Upper Austria Overview

Upper Austria, federal state of Austria that borders Germany (Bavaria) in the west and the Czech Republic in the north, 11,980 km ², (2017) 1.46 million residents; The capital is Linz. Upper Austria is divided into 15 political districts, which together comprise 440 municipalities (including 32 municipalities and 151 market municipalities), and three cities with their own statutes.

Law

According to the Land Constitutional Act of October 24, 1991 (amended several times), the Landtag, consisting of 56 members and elected for 6 years each, exercises state legislation; he elects the nine-member state government headed by the state governor.

Flag and coat of arms: The flag is white over red in two horizontal stripes of equal width with the coat of arms in the middle. – The coat of arms was created in 1390 by Duke Rudolf IV based on the alleged coat of arms of the Lords of Machland and established in 1930 for Upper Austria. It is split and shows a golden eagle in black heraldic on the right; the left field is split three times into silver and red. The Austrian Archduke’s hat is on the shield.

Country nature

According to mathgeneral, Upper Austria lies on both sides of the Danube between the lower reaches of the Inn (in the west) and the Enns with its right tributary, the Ramingbach (in the east). Upper Austria can be seen as a transition area between the mountainous west and the border or extra-alpine east and north. North of the Danube, Upper Austria in the Mühlviertel has a share in the granite and gneiss highlands of the Bohemian Massif (in the extreme north also in the Bohemian Forest; in the border mountain Plöckenstein 1,379 m above sea level), that in the Sauwald and in the Kürnberger Wald (near Linz) extends beyond the Danube, which is why it formed narrow valley stretches here, to which the Strudengau also belongs (only the northern part in Upper Austria). In between lie the wide, fertile river plains of the Eferdinger Basin and the Machland. To the south of the Danube, Upper Austria has a share of the gently undulating Alpine foothills (300–500 m above sea level), cut up by the rivers Mattig, Traun, Krems, Enns and others, partly with wide river terraces (Ennsfeld, Welser Heide), and cut off from the wooded gravel mountainous region of the Home jerks with the Kobernaußerwald (up to 801 m above sea level) is overlooked. In terms of area, the Alpine foothills are the largest landscape in Upper Austria. To the south is the alpine part of Upper Austria with the narrow flysch zone, the limestone foothills (Höllengebirge, Sengsengebirge) and the heavily karstified limestone stocks of the high Alps (northern parts of the Dachstein, at 2,995 m above sea level, the highest elevation in Upper Austria, and the Totem Mountains); the south-western part with the large Alpine lakes Mondsee, Attersee, Traunsee and Hallstätter See belongs to the Salzkammergut.

Upper Austria: administrative structure

Climate: In terms of climate, the flat areas with annual mean temperatures of 8 to 10 ° C are more favorable than the granite and gneiss plateau in the north and the high mountains in the south. The precipitation is between 800 and 1,000 mm annually (in the eastern Mühlviertel [Feldaistsenke] and in the Eferdinger basin only 750–800 mm) and increases to 1,500 mm towards the Bohemian Forest and the edge of the Alps; in the high mountains more than 2,000 mm per year are reached, in the Dachstein area even around 3,000 mm.

Population

The population has increased steadily since 1961 (natural population movement, without migration), the birth balance rate was consistently positive between 1961 and 2013 and was several times well above the average for Austria (1961–70: 8.6 [compared to 4.8] ‰, 1971 -80: 2.6 [-0.5] »‰, 1981-90: 3.0 [2.6] ‰, 1991-2000: 2.6 [0.9] ‰, 2001-10: 1.2 [0.2] ‰, 2011: 0.8 [0.2] ‰, 2012: 0.7 [-0.1] ‰, 2013: 0.4 [0.0] ‰, 2016: 1.7 [ 0.8] ‰). More than 40% of the population live in the Upper Austrian central area around the cities of Linz, Wels, Steyr (and the trend is rising); Linz is after Vienna and Graz the third largest city in Austria. The rural settlements are only closed settlements in the Danube Valley and on the lower reaches of the Traun and Enns; in almost all other parts of the country scattered settlements dominate, often with massive square or four-sided courtyards.

Religion: The last census to collect data on religious affiliation was in 2001. At that time over 79% of the population were Catholic and around 4.4% Protestant. Since then, only the number of members of individual religious communities can be used as a basis. The Protestant Christians belong to the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions in Austria, the Catholics to the Diocese of Linz, which is largely identical to the federal state of Upper Austria. In 2015, according to church information, 973 721 members were assigned to this diocese. The number of Muslims living in Upper Austria was just under 98,000 in 2012 (source: statista). There is a Jewish community in Linz (“Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Linz”).