ABSTRACT
Austria is a federation of nine states (Länder). The capitals of eight states are centres of metropolitan regions. The most significant is the city of Vienna, which is at the same time one of the states and the federal capital. As an urban area Vienna has a population roughly equal to that of the seven other (Länder) capitals and their catchment areas. While Vienna could be considered a large city by international standards, the others are only medium-sized cities. This strong imbalance between Vienna and the other cities of the urban network in Austria has historical roots – Vienna was capital of the Danube monarchy up to 1918.
