Austria

Austria is a landlocked mountain country in central Europe, where the German, Slavic, Italian and Hungarian worlds meet. The Alps cover most of it, and the towns grew up along the Danube. Nine million people live there, around the capital, Vienna, once the seat of a vast empire and still one of the world's great cities of art and music. Today it is a small, wealthy and peaceful country.

The Alps dominate Austria: snowy peaks, glaciers, deep valleys, emerald lakes and high pastures ringing with cowbells. It is a country of skiing, chalets and hiking. To the east and north, the land softens into hills and fertile plains along the Danube, which crosses the country and Vienna from west to east. Vineyards, forests and neat villages fill in the rest of the landscape.

First Celtic, then Roman, Austria became the centre of one of the great dynasties of history, the Habsburgs, who ruled a multitude of peoples from Vienna for more than six centuries. Their empire, which became Austria-Hungary in 1867, brought together Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, Croats, Italians and many more: nearly all of central Europe. The assassination of the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo in 1914 set off the First World War. The empire collapsed; Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, then regained its independence in 1955 by declaring itself neutral, a status it has kept.

Austrians speak German, in a softer variety with its own words and accents. The country is traditionally Catholic, a legacy of the devout Habsburgs, as its countless baroque churches, monasteries and religious festivals show. This Catholic heritage fed a long tradition of sacred music.

Austria means music first of all. Vienna was the city of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and the Strauss family, kings of the waltz; its New Year's Concert and its Opera are famous worldwide. It is also the land of the Viennese coffee house, where people sit for hours over a coffee and a pastry, from chocolate Sachertorte to apple strudel. Austrians love the Alpine outdoors and Gemütlichkeit, a taste for comfort and good company.