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Chapter One AUSTRIA’S GEOGRAPHY & LANDSCAPE

A ustria is a relatively small country, covering about 32,382 square miles (83,871 square kilometers). This may seem large, but consider the fact that the whole country is about the size of South Carolina. Austria is completely surrounded by land; it shares borders with eight different countries: Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Italy. A Country Covered with Mountains Austria is one of the most mountainous countries in the world, with more than 80 percent of its surface covered with mountain ranges. It has an average elevation of 3,000 feet (910 meters). The highest mountain in the country is the Grossglockner, which is about 12,500 feet tall (3,798 meters). This is taller than four Empire State buildings stacked on top of each other! Wide valleys intersect these peaks, creating many different geographic areas. The first of these is the Alps, famous for skiing. The Alpine region includes mountains from the west to the south.This famous mountain range has a high amount of precipitation , along with short summers and long winters. In the valleys, the air is warm and dry. From twenty to forty days a year these valleys experience a dry wind called föhn. This is most common in the spring and fall and it can be dangerous, since the force of the wind can cause large rocks to fall off the faces of the mountains, leading to avalanches. The wind is so dry that it also leads to a high probability of fires. The winters in this area are long and the summers short. The second geographic region is in southeast Austria, which contains sheltered valleys that are quite a bit warmer than their Alpine counterparts. This leads to an earlier spring, but winter is still just as harsh as in the mountains— 11