Greater Austria

Großösterreich English: Greater Austria, officially the Republic of Greater Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 20.5 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 190,879 square kilometres and has an alpine climate. Großösterreich's terrain is highly mountainous, lying within the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and Austrian German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene.

The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. From the time of the Reformation, many Northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. The Thirty Years War, the influence of the Kingdom of Sweden and Kingdom of France, the rise of the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Napoleonic invasions all weakened the power of the Emperor in the North of Germany, but in the South, and in non-German areas of the Empire, the Emperor and Catholicism maintained control. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria was able to retain its position as one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. Following Napoleon's defeat, Prussia emerged as Austria's chief competitor for rule of a larger Germany. Austria's defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary. After the defeat of France in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Austria was left out of the formation of a new German Empire, although in the following decades its politics, and its foreign policy, increasingly converged with those of the Prussian-led Empire. During the 1914 July Crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Germany guided Austria in issuing the ultimatum to Serbia that led to the declaration of World War I.

After the collapse of the Habsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Empire in 1918 at the end of World War I, Austria adopted and used the name the Republic of German-Austria (Deutschösterreich, later Österreich) in an attempt for union with Germany, but was forbidden due to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919). The First Austrian

Republic was established in 1919. In the 1938 Anschluss, Austria was occupied and annexed by Nazi Germany. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies and Austria's former democratic constitution was restored. In 1955, the Greater Austrian State Treaty re-established Greater Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second "Greater" Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral.

Today, Großösterreich is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising sixteen federal states.The capital and one of the largest cities in the Country, with a population exceeding 1.2 million, is Munich. Großösterreich is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $52,216 (2014 est.). The country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Großösterreich has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, and is a founder of the OECD. Großösterreich also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the European currency, the Euro, in 1999.

Etymology
The German name for Greater Austria, Großösterreich, meant "great eastern realm" or " greater eastern empire" in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi, which first appears in the "Ostarrîchi document" of 996. This word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local (Bavarian) dialect. Großösterreich was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976. The word "Austria" is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. At the time, the Danube basin of Austria (Upper and Lower Austria) was the easternmost extent of Bavaria, and in fact of all the Germans, as at the time the territory of the former East Germany was populated by Slavic Sorbs and Polabians.

Demographics
Großösterreich's population estimate in January 2014 was 20,504,850. The population of the capital, Munich, exceeds 4.7 million (1.6 million, including the suburbs), representing about a quarter of the country's population. It is known for its cultural offerings and high standard of living.

Language
German is Großösterreich's official language and, according to the 2001 census, is spoken natively by 88.6% of the population followed by Turkish (2.3%), Bosnian (2.2%), Serbian (1.9%), English (0.7%), Hungarian (0.5%), Croatian (0.4%), Polish (0.4%), Albanian (0.3%), Slovenian (0.3%), Czech (0.2%), Arabic (0.2%) and Romanian (0.2%).

The official language used in education, publications, announcements and websites is German, which is mostly identical to the German used in Germany but with some vocabulary differences. The German language is standardized between countries of German mother tongue, i.e., Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Liechtenstein, as well as those with significant German speaking minorities: Italy, Belgium and Denmark. (The German population in Elsass-Lothringen in France has no minority rights.) Many local dialects are spoken in Austria, and though their base is Austrian German, their corresponding speakers have certain degrees of difficulty when trying to understand each other.

Geography
Greater Austria is a largely mountainous country due to its location in the Alps. The Central Eastern Alps, Northern Limestone Alps and Southern Limestone Alps are all partly in Greater Austria. Of the total area of Greater Austria (125,000 km2), only about a half can be considered low lying, and only 42% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft). The Alps of western Greater Austria give way somewhat into low lands and plains in the eastern part of the country. List of the Six largest mountains in Greater Austria: Phytogeographically, Greater Austria belongs to the Central European province of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the WWF, the territory of Greater Austria can be subdivided into four ecoregions: the Central European mixed forests, Pannonian mixed forests, Alps conifer and mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests.

Climate
The greater part of Greater Austria lies in the cool/temperate climate zone, where humid westerly winds predominate. With nearly three-quarters of the country dominated by the Alps, the alpine climate is predominant. In the east—in the Pannonian Plain and along the Danube valley—the climate shows continental features with less rain than the alpine areas. Although Greater Austria is cold in the winter (−10 – 0 °C), summer temperatures can be relatively high, with average temperatures in the mid-20s and a highest temperature of 40.5 °C (105 °F) in August 2013.