Austria

Where the name comes from

Austria is the Latin form of Österreich, “eastern realm”, recorded as Ostarrîchi in 996 for land on Bavaria’s eastern border.

First people

People have lived here since the Stone Age: the Venus of Willendorf figure was carved about 30,000 years ago, and the Celtic Hallstatt culture is named after an Austrian village.¹

Known for

Austria is known for music: Mozart was born in Salzburg, and Vienna was home to Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert.²

Outside contact

This frontier became a Habsburg centre in 1278, and Vienna went on to rule the Habsburgs’ vast empire of many languages.^3,4

The modern country

When Austria-Hungary broke up in 1918, its Austrian core became a much smaller republic. Nazi Germany annexed it in 1938; after World War II, Austria regained full sovereignty in 1955 and became permanently neutral.⁴