800 BCE – 976
Antiquity and early Middle Ages
- Celts
- Romans
- Bavarians
- Alpine Slavs
Celtic and Roman communities were followed after the migration period by Bavarian settlers in the north and Slavic groups in the south-east.
EuropeCapital: Vienna
Austria
Austria lies in the eastern Alps and along the Danube. From the thirteenth century until 1918 it was the heartland of the Habsburgs, who governed an empire of dozens of peoples and languages from Vienna. After two world wars and seven years of Nazi rule it became a neutral republic in 1955; it has been a member of the European Union since 1995.
- Languages
- German (official, in Austrian varieties), Slovene, Croatian and Hungarian (recognised minority languages), Bavarian and Alemannic dialects
- Religions & worldviews
- Roman Catholicism, Protestant and Orthodox churches, Muslim communities, Jewish community, Non-religious population
Historical timeline
800 BCE – 450 BCE
Hallstatt culture
Salt mining at Hallstatt makes the region a centre of the early Iron Age in central Europe.
15 BCE – 488
Roman provinces
The area is absorbed into the provinces of Noricum, Raetia and Pannonia; Vindobona (Vienna) is a legionary camp on the Danube frontier.
976 – 1246
Margraviate under the Babenbergs
A border region of the Holy Roman Empire grows into a duchy; the name 'Ostarrîchi' is first recorded in 996.
1278 – 1918
Start of Habsburg rule
Rudolf I defeats the Bohemian king and gives Austria to his sons; the dynasty reigns until 1918.
1683
Second Siege of Vienna
An Ottoman army is defeated before the city; afterwards the Habsburgs extend their power over Hungary.
1867 – 1918
Austria-Hungary
The 'Ausgleich' turns the empire into a dual monarchy with two governments under one sovereign.
1938 – 1945
Anschluss
Nazi Germany annexes Austria; tens of thousands of Austrian Jews are murdered, many flee.
1955
State Treaty and neutrality
The Allied occupation ends and parliament lays down permanent neutrality.
Historical context
The Habsburgs extended their power mainly through marriages and inheritances. The result was not a nation state but a collection of lands with their own laws, estates and languages, held together by the dynasty, the army, the civil service and the Catholic Church.
Nineteenth-century nationalism put that structure under pressure; after the defeat of 1918 a small German-speaking republic remained, which many doubted was viable. Only after 1945 did a distinct Austrian national consciousness grow, together with a debate, begun late, about the country's own role in National Socialism.
Peoples & cultural heritage through the ages
976
Habsburg era to the present
- German-speaking Austrians
- Slovene minority in Carinthia
- Croats and Hungarians in Burgenland
- Jewish communities
- Migrant communities
As the capital of a multinational empire Vienna attracted people from Bohemia, Hungary, Galicia and the Balkans; after 1945 labour migrants came from Yugoslavia and Turkey.
Religion, worldview & philosophy
In the sixteenth century a large part of the population had become Protestant. The Habsburg Counter-Reformation reversed that by coercion and by the Baroque splendour of monasteries and pilgrimage churches; only Joseph II's Patent of Toleration in 1781 permitted other confessions again.
Around 1900 Vienna was a breeding ground for new ideas: Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis there, and the philosophers of the Vienna Circle and Ludwig Wittgenstein searched for the limits of language and knowledge. Many of these thinkers were of Jewish descent and were driven out or murdered after 1938.
Art movements
🎨 Viennese Classicismc. 1770–1830
In Vienna Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert developed the symphony, the string quartet and sonata form into the core of classical music.
🎨 Biedermeier1815–1848
A middle-class style of domestic interiors, portraits and landscapes that arose in a time of political censorship.
🎨 Vienna Secession and Jugendstil1897–c. 1914
Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and the architect Otto Wagner broke with academicism; the Wiener Werkstätte linked art with craft.
Traditions & customs
Viennese coffee house cultureCustomall year
In the coffee house people read, write and talk for hours over a single cup of coffee; intangible heritage since 2011.
Viennese ballMusic & danceJanuary–February
In the ball season professional groups and institutions hold hundreds of balls, with the waltz as the standard dance.
Krampus and PerchtenRitualDecember–January
In Alpine villages masked figures with bells and birch rods move through the streets around the feast of St Nicholas.
AlmabtriebFestivalSeptember
At the end of summer the decorated cattle return in procession from the mountain pastures to the valley.
Cuisine & culinary history
Austrian cooking is the cooking of a former empire: dishes from Bohemia, Hungary, northern Italy and the Balkans took on their familiar form in Vienna. Flour-based dishes and pastries occupy a strikingly large place.
Culinary history
The court and the nobility brought cooks and dishes from across the empire to Vienna, where they were refined and given a German name. The coffee houses, the first of which opened shortly after the siege of 1683, became the living rooms of the city.
The word 'Mehlspeisen' covers both sweet main dishes and pastries and shows how important dough is in this cuisine: much of it comes from Bohemian cooking and from Lent, when no meat was eaten. In the countryside the Alpine farm cooking of cheese, dumplings and smoked meat lived on.
- Bohemian flour-based dishes
- Hungarian paprika dishes and stews
- Northern Italian cooking
- Alpine dairy and livestock farming
- Ottoman coffee, since the seventeenth century
Wiener schnitzelMain course
Thinly pounded veal, breaded and fried in clarified butter or lard.
Origin: Nineteenth century; related to the Milanese cotoletta.
TafelspitzMain course
Boiled beef from the broth, with apple horseradish and fried potatoes.
Origin: Viennese bourgeois cooking, nineteenth century.
ApfelstrudelDessert
Paper-thin stretched dough filled with apple, raisins and cinnamon.
Origin: The oldest known recipe dates from 1697; the dough technique arrived via the Ottoman Empire.
SachertorteDessert
Chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam and a chocolate glaze.
Origin: Vienna, 1832, attributed to Franz Sacher.
Wonders & heritage
No wonders in the database yet.
Historical figures
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart1756 – 1791
Events
- Premiere of The Magic Flute30 September 1791 · Culture & art
Conflicts & fossils
Sources: Austria — Encyclopaedia Britannica · UNESCO World Heritage: Historic Centre of Vienna