Upper Austrian central area

Coordinates: 48 ° 15 '  N , 14 ° 10'  E

Upper Austrian central area​

Austria

The area around the cities of Linz , Wels and Steyr is known as the Upper Austrian Central Area . It forms the economic center of the state. It is also known as the “Fifth Quarter”, alongside the four historical regions of Traun , Hausruck , Mühl and Innviertel , with parts of the first three. The NUTS region AT312 (Linz - Wels) is Austria's area with the highest density of large and medium-sized cities.

Municipalities of the Upper Austrian Central area, coded according to population density:

> 2000 > 1000 - 2000 > 500 - 1000 > 250 - 500

> 150 - 250 > 100 - 150  0-100

Shades of gray: Surrounding small regional centers

geography

The central region of Upper Austria is superimposed on the traditional district structure of the federal state

The Upper Austrian central area in the narrower sense extends roughly in the triangle Linz-Wels-Steyr, in the broader sense as an approximate square with a good 40 km edge length between the Danube and the Mühlviertel templates in the granite and gneiss highlands in the north, the Enns and the Lower Austrian border in the east , the beginning of the Alps ( Upper Austrian Pre-Alps ) in the south, and the Innbach area in the west, with an area of ​​around 830 km². From southwest to northeast it is traversed by the lower Traun (approximately from the confluence of the Ager), and includes the Alpine foothills of the Linzer Basin ( Linzer Feld ) and the Welser Heide as the core zone, as well as the Eferdinger Basin on the Danube and the lower left Ennstal , as well as the surrounding hill areas ( Traun-Enns-Riedelland , parts of the Hausruckviertel hill country , various southern Mühlviertel outskirts with small parts of the Central Mühlviertel highlands ).

It is a densely populated area that includes the metropolitan areas of the three cities. Around a third of the Upper Austrian population lives here , around 580,000 people. The agglomeration of the cities includes the rapidly growing communities of Traun , Leonding and Ansfelden . The central area extends in the east to Enns and the Machland , in the south to Steyr and Kirchdorf , in the southeast to the borders with the Salzkammergut near Vorchdorf , in the west to Grieskirchen and Eferding , as well as north of the Danube to Feldkirchen and Gallneukirchen . The neighboring Lower Austrian region of Mostviertel Ursprung is also already orientating itself towards the west.

The central area is only partially densely populated (80 m² / person in Linz, Steyr and Wels), but quickly turns into a loose, partly mainly agricultural area (south of Wels up to 700 m² / person). Even Linz, with around 200,000 inhabitants, does not have the characteristics of a big city, and due to the close proximity of other important regional centers, the city also has comparatively few bacon belts and does not form an exaggerated central location structure. The close interweaving of urban density and extensive rural open space for business settlement, suburban development as well as for local supply and relaxation makes this area unique in Austria.

NUTS 3 region Linz-Wels

The statistical region Linz-Wels , which is located on the NUTS 3 level (AT-312), roughly corresponds to the Upper Austrian central area . It owns the statutory cities of Linz and Wels , the districts of Eferding , Linz-Land and Wels-Land , as well as the communities of the Urfahr-Umgebung district near the Danube (these are Alberndorf in the Riedmark , Altenberg near Linz , Eidenberg , Engerwitzdorf , Feldkirchen an der Donau , Gallneukirchen , Goldwörth , Gramastetten , Hellmonsödt , Herzogsdorf , Kirchschlag near Linz , Lichtenberg , Ottensheim , Puchenau , St. Gotthard im Mühlkreis , Sonnberg im Mühlkreis , Steyregg , Walding ).

The Steyr-Kirchdorf area  (AT314) forms its own NUTS region.

Economy and Infrastructure

The Upper Austrian central area is one of the economically strongest and fastest developing small regions in all of Europe, and is one of the economic engines of Austria. The main economic factor is the location on one of the European main routes , the TEN-T core network corridor Rhine-Danube from Central Europe via Hungary to Southeastern Europe, which is becoming more and more important in the course of the EU enlargement, a process that has not yet been completed.

Many supply and well-known production companies have settled here, as there are ideal transport links to the Westautobahn (A1 , E60  Munich via Salzburg - Vienna) and the parallel Wiener Straße (B1) , the Innkreisautobahn (A8 / E56  Nuremberg via Passau - Wels to Vienna ) as well as the Pyhrnautobahn (A9  Wels - Graz), as well as the western railway line and the Danube ports of Linz and Enns . The international Blue Danube airport in Hörsching also makes the central area economically interesting for companies. The region has around 312,000 jobs, although this surplus of jobs means that commuting within the central area is also supplemented by external commuting.

The fact that Linz itself is not directly on the A1 western motorway, but is connected to the A1 via the Mühlkreisautobahn (A7) was initially seen as a handicap, but it turns out to be a stroke of luck because it allows European transit traffic in the east-west direction (the E60 runs between France and Kyrgyzstan) and regional traffic are relatively unbundled. European transit traffic is increasingly to be expected in north-south direction (e.g. E55 Northern Europe - Prague - Linz - Graz - Southern Europe as well as Summerauer Bahn and Pyhrnbahn ). Planned city bypasses from Linz are the Westring (A26) and the East bypass . The Wels junction is relieved over a large area by the Wels motorway (A25) and the Welser Westspange (A8).

See also

• Lower Lower Austria - the analogous new concept in Lower Austria

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Settlement development in Upper Austria. Facts, data and trends , flyer, Province of Upper Austria, especially Fig. 1 + 2: Settlement areas in the Upper Austrian central area in 1965 and 2001 and Fig. 3: Land consumption values ​​for residential purposes in 2001 in m ² per inhabitant in the Upper Austrian central area , 2nd sheet (pdf, land-oberoesterreich.gv.at).
2. ↑ Upper Austrian Central Area , in: Internet supplement to Raum-Gesellschaft-Wirtschaft, geography book for the 7th grade high school upper level in Austria , a work from the introductory seminar for specialist didactics by Dr. Christian Sitte at the University of Vienna, chapter 5.3 Satellite image maps of Austrian sub-regions - description of landscape and geography
3. ↑ Of the other medium-sized cities, Graz, Salzburg and Innsbruck are much more central and primarily restricted to one axis due to the valley location, Wiener Neustadt is influenced by the greater Vienna area, and the Vorarlberg Rhine Valley has no major urban center. The central area of Carinthia Villach - Klagenfurt , for example, is comparable , but is isolated within the Alps; St. Pölten , which is young as the capital, could develop a similar structure in the long term.