In the
Republic of Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine States of Austria, states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, th ...
, the municipality ( de , Gemeinde, sometimes also ) is the
administrative division
Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...
encompassing a single
village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...
,
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an ori ...
, or
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
.
The municipality has
corporate
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and re ...
status and local self-government on the basis of
parliamentary-style representative democracy
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represen ...
: a municipal council () elected through a form of
party-list
An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...
system enacts municipal laws, a municipal executive board () and a mayor (,
fem. ) appointed by the council are in charge of municipal administration. Austria is currently (January 1, 2020) partitioned into 2,095 municipalities, ranging in population from about fifty (the village of
Gramais Gramais is a municipality of 41 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2019) in the district of Reutte in the Austrian state of Tyrol. The municipality is located in the district court Reutte. It is the smallest municipality in Austria.
Geography
Gramais ...
in
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
) to almost two million (the city of
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
). There is no
unincorporated territory
Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions overseen by the federal government of the United States. The various American territories differ from the U.S. states and tribal reservations as they are not sove ...
in Austria.
Basics
The existence of municipalities and their role as carriers of the right to self-administration are guaranteed by the Austrian constitution (
B-VG Art. 116 (1)).
The constitution means for municipalities to be autonomous () in any matter that a village, town, or city can presumed to be both interested in handling and best capable of handling. Municipal authorities are required to comply with national and provincial legislation and can be held accountable by courts for failure to abide by the rule of law, but they are not politically answerable to national or provincial administrators and do not take orders from them. (
B-VG 118)
![Rathaus Vienna June 2006 165](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Rathaus_Vienna_June_2006_165.jpg)
All
real estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
in Austria falls within a municipality's borders, meaning that there are no
unincorporated areas
An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...
and no way for either the government or any resident to sidestep the requirement that each permanent resident be part of a municipal community. (
B-VG 116 (2)).
All municipalities are
corporations
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
and have the right to own property, run businesses, levy municipal taxes, and generally manage their own financial affairs. (
B-VG 116 (3)).
Municipalities have a right to form
municipal associations, subject to supervision by the provincial administration (
B-VG 116a) and enter into treaties with other municipalities (
B-VG 116b).
Municipalities are miniature
parliamentary democracies
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
with a legislature elected by the people and an executive branch installed and supervised by the legislature:
* The municipal council () serves as the communal legislature. Its members are chosen in free,
secret
Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret.
Secrecy is often controvers ...
,
universal elections. Any registered permanent resident of the municipality in question who is eligible to vote in (or stand for) provincial elections (in the province the municipality is in) is also eligible to vote in (or stand for) the local municipal elections. By default, this restricts suffrage to Austrian citizens, but provinces may choose to extend the right to vote and run in municipal elections to citizens of other
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
members states. The constitution stipulates
party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be us ...
as the default voting system but allows direct votes for individual candidates in case there are no organized political parties choosing to run (
B-VG 117 (2)). The council is a
deliberative assembly
A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure.
Etymology
In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the British Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became the ...
reaching decisions collectively. (
B-VG 117 (3)). Its sessions are public (
B-VG 117 (4)).
* The municipal executive board ()) supervises the community's administrative apparatus (
B-VG 117 (7)). The number of seats each political party holds on the board is proportional to the number of seats it holds in the council (
B-VG 117 (5)).
* The mayor (,
fem. ) is the community's head of government. By default, the mayor is elected by the council. Provinces may stipulate that the mayor be elected by the constituency instead. (
B-VG 117 (6))
* Provincial legislation may provide for municipal referendum and other forms of
direct democracy
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate decides on policy initiatives without legislator, elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently establishe ...
, within limits. (
B-VG 117 (8))
Municipal governments do not have judicial branches.
Types of municipalities
![2854-2858b - Hall in Tirol - Rathaus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/2854-2858b_-_Hall_in_Tirol_-_Rathaus.jpg)
Larger municipalities are typically granted city status (). The distinction, while important in
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
and
early modern times, is purely symbolic today. City status does not currently confer any additional legal responsibilities.
There exists a number of cities that are barely more than villages at present and that are labelled cities merely because they used to be regional population centers in the distant past. The city of
Rattenberg
Rattenberg ( bar, Råttnberg) is a City on the Inn River in the Austrian state of Tyrol near Rattenberg mountain and Innsbruck. With just 400 inhabitants and a surface area of 10 ha, it is the smallest city in the country.
Geography
The proximit ...
, for example, has a population of about 400. The city of
Hardegg
Hardegg () is a town in the district of Hollabrunn in Lower Austria, Austria. It is situated in the Waldviertel region on the river Thaya, directly on the border with the Czech Republic. The Thaya valley is protected as the Thayatal National Par ...
has about 1200 inhabitants, although the historic city core − Hardegg proper without what used to be the surrounding hamlets − is home to just 80 people. Constitutionally, the main difference between municipalities that are cities (,
sing. ) and municipalities that are not is that in cities, the municipal executive board is called not a but a .
A similar distinction, meaningful in the past but symbolic today, is that of market town ().
Cities that are economic and administrative centers of wider geographic reach can be elevated to
statutory city status.
A statutory city ( or ) is vested, in addition to its purview as a municipality, with the duties of a
district administrative authority. The status does not come with any additional political autonomy: district administrative authorities are essentially just service centers that citizens use to interact with the national government, for example to apply for driver licenses or passports. The national government generally uses the provinces to run these points of contact on its behalf; in the case of statutory cities, the municipality gets to step up.
Just like Austria has a number of villages that are nominally cities because they used to be significant in the past, Austria has a number of minor towns that hold statutory city status because they used to be regional capitals a few centuries ago. Examples include
Waidhofen an der Ybbs
Waidhofen an der Ybbs (; Central Bavarian: ''Waidhofn aun da Ybbs'') is a statutory city ''(Statutarstadt)'' in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. The city had a population of 11,662 (in 131,52 km²) as of the 2001 census. It was first men ...
, population ca. 11,000, or
Rust
Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH ...
, population ca. 1900. A municipality that desires statutory city status today needs to have at least 20,000 inhabitants.
The municipal executive board of a statutory city is called a city senate ().
Informally, municipalities that are neither cities nor market towns are sometimes called , lit. "rural municipalities".
Responsibilities
The constitution distinguishes between a municipality's sphere of inherent responsibilities () and the sphere of responsibilities delegated to the municipalities by the higher levels of government (). The constitution defines a minimum extent of the inherent sphere that national and provincial law may add to but not detract from:
* Levying municipal taxes () and otherwise managing their own finances and their own property.
* Appointing municipal officials.
* Hiring and supervising municipal employees.
* Local security police () and event control ().
* Traffic space management including but not limited to road maintenance and traffic police.
* Crop protection ().
* Sanitary police matters, rescue services, interment services.
* Public decency ().
* Development planning, fire prevention, and general building code enforcement.
* Mediation services for out-of-court dispute resolution.
Additional legislation vests municipalities with a large number of additional responsibilities. Municipalities are in charge of public water supply, sewage disposal, garbage disposal, public lighting, and cemetery construction and maintenance, among other things. They run schools and kindergartens, assisted living facilities, sports and cultural facilities, and fire departments. The purview each Austrian municipality is constitutionally guaranteed to have is a small share of the purview it has in practice. Matters of public services () far outclass matters of political administration () in terms of both salience and budgets. (
Raschauer 2009, Rz 330.)
Regional particularities
Subdivisions
![Markt 22 (Neufelden) III](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Markt_22_%28Neufelden%29_III.jpg)
The cities of Vienna, Graz, and
Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt am WörtherseeLandesgesetzblatt 2008 vom 16. Jänner 2008, Stück 1, Nr. 1: ''Gesetz vom 25. Oktober 2007, mit dem die Kärntner Landesverfassung und das Klagenfurter Stadtrecht 1998 geändert werden.'/ref> (; ; sl, Celovec), usually ...
are divided into municipal districts (, colloquially just ).
Municipal districts are not to be confused with
administrative districts
Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...
(, but colloquially ''also'' just called ).
Administrative districts are provided for by the constitution and play an important and highly visible role in Austria's ''national'' and ''regional'' administrations. Municipal districts are subsections of ''local'' administrations established by ''local'' laws.
Vienna, Graz, and Klagenfurt are
statutory cities and as such are equivalent to one administrative district each.
The 23
districts of Vienna
The districts of Vienna (German: ''Wiener Gemeindebezirke'') are the 23 named city sections of Vienna, Austria, which are numbered for easy reference. They were created from 1850 onwards, when the city area was enlarged by the inclusion of surround ...
() and the 17 districts of Graz are vested with a limited form of precinct-level self-government. The district constituency elects a district assembly (), the district assembly in turn elect a district commissioner (). District assemblies and commissioners are responsible for whatever matters the city chooses to devolve to them – in general, they run schools and take care of road maintenance, general neighborhood maintenance, and traffic planning. They have a certain measure of budgetary autonomy, although they cannot levy taxes and depend on money allocated to them by the city.
The 15 districts of Klagenfurt are roughly neighborhood-sized quarters with no special autonomy.
Statistics
As of January 1, 2018 there are 15 statutory cities in Austria, 186 other cities, 770 market towns, and 1127 other communes, for a total of 2,098 municipalities. One of these municipalities stands out: the city of
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
is a statutory city and a
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
at the same time. At 1,900,000 inhabitants, the national capital also seven times larger than the second most populous city,
Graz
Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...
.
For the other eight states, the numbers are as follows (
Statistik Austria 2018):
With respect to population, there is wide variation within each class of municipalities:
With respect to area, the smallest municipality is
Rattenberg
Rattenberg ( bar, Råttnberg) is a City on the Inn River in the Austrian state of Tyrol near Rattenberg mountain and Innsbruck. With just 400 inhabitants and a surface area of 10 ha, it is the smallest city in the country.
Geography
The proximit ...
at ; the largest is
Sölden
Sölden is a municipality in the Ötztal valley of Tyrol, Austria.
Geography
At c. , it is the largest municipality in the country. The population of 3,449 (as of 2003) is outnumbered by tourists, of which 15,000 can be accommodated. With to ...
in the thinly populated mountain territory of
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
at . The city of Vienna ranks second, at .
See also
*
List of cities and towns in Austria
The following is a list of the 20 largest cities and towns in Austria by population Further below are individual lists of cities, towns and municipalities in Austria divided by state.
List of largest cities by population
The capitals o ...
References
*
*
*
*
{{Articles on third-level administrative divisions of countries
*
Law of Austria
Subdivisions of Austria
Third-level administrative divisions by country
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...