The history of Austria covers the history of Austria and its predecessor states, from the Early Stone Age to the present state. The name Ostarrîchi (Austria) has been in use since 996 AD when it was a margravate of the Duchy of Bavaria and from 1156 an independent duchy of the Holy Roman Empire.
The chancellor of the Republic of Austria is the head of government of the Republic of Austria. The position corresponds to that of Prime Minister in several other parliamentary democracies.
Politics in Austria reflects the dynamics of competition among multiple political parties, which led to the formation of a Conservative-Green coalition government for the first time in January 2020, following the snap elections of 29 September 2019, and the election of a former Green Party leader to the presidency in 2016.
Upper Austria is one of the nine states or Länder of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg. With an area of 11,982 km2 (4,626 sq mi) and 1.49 million inhabitants, Upper Austria is the fourth-largest Austrian state by land area and the third-largest by population.
The Austrian People's Party is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria.
Austria is a federal republic made up of nine states. Since Land is also the German word for "country", the term Bundesländer is often used instead to avoid ambiguity. The Constitution of Austria uses both terms. Austrian states can pass laws that stay within the limits of the constitution, and each state has representatives in the main Austrian parliament.
The National Council is one of the two houses of the Austrian Parliament and is frequently referred to as the lower house. The constitution endows the National Council with far more power than the Federal Council.
Styria is a state (Bundesland) in the southeast of Austria. With an area of 16,401 km2 (6,332 sq mi), Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and clockwise, from the southwest, by the Austrian states of Carinthia, Salzburg, Upper Austria, Lower Austria, and Burgenland. The state capital is Graz.
The Communist Party of Austria is a communist party in Austria. Established in 1918 as the Communist Party of German-Austria (KPDÖ), it is one of the world's oldest communist parties. The KPÖ was banned between 1933 and 1945 under both the Austrofascist regime and the Nazi German administration of Austria after the 1938 Anschluss. It played an important role in the Austrian resistance against the Nazis.
The Greens – The Green Alternative is a green political party in Austria.
On the federal level, there are two main elections in Austria: presidential elections and elections to determine the composition of the National Council (Nationalrat), the lower house of Austria's bicameral Parliament. The upper house, the Federal Council consists of delegates from the states and is not directly elected. These elections are governed by federal law, which also applies to European Parliament elections in Austria.
The First Austrian Republic, officially the Republic of Austria, was created after the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 10 September 1919—the settlement after the end of World War I which ended the Habsburg rump state of Republic of German-Austria—and ended with the establishment of the Austrofascist Federal State of Austria based upon a dictatorship of Engelbert Dollfuss and the Fatherland's Front in 1934. The Republic's constitution was enacted on 1 October 1920 and amended on 7 December 1929. The republican period was increasingly marked by violent strife between those with left-wing and right-wing views, leading to the July Revolt of 1927 and the Austrian Civil War of 1934.
The Fatherland Front was the right-wing conservative, nationalist and corporatist ruling political organisation of the Federal State of Austria. It claimed to be a nonpartisan movement, and aimed to unite all the people of Austria, overcoming political and social divisions. Established on 20 May 1933 by Christian Social Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss as the only legally permitted party in the country, it was organised along the lines of Italian Fascism, except that the Fatherland Front was fully aligned with the Catholic Church and did not advocate any racial ideology, as later Italian Fascism did. It advocated Austrian nationalism and independence from Germany on the basis of protecting Austria's Catholic religious identity from what they considered a Protestant-dominated German state.
The Anschluss, also known as the Anschluß Österreichs, was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The Freedom Party of Austria is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Austria. It was led by Norbert Hofer from September 2019 to 1 June 2021. It is the third largest of five parties in the National Council, with 30 of the 183 seats, and won 16.2% of votes cast in the 2019 legislative election. It is represented in all nine state legislatures, and a member of two state cabinets. On a European level, the FPÖ is a founding member of the Identity and Democracy Party and its three Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sit with the Identity and Democracy (ID) group.
Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous city and state. A landlocked country, Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The country occupies an area of 83,871 km2 (32,383 sq mi) and has a population of 9 million.
The Federal State of Austria was a continuation of the First Austrian Republic between 1934 and 1938 when it was a one-party state led by the clerical fascist Fatherland Front. The Ständestaat concept, derived from the notion of Stände, was advocated by leading regime politicians such as Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg. The result was an authoritarian government based on a mix of Italian Fascist and conservative Catholic influences.
The Social Democratic Party of Austria, founded and known as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria until 1945 and later the Socialist Party of Austria until 1991, is a social-democratic political party in Austria. Founded in 1889, it is the oldest extant political party in Austria. Along with the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), it is one of the country's two traditional major parties. It is positioned on the centre-left on the political spectrum.
Karl Nehammer is an Austrian politician who is the 32nd and current Chancellor of Austria since 6 December 2021. A member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), he previously was Minister of the Interior from 2020 to 2021, general secretary of the ÖVP from 2018 to 2020, as well as a member of the National Council from 2017 to 2020. Nehammer assumed the chancellorship as the successor of Alexander Schallenberg, who resigned to return as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
