The people of Austria are the residents of the Parliamentary representative democracy of Austria which includes nine federal states. Austria is now the member of the European Union and thus the people of Austria are a part of the larger European citizens. This land locked country of Central Europe is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic in the North, Hungary and Slovakia in the East, Italy and Slovenia in the South and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west . Modern Austria with its capital in Vienna originated in the in the 9 th Century and slowly the people of Austria populated upper and lower Austria.

The people of Austria mainly belong to the German ethnic group with indigenous minorities around 1.5%(this includes Croatians, Slovenes, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks) and there are also some recent migrated groups. Religion of the people of Austria are also not homogeneous while 73.6%are Catholic, 4.7% are Protestants, 4.2% are Muslims. The German language is the official language of the people of Austria all over the nation but Slovene, Croatian and Hungarian are also used.
Austrians are a homogeneous people; about 90% speak German as everyday language. However, there has been a significant amount of immigrants, particularly from former Yugoslavia and Turkey, over the last two decades. Only two numerically significant autochthonous minority groups exist--18,000 Slovenes in Carinthia (south central Austria) and about 19,400 Croats in Burgenland (on the Hungarian border). The Slovenes form a closely-knit community. Their rights as well as those of the Croats are protected under Austria’s 1955 State Treaty and in related national law and are generally respected in practice. Some Austrians, particularly near Vienna, still have relatives in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.

 

In the last census in 2001, 74% of Austrians identified themselves as Roman Catholic. This proportion is expected to drop by the next census in 2011, as sex abuse scandals have accelerated a trend toward Austrians leaving the church. The church abstains from political activity. Immigration has increased the proportion of Muslims and Orthodox in Austria. Small Lutheran minorities are located mainly in Vienna, Carinthia, and Burgenland. There are some Islamic communities, concentrated in Vienna and Vorarlberg.