Austria

As I‘ve already mentioned, I am from Austria. Maybe some people have heard about this quite small country because it was the home country of the composer Wolfgan Amadeus Mozart and the psychologist Freud, or probably some know it because of it‘s quite nice landscape.

Austria is a landlocked country of approximately 8.3 inhabitants in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west.

Under the native Habsburg dynasty, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary. Nowadays it's a quite small country that is devided in 9 federal provinces.

The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.6 million, is Vienna.

Vienna has long been especially an important centre of musical innovation. 18th and 19th century composers were drawn to the city due to the patronage of the Habsburgs, and made Vienna the European capital of classical music. Nowadays it is friendly city with a rich cultural program, great architecture and some really great art, theater and music events.

The climate in Austria is quite similar to the Lithuanian one, because we usualy have cold and snowy winters and short, but warm summers. However, Austria has access to the Alps and some other mountanous region and many tourists visit the country during winter to do winter sports. In my opinion what makes Austria such an interesting country is the fact, that you have some really rural and natural regiones, nevertheless, there is always a modern and lively city not far away.

 The majority of the population speaks German (like I do) , which is also the country's official language. Other local official languages are Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.

At the end of the 20th century, about 74% of Austria's population were registered as Roman Catholic, while about 5% considered themselves Protestants. Catholicism has gradually declined in Austria over the past decades. As of January 2010, the percentage of catholics in Austria was 65.1%.

The most popular sports in Austria are Football (but we are defenitely not very good at it) and winter sports like alpine skiing, ski jumping and snowboarding.

Hopefully I could give you some information about Austria :) If you want to know more, knock on the door at Radijo Klubas and ask me personaly or write to me on facebook. :)

Rabea Schwarzmann