a dual sovereignty, the empire of Austria and the kingdom of Hungary, under Franz Joseph I, who ruled until his death on Nov. 21, 1916. The Austrian-Hungarian minority rule of this immensely diverse empire, which included German, Czech, Romanian, Serbian, and many other lands, became increasingly difficult in an age of emerging nationalist movements. When Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo in 1914, World War I, as well as the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, began.

During World War I, Austria-Hungary was one of the Central powers with Germany, Bulgaria, and Turkey, and the conflict left the country in political chaos and economic ruin. Austria, shorn of Hungary, was proclaimed a republic in 1918, and the monarchy was dissolved in 1919. A parliamentary democracy was set up by the constitution of Nov. 10, 1920. To check the power of Nazis advocating union with Germany, Chancellor Engelbert Dolfuss in 1933 established a dictatorship, but he was assassinated by the Nazis on July 25, 1934. Kurt von Schuschnigg, his successor, struggled to keep Austria independent, but on March 12, 1938, German troops occupied the country, and Hitler proclaimed its Anschluss (union) with Germany, annexing it to the Third Reich.

Culture & People

About half of Austrian men are overweight (50.8%, the highest rate in the EU), but only 8.6% of them are obese (4th lowest in the EU-27). In contrast only 20.3% of Austrian women are overweight (lowest rate in the 27 member states), including 8.6% who are obese (also the lowest rate EU wide).

Austria is the only continental EU country that is not a member of NATO.

Austria has given the world many famous classical music composers, including Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Liszt, J. Strauss, Mahler, and Bruckner.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Hollywood actor and current governor of California, grew up as an Austrian citizen.

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, was Austrian.

Many prominent members of the Rothschild family of bankers and investors were Austrian citizens.

The founder of the German sports car company 'Porsche' was the Austrian Ferdinand Porsche. He also designed the Volkswagen (the "people's car").

As of late 2012, 19 Austrians had been awarded a Nobel Prize, including seven in Physiology or Medicine, four in Chemistry and three in Physics. This is one of the highest number of Nobel laureates per capita, just after Luxembourg, Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. The Austrian novelist and radical pacifist Bertha von Suttner was the first woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, in 1905.

The Austrian celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, who owns over 70 restaurants in the USA, is the second top-earning chef in the world, with revenues of $16 million a year according to Forbes magazine. Another Austrian, Eckart Witzigmann is one of only four chefs to be named chef of the century by the Gault Millau guide.