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Austria's population was estimated in July, 2005 as 8,184,691 persons. The population of the capital, Vienna, exceeds 1.6 million (2 million with suburbs), representing about a quarter of the country's population, and is said to constitute a melting pot of citizens from all over Central and Eastern Europe. In contrast to the capital, other cities do not exceed 1 million inhabitants: the second largest city Graz is home of 240,000 people, followed by Linz with 187,000, Salzburg with 147,000, and Innsbruck with 116,000. All other cities have fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. German-speaking Austrians, by far the country's largest group, form roughly 90% of Austria's population. However, just a small minority of Austrians view themselves as ethnically German. The Austrian federal states of Carinthia and Styria are home to a significant (indigenous) Slovenian minority with around 14,000 members (Austrian census; unofficial numbers of Slovene groups speak of about 40,000). Around 20,000 Hungarians and 30,000 Croatians live in the east-most Bundesland, Burgenland (formerly part of Hungary). The remaining number of Austria's people are of non-Austrian descent, many from surrounding countries, especially from the former East Bloc nations. So-called guest workers (Gastarbeiter) and their descendants also form an important minority group in Austria. According to the 2001 census, the mother tongue of the population by prevalence, are German (88.6%) followed by Turkish (2.3%), Serbian (2.2%), Croatian (1.6%), Hungarian (0.5%) and Bosnian (0.4%). The official language, German, is spoken by almost all residents of the country. Austria's mountainous terrain led to the development of many distinct German dialects. All of the dialects in the country, however, belong to Austro-Bavarian groups of German dialects, with the exception of the dialect spoken in its west-most Bundesland, Vorarlberg, which belongs to the group of Alemannic dialects. There is also a distinct grammatical standard for Austrian German with a few differences to the German spoken in Germany.
Politics concerning ethnic groups (Volksgruppenpolitik) An estimated 25,000–40,000 Slovenians in the Austrian state of Carinthia as well as Croatians and Hungarians in Burgenland were recognized as a minority and have enjoyed special rights following the Austrian State Treaty (Staatsvertrag) of 1955. The Slovenians in the Austrian state of Styria (estimated at a number between 1,600 and 5,000) are not recognized as a minority and do not enjoy special rights, although the State Treaty of July 27, 1955 states otherwise. The right for bilingual topographic signs for the regions where Slovene- and Croat-Austrians live alongside the Germanic population(as required by the 1955 State Treaty) is still to be fully implemented. Many Carinthians are afraid of Slovenian territorial claims, pointing to the fact that Yugoslav troops entered the state after each of the two World Wars and considering that some official Slovenian atlases still show parts of Carinthia as Slovenian cultural territory. The current governor, Jörg Haider, has made this fact a matter of public argument in fall 2005 by refusing to increase the number of bilingual topographic signs in Carinthia. A poll by the Kärntner Humaninstitut conducted in January 2006 states that 65% of Carinthians are not in favor of an increase of bilingual topographic signs, since the original requirements set by the State Treaty of 1955 have already been fulfilled according to their point of view. Another interesting phenomenon is the so called "Windischen-Theorie" stating that the Slovenians can be split in two groups: actual Slovenians and Windische, based on differences in language between Austrian Slovenians, who were taught Slovenian standard language in school and those Slovenians, who spoke their local Slovenian dialect but went to German schools. To the latter group the term "Windische" (originally the German word for Slovenians) was applied, claiming that they were a different ethnic group. This theory was never generally accepted and has been ultimately rejected several decades ago. |
Austria Information: Inside
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