Austrian Empire

The Empire of Austria (in the contemporary official spelling Kaiserthum Oesterreich) forms a section in the history of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was founded on 11 August 1804 as a hereditary monarchy by Archduke Franz of Austria, who as Franz II was the last Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He henceforth held his second imperial title, Emperor of Austria, as Franz I of Austria.

As an undivided ruling entity and monarchical unitary state (until 1848 on a differentiated federalist basis) of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, the Empire of Austria existed until 8 June 1867, when the Austro-Hungarian Compromise transformed the Empire into the Real Union of Austria-Hungary.

Since its foundation, the Empire of Austria was the second largest political entity in terms of area (after the Russian Empire), with 698,700 km², and the third largest state in Europe (after Russia and France), with 21.2 million people (in 1804).

Population

The Empire of Austria was a multi-ethnic empire in which several nationalities settled (mainly Germans, Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ruthenians, Romanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Italians). These influenced each other, which produced peculiarities in culture, cuisine, language or architecture. Even long after the fall of the Danube Monarchy, this influence is still noticeable today in its successor states, for example in Austrian German, which has numerous loan words from Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovenian, Italian and also Yiddish that are not known in German.

Ethnographic Map of the Austrian Empire (by Karl von Czoernig-Czernhausen), 1855

Countries in the Austrian Empire

Administrative division of the Empire of Austria, mainly from the Congress of Vienna in 1815, with the territorial reforms of 1848 until the October Diploma of 1860 - at its foundation in 1804 it was partly organized differently (compare title of Emperor Franz I.)

Archduchy of Austria and Dependencies

• Crown land Archduchy of Austria under the Enns
• Crown land Archduchy of Austria ob der Enns
• Duchy of Salzburg from 1805, 1809-1815 French/Bavarian, 1815-1850 Salzach district of Upper Austria, then crown land
• Crown land Duchy of Styria
• Crown land Gefürstete Grafschaft Tirol with the land Vorarlberg, 1805-1815 Bavarian/French, 1861 divided into:
• Crown land Princed County of Tyrol
• Province of Vorarlberg
• Crown land Kingdom of Illyria formed in 1814 from Carinthia, Carniola and the restituted French Illyrian provinces (former "Habsburg Litorale"), divided again in 1849/50 into:
• Crown land Duchy of Carinthia
• Crown land Duchy of Carniola
• Crown land Coastal land (Principality of Gorizia and Gradisca, Trieste, Margraviate of Istria)

Bohemia and neighbouring countries

• Crown land Kingdom of Bohemia
• Crown land Margraviate of Moravia
• Crown land Duchy of Silesia
• Crown land Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
• Crown land of the Duchy of Bukovina spun off in 1850

Hungary and neighbouring countries

• Crown land Kingdom of Hungary
• Crown land Kingdom of Croatia (Civil Croatia)
• Crown land Kingdom of Slavonia

1849 both united to the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia

Other countries and territories

• Crown land Kingdom of Lombardo-Venetia from 1815, 1851 divided into:
• Crown land of Lombardy, lost in 1859 to the Empire of France/Kgr. Sardinia-Piedmont
• Crown land Venetia, lost to Kgr. Italy in 1866
• Crown land Kingdom of Dalmatia
• Crown land Grand Duchy of Transylvania, 1849-1854 military administration, 1867 assigned to the Hungarian Crown
• Crown land Serbian Voivodeship and Timisoara Banat (Voivodina and Banat), formed in 1849 by secession from Hungary and areas of the Serbian military border, divided in 1860 between Hungary and Croatia-Slavonia
• Military border:
• Croatian military border (Military Croatia)
• Slavonian Military Frontier
• Banater Military Frontier
• Transylvanian Military Frontier

Austrian Empire, 1816 to 1867