States of Austria

Austria

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Austria is a federal republic made up of nine states, known in German as Länder (singular Land). Since Land is also the German word for "country", the term Bundesländer ("Federal States"; singular Bundesland) is often used instead to avoid ambiguity. The Constitution of Austria uses both terms. In English, the term (Bundes)land is commonly rendered as "state" or "province".

Federalism and state responsibilities

Each Austrian state has an elected legislature, the Landtag, a state government, the Landesregierung, and a governor, the Landeshauptmann. Elections are held every five years (six years in Upper Austria). The state constitution, among other things, determines how the seats in the state government are assigned to political parties, with most states having a system of proportional representation based on the number of delegates in the Landtag in place. The Landeshauptmann is always elected by the Landtag, meaning that it may be necessary to form a coalition in order to secure the election of a particular candidate.

However, Austrian federalism is usually considered largely notional, as the states are granted comparatively little actual legislative autonomy. On one hand, federal legislature takes precedence over state legislature in most matters of practical importance, including, but not limited to, criminal law, civil law, corporate law, most other aspects of economic law, education, academia, welfare, telecommunications, and the health care system. On the other hand, Austria's states have no stand-alone judiciary, the federal constitution defining jurisdiction to be exclusively federal matter.

This is largely due to historic reasons, as central power during the time of the empire was largely concentrated in Vienna. This historical development is in stark contrast to developments in Germany.

However, the state governor (Landeshauptmann) is also in charge of the administration of much of federal administrative law within the respective state, which makes this post an important political position. Furthermore, state competences include zoning laws, planning issues and public procurement on the regional level, which adds considerable weight to state politics. As a practical matter, there have been cases where states have been able to block projects endorsed by the federal government, as in the case of a railway tunnel that was to be built below the Semmering.

Still, Austrian Länder are formally and practically endowed with a much smaller degree of statehood than American or even German states are. Even so, Austrians tend to passionately identify with their respective Land and often defend what little independent governance their states have. It is not unheard of for Austrians to consider themselves, for instance, Tyrolean first, Austrian second.

Geography

The nine states of Austria, listed alphabetically by official German name, are:

	State (Bundesland)		Capital
	English	Native	English	Native
1	Burgenland		Eisenstadt
2	Carinthia	Kärnten	Klagenfurt
3	Lower Austria	Niederösterreich	St. Pölten
4	Upper Austria	Oberösterreich	Linz
5	Salzburg		Salzburg
6	Styria	Steiermark	Graz
7	Tyrol	Tirol	Innsbruck
8	Vorarlberg		Bregenz
9	Vienna	Wien	Vienna	Wien

The biggest part of the land in the states of Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Vienna, and Burgenland are situated in the Danube valley and thus consist almost completely of accessible and easily arable terrain. The other five states, in contrast, are located in the Alps and thus comparatively unsuitable for agriculture. Their terrain is also relatively unfavourable to heavy industry and long-distance trade. Accordingly, the population of what now is the Republic of Austria has been concentrated in the former four states since prehistoric times. Austria's most densely populated state is the city state of Vienna, the heart of what is Austria's only metropolitan area. Lower Austria only ranks fourth with regard to population density even though containing Vienna's suburbs; this is due to large areas of land predominantly agricultural. The alpine state of Tyrol, the less alpine but geographically secluded state of Carinthia, and the definitely not alpine but near-exclusively agricultural state of Burgenland are Austria's least densely populated states. The alpine state of Vorarlberg is an anomaly.

State populations and capitals

The following ranked list of Austrian states cites official Statistik Austria population estimates from October 1 2006 [1]:

The population figures cited are generally assumed to be accurate to within five percent and to remain so until the next census, scheduled for 2011. Areas are given in square kilometres, population density is expressed in inhabitants per square kilometre. For the purpose of the above list, a "city" is a community defined to be a city by Austrian law; a "town" is a community not defined to be a city. Many of Austria's "cities" have population figures on the order of ten thousand inhabitants; some are even smaller.

Historical development

In terms of boundaries, the present-day state of Salzburg is coterminous with the former Austro-Hungarian Duchy of Salzburg. Austria-Hungary was the extensive multiethnic empire with a German-speaking nucleus , which emerged as the Republic of Austria after the empire was torn apart by nationalist and republicanist forces around the end of World War I. The states of Upper Austria and Lower Austria are essentially equivalent to what were formerly the two semi-autonomous halves of the Archduchy of Austria, a principality which formed the empire's historic heartland and which had to cede significant tracts of land to Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of the empire's dissolution. Similarly, the state of Carinthia descends from the Duchy of Carinthia, the state of Styria descends from the Duchy of Styria, and the state of Tyrol descends from the Princely County of Tyrol; these provinces had to cede territories to Italy and Yugoslavia when Austria emerged in its present form. Also, the state of Vorarlberg had been a part of the County of Tyrol up until 1918. The city state of Vienna was a part of Lower Austria up until 1921. The state of Burgenland is a more or less artificially agglutinated entity consisting of four German-speaking districts of Hungary that were ceded to Austria in 1920-1921.

See also

• Distribution of seats in the Austrian Landtage
• Districts of Austria
• Flags of Austrian states
• Coats of arms of the Austrian states

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