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Austria Landform Regions
The two best-known features of the Austrian landscape are the
Alps and the Danube River
(see
fig. 5). The Danube has its source
in southwestern Germany and flows through Austria before emptying
into the Black Sea. It is the only major European river that
flows eastward, and its importance as an inland waterway has been
enhanced by the completion in 1992 of the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal
in Bavaria, which connects the Rhine and Main rivers with the
Danube and makes possible barge traffic from the North Sea to the
Black Sea.
The major rivers north of the watershed of the Austrian Alps
(the Inn in Tirol, the Salzach in Salzburg, and the Enns in
Styria and Upper Austria) are direct tributaries of the Danube
and flow north into the Danube Valley, whereas the rivers south
of the watershed in central and eastern Austria (the Gail and
Drau rivers in Carinthia and the Mürz and Mur rivers in Styria)
flow south into the drainage system of the Drau, which eventually
empties into the Danube in Serbia. Consequently, central and
eastern Austria are geographically oriented away from the
watershed of the Alps: the provinces of Upper Austria and Lower
Austria toward the Danube and the provinces of Carinthia and
Styria toward the Drau.
The Alps cover 62 percent of the country's total area. Three
major Alpine ranges--the Northern Alps, Central Alps, and
Southern Alps--run west to east through Austria. The Central
Alps, which consist largely of a granite base, are the largest
and highest ranges in Austria. The Central Alps run from Tirol to
approximately the Styria-Lower Austria border and include areas
that are permanently glaciated in the Ötzal Alps on the TiroleanItalian border and the High Tauern in eastern Tirol and
Carinthia. The Northern Alps, which run from Vorarlberg through
Tirol into Salzburg along the German border and through Upper
Austria and Lower Austria toward Vienna, and the Southern Alps,
on the Carinthia-Slovenia border, are predominantly limestone and
dolomite. At 3,797 meters, Grossglockner in Carinthia is the
highest mountain in Austria. As a general rule, the farther east
the Northern Alps and Central Alps run, the lower they become.
The altitude of the mountains also drops north and south of the
central ranges.
As a geographic feature, the Alps literally overshadow other
landform regions. Just over 28 percent of Austria is moderately
hilly or flat: the Northern Alpine Foreland, which includes the
Danube Valley; the lowlands and hilly regions in northeastern and
eastern Austria, which include the Danube Basin; and the rolling
hills and lowlands of the Southeastern Alpine Foreland. The parts
of Austria that are most suitable for settlement--that is, arable
and climatically favorable--run north of the Alps through the
provinces of Upper Austria and Lower Austria in the Danube Valley
and then curve east and south of the Alps through Lower Austria,
Vienna, Burgenland, and Styria. Austria's least mountainous
landscape is southeast of the low Leitha Range, which forms the
southern lip of the Viennese Basin, where the steppe of the
Hungarian Plain begins. The Bohemian Granite Massif, a low
mountain range with bare and windswept plateaus and a harsh
climate, is located north of the Danube Valley and covers the
remaining 10 percent of Austria's area.
Data as of December 1993
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