Austria Geography, Climate & Nature

Austria is a landlocked country of about 84,000 square kilometres in central Europe, and it divides into three unequal areas: the relatively young mountains of the Alps, which occupy 62 per cent of it; part of the Pannonian plain in the east, where the mountains give out; and the Bohemian Forest north of the Danube, an older but lower granite range.

An awkward shape

The westernmost third is a narrow corridor between Germany and Italy, 32 to 60 kilometres wide. East of that the country widens to a maximum of 280 kilometres north to south, and it runs almost 600 kilometres in length from Lake Constance on the Austrian–Swiss–German border. Eight countries border it: Germany 801 km, Italy 404, the Czech Republic 402, Hungary 331, Slovenia 330, Slovakia 105, Liechtenstein 34, and Switzerland — Liechtenstein and Switzerland being outside the EU.

The Alps

The ranges run east to west across the south and west, dividing into the Northern Limestone Alps, the Central Eastern Alps and the Southern Limestone Alps. The highest point is the Großglockner at 3,798 metres, with the Pasterze glacier below it — the longest in Austria and retreating fast. The mountains are lower and gentler in the east, and the country's eastern edge is genuinely flat.

The Danube

The river crosses the north-east from Germany to Slovakia, through Linz and Vienna, and its valley holds the main transport corridor and much of the population. It rises near Donaueschingen in south-western Germany and empties into the Black Sea, and it is the only major European river that flows eastwards; the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, completed in Bavaria in 1992, connects it to the Rhine and opens barge traffic from the North Sea. The Wachau, between Melk and Krems, is a UNESCO-listed stretch of terraced vineyards and abbeys.

Lakes

The Salzkammergut holds dozens of alpine lakes, of which Hallstätter See and Wolfgangsee are the most visited. In the south, Carinthia's lakes — Wörthersee, Millstätter See — warm enough to swim comfortably in summer. In the east, Lake Neusiedl is a steppe lake averaging barely a metre deep, ringed by reed beds, and shared with Hungary.

Underground

The limestone produces extensive cave systems, including the Eisriesenwelt near Werfen, the largest ice cave in the world, and the salt mines at Hallstatt, worked for three thousand years and the source of the archaeological culture named after the village.

Woodland

About 47 per cent of Austria is under forest — 3,899,150 hectares in 2020, up from 3,775,670 in 1990 — one of the higher proportions in Europe, and the Vienna Woods reach into the capital's western districts.

Austria has a temperate continental climate, with four distinct seasons, and altitude matters more than anything else — the rule of thumb is a drop of about six degrees for every thousand metres.

The lowlands and the east

Vienna, the Danube valley and Burgenland have warm summers, regularly above 30°C in July and August, and cold winters around freezing with some snow. The Pannonian influence from the Hungarian plain makes the east drier and sunnier than the rest of the country.

The Alps

Cold and snowy from November to April above about fifteen hundred metres, with the highest resorts holding snow into May and glacier skiing through the summer. Alpine summers are short and cool, and above three thousand metres snow can fall in any month.

The south

Carinthia and southern Styria are sheltered by the mountains and are noticeably warmer and sunnier, with lakes that reach 25°C in summer — which is why Austrians holiday there.

The föhn

A warm dry wind falling down the northern slopes of the Alps, which can raise temperatures by ten degrees within hours, produce startling visibility, and is blamed locally for headaches and irritability. It also raises avalanche risk in winter.

Rain and thunderstorms

Precipitation is highest on the northern edge of the Alps, where moist air is forced upward. Summer afternoon thunderstorms in the mountains are routine and are the reason alpine walkers start early.

A warming picture

Austria has warmed roughly twice the global average. Glaciers are retreating measurably year on year, snow reliability below about twelve hundred metres has declined, and lower resorts increasingly depend on artificial snow.

Austria divides into three unequal areas, and its biology follows them: the Alps occupy 62 per cent of the country, the east gives way to part of the Pannonian plain, and north of the Danube lies the Bohemian Forest, an older and lower granite range. About 47 per cent of the land is under forest — 3,899,150 hectares in 2020, up from 3,775,670 in 1990 — of which 2,227,500 hectares is naturally regenerating and 1,671,500 planted. Only 2 per cent of the naturally regenerating forest is primary.

Seven national parks, and one that dwarfs the rest

Hohe Tauern National Park runs 100 kilometres along the Hohe Tauern range and covers about 1,834 square kilometres, of which 1,198 is core zone. It is by far the largest of Austria's seven national parks and the largest nature reserve in the Alps, and it is owned by the Austrian Alpine Club rather than by the state. It holds IUCN category II, and within it are the Pasterze and many other glaciers, the Krimml Waterfalls, glacial valleys and alluvial fans, and extended tundra and forest.

Its founding was slow in a way that says something about Austrian federalism: the participating states signed a declaration at Heiligenblut in 1971, but the first parts — around the Grossglockner and the Hochschober in Carinthia — were only protected in 1981, and the adjacent parts joined in 1992. Twenty-one years from agreement to a park. Tourism there has become less harmful over time, and the park puts particular emphasis on protecting and maintaining the traditional way of life alongside the landscape.

Zones by altitude

The vegetation stacks: Swiss pine along the tree line, then subshrub above it — mainly alpenrose, but also the endemic Saxifraga rudolphiana — up to the nival level at about 2,800 metres, beyond which snow and rock take over. That vertical sequence, compressed into a few hundred metres of ascent, is the thing to look for on any Austrian mountain walk.

The fauna of the Hohe Tauern is the Alpine set at its fullest: chamois, Alpine ibex and red deer on the ground, griffon vulture and golden eagle overhead.

Two comebacks

The detail worth knowing is that two of the park's animals are not survivors but returns. The bearded vulture and the Alpine marmot were locally extinct and have been successfully reintroduced. The bearded vulture — Bartgeier, with a near-three-metre wingspan and a diet of bone — was shot out of the Alps entirely by the early twentieth century on the false belief that it took lambs and children. Seeing one over the Hohe Tauern now is seeing the result of a deliberate decision, not an accident of survival.

Where to look

Above the tree line, in the core zone, and near the glaciers and tundra ground. The marmots are the ones you will hear first; the ibex hold the steepest ground; the vultures work the thermals off the ridges in the middle of the day. The park's emphasis on maintaining the traditional pastoral use of the land is part of why the open alpine habitat above the forest still exists at all.

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