People and Society of Austria

Nationality

noun: Austrian(s) adjective: Austrian

Ethnic Groups

Austrian 80.8%, German 2.6%, Bosnian and Herzegovinian 1.9%, Turkish 1.8%, Serbian 1.6%, Romanian 1.3%, other 10%

Population

8,214,160

Population (Male / Female)

male: 4,392,898 female: 4,575,084

Population Distribution

the northern and eastern portions of the country are more densely populated; nearly two-thirds of the populace lives in urban areas

Urban Population

urban population: 59.5% of total population rate of urbanization: 0.68% annual rate of change

Population in Major Urban Areas

1.975 million VIENNA (capital)

Age Structure

0-14 years: 14.1% (male 648,639/female 616,334) 15-64 years: 64.7% (male 2,904,587/female 2,898,339) 65 years and over: 21.2% (male 839,672/female 1,060,411)

Median Age

total: 44.9 years male: 43.6 years female: 46.3 years

Sex Ratio at Birth

at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female 0-14 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.79 male(s)/female total population: 0.96 male(s)/female

There are an adequate number of hospitals available in Austria. Local hospitals will not settle their accounts directly with American insurance companies. You must pay the bill to the local hospital and later claim a refund from the insurance carrier in the United States. Medicare payments are not available outside the United States. The Austrian Medicine Import Act generally prohibits the import of prescription drugs into Austria, with two exceptions: Travelers residing outside the European Union are allowed to carry with them (as part of their personal luggage) drugs and medicines, but only a quantity the individual requires during the course of the stay; and, Travelers, while staying in Austria, may receive drugs and medicines for their personal use by mail. The quantity is limited to the length of their stay in Austria and must never exceed three packages. We recommend you have either a prescription or written statement from your personal physician that you are under a doctor’s care and that the medicine is necessary for your physical well-being while traveling. Public health in Austria is excellent. Community sanitation in Vienna meets or exceeds that of most U.S. cities. Disease incidence and type are similar to the rest of Europe and the United States. At the present time, air pollution is not a major health problem in Vienna.

Life Expectancy at Birth

total population: 82.7 years male: 80.1 years female: 85.4 years

Infant Mortality Rate

total: 3.2 deaths/1,000 live births male: 3.6 deaths/1,000 live births female: 2.7 deaths/1,000 live births

Drinking Water Source

improved: urban: 100% of population rural: 100% of population total: 100% of population

Sanitation Facility Access

improved: urban: 100% of population rural: 100% of population total: 100% of population

Tobacco Use

total: 26.4% male: 27.7% female: 25%

Alcohol Consumption

total: 11.9 liters of pure alcohol beer: 6.3 liters of pure alcohol wine: 3.7 liters of pure alcohol spirits: 1.9 liters of pure alcohol other alcohols: 0 liters of pure alcohol

Literacy Definition

age 15 and over can read and write

Total School Life Expectancy

total: 16 years male: 16 years female: 16 years

• Roman Catholic74.0%
• other17.0%
• Protestant5.0%
• Muslim4.0%

German (official nationwide), Slovene (official in Carinthia), Croatian (official in Burgenland), Hungarian (official in Burgenland)

German (official nationwide) 88.6%, Turkish 2.3%, Serbian 2.2%, Croatian (official in Burgenland) 1.6%, other (includes Slovene, official in southern Carinthia, and Hungarian, official in Burgenland) 5.3%

• Croatian
• German
• Hungarian
• Slovene

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  Composer · 1756

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer was born in Salzburg, Austria on Jan. 27, 1756.

• Franz Peter Schubert

  Composer · 1797

  Franz Peter Schubert, Austrian composer, born in Vienna, Austria on Jan. 31, 1797.

• Franz Joseph Haydn

  Composer · 1797

  Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer, was born in Rohrau, Austria on March 31, 1797.

• Johann Strauss

  Composer · 1804

  Johann Strauss, Austrian composer, was born in Vienna on March 14, 1804.

• 

  Nikola Tesla

  Inventor · 1856

  Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Austria-Hungary and emigrated to the U.S. in 1884 as a physicist. He pioneered the generation, transmission, and use of alternating current (AC) electricity, which can be transmitted over much greater distances than direct current. Tesla patented a device to induce electrical current in a piece of iron (a rotor) spinning between two electrified coils of wire. This rotating magnetic field device generates AC current when it is made to rotate by using some form mechanical energy, like steam or hydropower. When the generated current reaches its user and is fed into another rotating magnetic field device, this second device becomes an AC induction motor that produces mechanical energy. Induction motors run household appliances like clothes washers and dryers. Development of these devices led to widespread industrial and manufacturing uses for electricity. The induction motor was only part of Tesla’s overall conception. In a series of history-making patents, he demonstrated a polyphase alternating-current system, consisting of a generator, transformers, transmission layout, and motor and lights. From the power source to the power user, it provided the basic elements for electrical production and utilization. Our AC power system remains essentially unchanged today. In 1888, George Westinghouse, head of the Westinghouse Electric Company, bought the patent rights to Tesla’s system of dynamos, transformers and motors. Westinghouse used Tesla’s alternating current system to light the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Then in 1896, Tesla’s system was used at Niagara Falls in the world’s first large hydroelectric plant. The Tesla coil, invented in 1891, is still used in radio and television sets, car starters, and a wide variety of electronic equipment. Tesla’s work with radio-frequency waves laid the foundation for today’s radio. He experimented with wireless transmission of electrical power, and received 112 patents for devices ranging from speedometers to extremely efficient electrical generators to a bladeless turbine still in use today. He suggested that it was possible to use radio waves to detect ships (later developed as RADAR), and his work with special gas-filled lamps set the stage for the creation of fluorescent lighting. Tesla was Thomas Edison’s rival at the end of the 19th century - in fact, he was more famous than Edison throughout the 1890’s. His invention of polyphase AC electric power earned him worldwide fame but not fortune. At his zenith his circle of friends included poets and scientists, industrialists and financiers. Yet Tesla died alone and almost penniless in a New York hotel room in 1943. During his life, Tesla created a legacy of genuine invention that still fascinates today. After his death, the world honored him by naming the unit of magnetic flux density the "tesla."

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  Michael Pupin

  Inventor · 1858

  Michael Pupin, American physicist and inventor, was born in Austria-Hungary in 1858. He immigrated to the United States in 1874, graduated from Columbia University in physics in 1883, and obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Berlin in 1889. Pupin taught at Columbia for more than 40 years, 30 of them as a professor of electromechanics. Pupin improved the quality of long-distance telephone and telegraph transmission by inserting coils in the long lines at intervals; he discovered that matter struck by X-rays is stimulated to radiate other X-rays (secondary radiation) and invented an electrical resonator. He received 34 patents for his inventions, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for his autobiography, From Immigrant to Inventor .

• 

  Lise Meitner

  Scientist · 1878

  Lise Meitner was born in Austria in 1878. As a young girl, she had a love for mathematics and physics, and adopted Madame Curie and Florence Nightingale as her heroines. After private schooling, she entered the University of Vienna and received her doctorate in physics in 1906. She had to get used to being the only woman in a room full of one hundred students. She worked at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute with radiochemist, Otto Hahn. They discovered the element protactinium and studied the effects of neutron bombardment on uranium. Meitner became joint director of the institute and was appointed head of the Physics Department in 1917. After leaving Nazi Germany in 1938, she found a post at the Nobel Physical Institute in Stockholm. She continued her research there, and, together with her nephew Otto Frisch, realized that they had split the uranium nucleus. They called the process "fission." During the war, she refused to work on the atomic bomb. In 1947, a laboratory was established for her by the Swedish Atomic Energy Commission, and she worked on an experimental nuclear reactor.

Crime Information

Austria has one of the lowest crime rates in Europe, and violent crime is rare. However, crimes involving the theft of personal property do occur. As such, most crimes involving U.S. citizens are crimes of opportunity, involving theft of personal belongings. Travelers are also targets of pick-pockets who operate where tourists tend to gather. Some of the spots where such crimes are most frequently reported include Vienna’s two largest train stations, the plaza around St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and the nearby pedestrian shopping areas (in Vienna’s First District). The U.S. Embassy receives reports of theft and pick-pocketing on public transportation lines, especially on those lines coming into and out of the city center. Secure your personal belongings and always take precautions while on public transportation and in public places such as cafes and tourist areas. Don’t buy counterfeit and pirated goods, even if they are widely available. Not only are the bootlegs illegal to bring back into the United States, but by buying them, you may also be breaking local law.

Criminal Penalties

While traveling in Austria, you are subject to its laws. While you are overseas you do not enjoy the same rights and privileges that you have in the U.S. If you do something illegal in your host country, your U.S. passport won’t help you avoid arrest or prosecution. It is very important to know what is legal and what is not, since foreign laws and legal systems can be vastly different from our own. Criminal penalties also vary from country to country. There are also some things that may be legal where you are traveling but illegal in the United States. If you engage in sexual conduct with children or use or disseminate child pornography in a foreign country, you can be prosecuted in the United States. Persons violating Austrian laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested, or imprisoned. Penalties for possessing, using, or trafficking illegal drugs in Austria are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Arrest Notifications: Based on the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, bilateral agreements with certain countries, and customary international law, if you are arrested in Austria, you have the option to request that the police, prison officials, or other authorities alert the U.S. Embassy of your arrest, and to have communications from you forwarded to the Embassy.