Western Austria

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Federal states : 8 VBG, 7 TIR, 5 SBG, 4 OOE (the numbers denote the usual alphabetical sorting; shade of red marks the alpine south-west of Austria)

Western Austria refers to the western federal states of the Republic of Austria .

General and cultural geographic area

Österreichischer Reichskreis , 1681 - Western Austria roughly on the left half of the page

In the general geographic sense, western Austria includes the federal states of Tyrol and Vorarlberg , z. T. also Salzburg , and means the narrow western tongue of Austria, about west of the 13th  longitude (13 ° E). This term includes the three federal states - apart from Carinthia - which are almost completely located in the Alps ( Eastern Alps ), while the other federal states are also characterized by Alpine foothills and the granite and gneiss highlands . Biogeographically and climatically, the area is shaped by the border area between the Central European transitional climate and the Alpine climate with the corresponding eco-zones ( Alpine flora , Alpine fauna ). Of the west-east extension of Austria of 577.2 km, western Austria takes up a third to almost half in this sense, but far less of the national area.

In the cultural-geographic sense, this Western Austria concept corresponds to the historical threefold division of the Duchy of Austria : with the “actual” (Lower) Austria ( Lower and Upper Austria) in the north and Inner Austria (today Carinthia and Styria are in Austria) in the south east as Contrast: Upper Austria , which later became Tyrol with Vorarlberg , was an independent territory for many centuries, the Archdiocese of Salzburg only became part of Austria in 1803. Traces of this history can be found both in customs and traditions, as well as in the regional awareness of identity .

Linguistically - and also with regard to many folkloric traditions - the area is highly fragmented, the West of Vorarlberg is Alemannic , the southern mountain area is southern Bavarian (but separated into the Tyrolean and the inner-mountain- Salzburg dialect and cultural areas), and areas more open towards the Alpine foothills ( Lower Inn Valley , Salzburg's outskirts around the city of Salzburg ) already form a mixed area with Central Bavarian . Due to the settlement landscape, which is strongly divided into valleys, the smaller-scale cultural diversity in customs and language is still relatively strong today.

Statistics region Western Austria

NUTS: AT -1 (the numbers indicate the NUTS-2 regions)
  • AT-3 Western Austria

    • In the statistical sense (as the NUTS region ) the expression means the group of federal states of Upper Austria , Salzburg , Tyrol and Vorarlberg .

    Western Austria in this definition comprises 40.994% of the area of ​​Austria (34,385.34 km 2 ), and 35.976% of the resident population (3,036,573). The area is primarily organized as small and medium-sized enterprises with only a few industrial centers, and is largely agricultural , forestry and shaped by tourism . The economic data is above average, the social and economic problem areas are not very pronounced, and the area shows a fairly even profile in most of the key data. Central areas are the Rhine Valley / Lake Constance area with Bregenz , the Tyrolean Unterland with Innsbruck , the Flachgau with Salzburg , and the Upper Austrian central area Linz , Wels and Steyr .

    See also

    literature

    • Regional data for Austria in NUTS breakdown . NUTS breakdown of Austria. In: Statistics Austria ÖSTAT (Ed.): Statistical Yearbook Austria 2009 . Vienna 2010, section 37, p. 492 ff . ( pdf , statistik.at [accessed on April 24, 2017]).

    Maps:

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ a b AT total: area 83,878.99 km 2 ; EW 8,440,465 as of January 1, 2012; all information Statistics Austria: Statistical Yearbook 2011