NIEDERÖSTERREICH - Geography and history
The heartland of Austria is Niederösterreich (Lower Austria), which has a total area of 19 178 km2, four chartered cities including Sankt Pölten (the capital) and 21 political districts. In 2001 there were 573 municipalities. Niederösterreich has the largest area and the second largest population (after Vienna) of the nine federal provinces in Austria. Niederösterreich is bordered to the north by the Czech Republic and to the east by Slovakia, where the river system of Thaya and March marks the frontier line. In the south, the foothills of the Eastern Alps form a natural boundary with Steiermark. In the south-east, Niederösterreich borders the Burgenland and this is where the province also has a share in the Pannonian Plateau, which then stretches into Hungary which is a scant 4 km away. Vienna, which is Austria's capital and at the same time a separate federal province, is located in the centre of Niederösterreich - similar to the situation of Berlin and Brandenburg in Germany.
In the north-west is the Waldviertel gneiss and granite plateau. The north-east has the hilly area of the Weinviertel and in the east is the Vienna basin, both of which have a Pannonian-type climate. The fertile Pre-Alps, between the Danube and the Alps proper, are a transitional climatic zone whilst the Alps become higher the further south one goes, and the climate increasingly Alpine. Agriculture and horticulture cover 52.2% of the land area, vineyards 1.8% and forests 39.3%.
The main motorways, roads and railway lines which converge on Vienna, run both east-west and north-south. The southern part of the Vienna basin is highly industrialized and in the Alps there is a certain amount of industry, but otherwise the land is mainly given over to agriculture and forestry. Wine is an important product.
From the fringes to the heart of south-eastern Central Europe
The wide variety of landscapes in Niederösterreich is particularly striking, from low-lying plains and hills to uplands and high mountain ranges. The Danube valley in the Wachau, bedecked with vineyards, is particularly beautiful. Niederösterreich is Austria's prime agricultural area, concentrating on arable crops and vineyards. The traditional heartland of Austria, it has a wealth of cultural treasures - churches, castles and abbeys (Melk) from Gothic to Baroque.
For decades on the fringes of Austria, hard up against the Iron Curtain, this once disadvantaged Bundesland is now reaping the benefits of its central location and the opening up of Eastern Europe. The magnetic attraction of Vienna, until 1922 the capital of Niederösterreich - since 1986 the capital is Sankt Pölten and since 1996 the administrative offices permanently moved to Sankt Pölten - has its advantages and its disadvantages. On the one hand, people leaving Vienna or moving to Niederösterreich from elsewhere swell its population and businesses transferring to or setting up in the area around Vienna provide jobs, but on the other hand the transport network is geared primarily towards the national capital. The many commuters to Vienna who travel by road and the ever-increasing volume of transit traffic on the main road links cause major transport and environmental problems. A further disadvantage is the lack of a university and the paucity of post-secondary educational establishments.
Rich countryside around Vienna, poorer areas in the north
The various areas of Niederösterreich (population density 80.6 per km2 compared with the national average of 95.8) differ tremendously. The area around Vienna, in some parts a built-up extension of the capital city, with 150 inhabitants per km2, profits from its location and is enjoying a steady increase in population and economic importance. It has a wide variety of industries, some of them moving out of Vienna and others settling in the area because of its proximity to the capital. Agriculture is a key industry, producing wine, field crops, cereals and sugar beets. With a per capita GDP of 143% of the EU average in 2000, the southern part of the Viennese hinterland is the third-wealthiest area of Austria. The Sankt Polten area has been undergoing a boom ever since the town was chosen as the capital of Niederösterreich, but some of the industries in the south are struggling. The Mostviertel-Eisenwurzen region in the south-west concentrates on agriculture and forestry and has a certain amount of industry. Through decades of marginalization alongside the Iron Curtain, the rural Waldviertel area with its infertile soils (except in the peripheral wine-growing areas in Wachau and around Krems) and the productive arable land and vineyards of the Weinviertel (population densities of 51.3 per km2) were extremely disadvantaged. Many people commute daily to Vienna or, with increasing distance from the capital, weekly or less frequently from the whole of Niederösterreich. Only in the far west do most commuters travel to Oberösterreich.
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