ABSTRACT
Austria is the country of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Adolf Hitler and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Until the time when the Iron Curtain was dismantled, Austria was considered as the easternmost country in the west. Its geopolitical situation is thrown into relief by a list of Austria's neighbouring countries: Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy. Covering an area of 83,900 square kilometres (32,400 square miles), the country is divided into nine federal states or provinces. German is the mother tongue of most of its 7.8 million inhabitants (1.6 million of whom live in the capital, Vienna) though there are several linguistic minorities. Politically speaking, Austria is one of the western parliamentary democracies. As the successor state to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which also had its political and cultural centre in Vienna, Austria feels entrusted with a centuries-old cultural legacy.
