Austria Country Info - Europe

Description and Basic Information

Austria with its capital Vienna is located in Europe (Central Europe, north of Italy and Slovenia). It covers some 83,859 square kilometres (slightly smaller than Maine) with 8,205,000 citizens. German, Croatian, Hungarian and Slovenian are the official languages spoken in Austria (consider regional differences). Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia and Liechtenstein are bordering countries.

Austria is a land-locked alpine country in Central Europe. Austria, along with neighboring Switzerland, is the winter sports capital of Europe. However, it is just as popular for summer tourists who visit its historic cities and villages and hike in the magnificent scenery of the alps. The diverse mix of landscapes is packed into a relatively small area of size. Glaciers, meadows, alpine valleys, wooded foothills, gently rolling farmland, vineyards, river gorges, plains and even semi-arid steppes can be found in Austria. Austria is a federation. Each of its nine federal states has a unique and distinct culture. Being at Europe's crossroads, their culture is influenced from many sides.

Pictures from Capital (Vienna)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Austria

The topography features in the west and south mostly mountains (Alps) with along the eastern and northern margins mostly flat or gently sloping. The average density of population is about 97 per km². The climate in Austria can be described as temperate with continental, cloudy, cold winters with frequent rain and some snow in lowlands and snow in mountains, moderate summers with occasional showers. Potential natural disasters are landslides or avalanches or earthquakes.

To reach someone in Austria dial +43 prior to a number. There are 3,253,000 installed telephones. And there are 11,773,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 MHz and 3G. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".at". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 9 regions/states in Austria we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Austrian population grew at a rate of 0.04% (or by 3,532 citizens). With 82,552 deaths and 71,052 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at -0.14%. 15,032 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Austria: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.