Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0022/00225.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 37KB | 618 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00225}
$Pretitle{376}
$Title{Austria
Chapter 3A.   Physical Environment and Transportation}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{James M. Moore Jr.}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{austria
country
river
vienna
basin
eastern
alpine
area
danube
north}
$Date{1976}
$Log{Figure 5.*0022501.scf
}
Country:     Austria
Book:        Austria, A Country Study
Author:      James M. Moore Jr.
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1976

Chapter 3A.   Physical Environment and Transportation

     Austria is a small Alpine country in south-central Europe encompassing an
area of 32,375 square miles. It has a population of 7.5 million people. It
extends about 375 miles from east to west and ranges in width from twenty-one
to about 165 miles. The nine provinces include eight that divide up most of
the country, plus Vienna, which includes the city and its environs. Each
province (Land; pl., Lander) has considerable local autonomy and, owing in
large measure to restricted communications, many local customs persist.

     The country's geography is not one of its unifying features. The area's
importance first developed as a crossroads of Europe. The Danube River has
always been a major east-west route across the continent. The Brenner Pass is
the westernmost point at which the Eastern Alps can easily be crossed; Vienna
lies at the point at which Eastern Alps can first be readily skirted.

     Because the highest terrain is in the interior, peripheral lowlands tend
to be oriented outward, away from the center of the country. The country is so
physically divided that a businessman of Salzburg, for example, is more likely
to have contacts in Munich than in Vienna. In much the same way the
westernmost province is oriented toward Switzerland. The bonds that hold
Austria together are a common language, common religion, and a generally
common attitude of the people in that they prefer each other to any other
group of people and they oppose further fragmentation of their state.

     Few physical frontiers in Austria follow natural physical barriers. The
Danube River forms important parts of the boundaries between Hungary and
Czechoslovakia, between Romania and Yugoslavia, and between Romania and
Bulgaria, but it flows along the Austrian-Czechoslovak border for only about
ten miles and is an internal province boundary for only a slightly greater
distance. In similar fashion, the high Alpine ridge across the country does
not separate the provinces except at the Grossglockner mountain, where three
of the provinces meet.

     Austria's highest lands are the Eastern Alps. They consist of a group of
mountains that begin at the Swiss border and become three ranges that fan out
slightly as they cross the country. In addition to the Alpine ranges, the
highlands in the northern part of the country are a part of the Bohemian
massif; and a finger of the Carpathian Mountains extends into the country just
east of Vienna.

     Austrian geographers place the country in the exact center, rather than
in the south-central part, of Europe. The Hahneckkogel, a peak in the province
of Salzburg, is not only claimed to be the highest wooded mountain in Europe
but also said to mark the geographical center of the continent. Whatever the
geographical situation may be, Austria is in many ways at political and
physical dividing points for the continent.

     Except for briefly deeper penetrations, the Romans did not establish
control in central Europe north of the Danube River. The Celts from the
northwest and the Teutonic peoples from the north could not maintain
themselves for long south or east of the Alps. The Turks, Slavs, and Magyars
pushed, without enduring success, at Austria from the southeast. The land is
situated on the line dividing present-day Eastern and Western Europe.

     The climatic situation is also affected by the high terrain in the
central part of the country. Mild Atlantic maritime weather barely penetrates
to northern Austria. Warm, dry weather from the Mediterranean systems barely
brushes the southern fringes of the Eastern Alps. Continental systems dominate
but rarely reach farther west than Austria.

     The country has had natural resources sufficient to initiate an
industrial economy but, especially since the dissolution of the old empire, it
has not had an economy that is self-sufficient. It is a net importer of most
industrial raw materials, energy, and food products. Its industry, railroad,
and road systems, however, are well developed (see ch. 12; ch. 13).

NATURAL FEATURES

Topography

     The country is usually divided physically into the Eastern Alpine region,
the North Alpine Forelands, the Bohemian plateau, the Vienna basin, and the
eastern and southeastern lowlands. The Eastern Alps are the most prominent and
significant feature, but they are difficult to traverse and support only a
limited number of people. The Vienna basin contains the richest and most
productive land, followed by the plains of Burgenland in the southeast. The
North Alpine Forelands, river valleys, and several lowland basins have smaller
areas of productive land. A large portion of the land that is too steep to
farm or too poorly drained to cultivate is retained as forest. Although nearly
three-quarters of the country is mountainous, 18.7 percent of the total area
is arable; 26.6 percent is meadow and pasture; 38.6 percent is forest; a
little more than 1.6 percent is vineyards, orchards, or small garden plots;
and about 14.5 percent consists of built-up areas and wasteland (see fig. 5).

Eastern Alps

     The eastern Alpine ranges are the parts of the Alps that originate
approximately at a line between the Bodensee and Lake Como. The Bodensee is
located at the northwesternmost point in Austria; Lake Como is in Italy,
directly to the south. Along these ranges Austria shares common borders with
Switzerland, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), and Italy. The
ranges extend eastward across Austria to the lowlands of the middle Danube
River basin. Although they originate a few miles within Switzerland and Italy
and extend across the borders to the north and south, the Eastern Alps are
usually considered Austrian mountains.

[See Figure 5.: Austria, Topography]

     The Eastern Alps are divided into three main ranges. The central range is
separated from the northern range by a line from west to east from the Arlberg
Pass, along the Inn River valley in the Tirol, and follows the upper valleys
of the generally eastward-flowing Salzach, Enns, Mur, and Murz rivers. The
division ends to the east of the Semmering Pass in the province of Lower
Austria (Niederosterreich). The Drau River (Drava, in Yugoslavia) valley
separates the central and southern ranges. The southern range covers a
relatively small area in the southern part of eastern Tirol and in Carinthia
(Karnten).

     The central range is the largest in size and has the highest elevations
in Austria. It consists largely of a granite or gneiss base, covered for the
most part with crystalline schists. The base rock is hard but the schists are
foliated, fissile, and erode readily. The resultant soil provides pastureland
and supports forests at higher elevations than are usually found in the softer
limestone ranges to the north and south.

     West of the point that divides the central and northern ranges the
Eastern Alps ascend sharply from the Bodensee in Vorarlberg Province. In
western Tirol, a number of peaks exceed 10,000 feet. The range is lower at the
Brenner Pass, then rises to its highest elevation-the Grossglockner, which is
12,461 feet-at the point where eastern Tirol, Salzburg, and Carinthia meet.
There are many permanent glaciers along about 150 miles of higher mountains
east of the Vorarlberg-Tirol line. The largest of these glaciers is the
Grossglockner's Pasterzen Kees, which is six miles in length. The Hohe Tauern
and Niedere Tauern are the major ranges of the central group. At the eastern
end of the Niedere Tauern, within Styria