Austria is a landlocked country in Central Europe with eight neighbours and about 9.2 million people. The Alps cover roughly six tenths of the land, rising to the Grossglockner, 3,798 m, while the Danube flows across the north past Linz and Vienna. It is a federal republic of nine states, each with its own capital, dialect and dishes.
For more than six hundred years Austria was the heart of the Habsburg lands, a great multinational empire ruled from Vienna. The empire broke apart at the end of the First World War, and in November 1918 Austria became a small republic. It was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, and after the Second World War it was occupied by the four Allied powers for ten years.
Memories fade faster than photos. Ask these over a meal or a phone call, and write the answers down.
From Iron Age salt miners to a great empire, two world wars, occupation and a new start as a neutral republic, Austria's story is the story of Central Europe.
Salt had been mined in the mountains above Hallstatt since the Bronze Age. From about 800 BC, the Early Iron Age culture found there spread across much of Central Europe. Archaeologists named the whole culture after Hallstatt, where a great prehistoric cemetery was discovered in 1846.
On 17 September 1156, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa raised the March of Austria to a duchy with a document known as the Privilegium Minus. Austria was given as a hereditary fief to the Babenberg family, its rulers at the time.
An Ottoman army besieged Vienna from July 1683, as it had already done once in 1529. On 12 September 1683 a relief army led by King Jan III Sobieski of Poland defeated the besiegers. The victory ended the Ottoman advance into Central Europe.
On 11 August 1804, in answer to Napoleon making himself Emperor of the French, Francis II proclaimed the Austrian Empire and became its first emperor as Francis I. Two years later he gave up the old crown of the Holy Roman Empire.
On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, and his wife Sophie were shot dead in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student. One month later Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the First World War began.
On 1 October 1920, parliament adopted the Federal Constitutional Law, drafted mainly by the legal scholar Hans Kelsen. It was set aside under the authoritarian regime of 1934, restored in 1945, and is still the basis of Austria's constitution today.
In April 1945 Soviet troops took Vienna, and on 27 April a provisional government under Karl Renner declared Austria independent again. The country and its capital were divided into four zones of occupation, run by the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France.
After a referendum in June 1994, in which about two thirds voted yes, Austria joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, together with Finland and Sweden. It adopted the euro in 1999.
Cook one of the recipes, print the large-print pack about Austria, and finish with the big-screen quiz or the words crossword. Grandchildren can colour the flag.
