Major urban areas include Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Following its liberation in 1945 and an extended period of Allied occupation, the country regained its sovereignty and declared its perpetual neutrality in 1955.Īustria is a parliamentary representative democracy with a popularly elected president as head of state and a chancellor as head of government and chief executive. A year before the outbreak of World War II, Austria was annexed into Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler, and it became a sub-national division. During the interwar period, anti-parliamentarian sentiments culminated in the formation of an Austrofascist dictatorship under Engelbert Dollfuss in 1934. The Empire's defeat and subsequent collapse led to the proclamation of the Republic of German-Austria in 1918 and later the First Austrian Republic in 1919. The Austrian Empire's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 led to the end of the Confederation and paved the way for the establishment of Austria-Hungary a year later.įollowing the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph declared war on Serbia, which ultimately escalated into World War I. Following the Empire's dissolution in 1806, Austria established its own empire, which became a great power and the dominant member of the German Confederation. As of the 16th century, Vienna began serving as the administrative imperial capital and Austria thus became the heartland of the House of Habsburg. Originally a margraviate of Bavaria, it later developed into a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1156, and then an archduchy in 1453. Īustria emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium. It occupies an area of 83,879 km 2 (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of 9 million people. The country is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital Vienna, the largest city and state by population.

Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in the southern part of Central Europe, situated at Eastern Alps.

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