Carinthia (state)

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**Kärnten**

State	AT-2 (ISO)
Capital	Klagenfurt
Governor	Jörg Haider (BZÖ)
Area - Total	Ranked 5th 9,535.97 km²
Population - Total (2006) - Density	Ranked 6th 559,891 59/km²
The state flag of Kärnten
The state of Kärnten on the map of Austria

Carinthia (German: Kärnten, Slovenian: Koroška) is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern alps it is chiefly famous for its mountains and lakes. The people are predominantly German-speaking with a unique (and easily recognizable) Southern Austro-Bavarian dialect. A Slovenian minority of about 13 000 people (according to the national census of 2001) is concentrated in the southeast of the country. Unofficial estimates carried out in 1991 put the number to 50 000).

View on Faaker See and mount Mittagskogel

It consists mostly of the Klagenfurt basin and the mountain ranges of Upper Carinthia. The Carnic Alps and the Karawanken/ Karavanke make up the border to the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Slovenia. The Hohe Tauern mountain range with mount Großglockner (3 798 m / 12 461 ft) divides it from the northern state of Salzburg. To the east behind the Packsattel mountain pass is the state of Styria (Slovenian: Štajerska). The main river is the Drau (Drava), it makes up a continuous valley with East Tyrol to the west. Tributaries to the Drau are the Gurk, the Lavant and the Gail. Carinthia's lakes including Wörther See, Millstätter See, Ossiacher See and Faaker See are a major tourist attraction.

The capital is Klagenfurt (Slovenian: Celovec). The next important town is Villach (Beljak); these two towns are strongly linked economically. Other towns are Althofen, Bad Sankt Leonhard im Lavanttal, Bleiburg (Pliberk), Feldkirchen (Trg), Ferlach (Borovlje), Friesach (Breže), Gmünd, Hermagor (Šmohor), Radenthein, Sankt Andrä, Sankt Veit an der Glan (Šentvid na Glini), Spittal an der Drau, Straßburg, Völkermarkt (Velikovec), Wolfsberg (Volšperk).

Carinthia's main industries are tourism, electronics, engineering, forestry and agriculture. The multinational corporations Philips and Siemens have large operations there.

Carinthia has a continental climate, with hot and moderately wet summers and long harsh winters. In recent decades winters have been exceptionally arid. The average amount of sunshine hours is the highest in Austria. In autumn and winter temperature inversion often dominates the climate, characterized by air stillness, a dense fog covering the frosty valleys and trapping pollution to form smog, while mild sunny weather is recorded higher up in the foothills and mountains.

1 Name
2 History
3 Administrative divisions
- 3.1 Statutory cities
- 3.2 Districts
4 Politics
5 Tourist attractions
6 Notable people
7 See also
8 External links
9 Sources

[edit] Name

The name (Carantania) is thought to be Celtic in origin, though two roots have been proposed^[1]:

1. carant, meaning "friend" or "relation" - giving the meaning "land of friends", which may refer to an Illyrian tribe of the Bronze Age.

2. karanto, meaning "stone, rock". If this is the case, the name shares its root with such others as Karnburg, the Karawanken and similar.

Carantania is also related to the old Slovenian Korotan, from which the modern name Koroška arose.

[edit] History

See also: Carantania

See also: March of Carinthia

See also: Duchy of Carinthia

In 745 the former Slavic principality of Carantania became a margraviate of the Frankish Empire. The March of Carinthia was created in 889 by Carloman, king of Bavaria and given to his son Arnulf of Carinthia. In 976 Emperor Otto II separated it from Bavaria and made it an independent duchy within the Holy Roman Empire. After the death of duke Henry VI in 1335 it was given to Otto IV of Habsburg and was ruled by the Habsburg dynasty until 1918. When the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, Carinthia became a constituent land of the Austrian Empire and a crown land of Austria-Hungary in 1867.

After the end of the First World War southern Carinthia was occupied by troops of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) under colonel Rudolf Maister leading to clashes of arms and violent fights. The Carinthian Plebiscite on October 10, 1920 determined the lines of division between what is today the Austrian state of Carinthia and the informal province of Carinthia (Koroška) within Slovenia. The town of Tarvisio (German: Tarvis, Slovenian: Trbiž) with the Canal Valley became a part of the Italian province of Udine.

Original an agrarian state, Carinthia in the 1920s made some efforts to build up a touristic infrastructure like the Grossglockner High Alpine Road and the Klagenfurt Airport as well as the opening up of the Alps attended by the Austrian Alpine Club. However it was hit hard by the Great Depression around 1930 driving the political system in Austria more and more towards extremism. This phenomenon culminated in the years of the Austrofascism and the 1938 annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany (Anschluss). At the same time the Nazi party took power everywhere in Carinthia, which became together with East Tyrol a Reichsgau and Nazi leaders like Franz Kutschera, Hubert Klausner and Friedrich Rainer held the office of a Gauleiter.

In World War II the cities of Klagenfurt and Villach suffered from air raids, however the Allied forces did not reach Carinthia before May 8, 1945. In the end, Gauleiter Rainer propagated plans of Carinthia being a part of a Nazi National Redoubt (Alpenfestung) but had to surrender to the forces of the British Army. Subsequent attempts of Yugoslavian troops to occupy parts of Carinthia were rejected by the British forces with the consent of the Soviet Union.

Carinthia, East Tyrol and Styria then formed the UK occupation zone of Allied-administered Austria. The Allied occupation ended in 1955 by the Austrian State Treaty, which restored Austria's sovereignty. The relation between the German- and the Slovene-speaking Carinthians remained slightly problematic.

[edit] Administrative divisions

The state is divided into eight districts (Bezirke), and two statutory cities (Statutarstädte). There are 132 municipalities, of which 17 are towns and 40 are market towns (Marktgemeinden).

The districts of Carinthia

[edit] Statutory cities

Klagenfurt (licence plate code: K)
Villach (VI)

[edit] Districts

[edit] Politics

The parliament Kärntner Landtag is a unicameral legislature, which also elects the sub-federal governor, called Landeshauptmann. The other members of the cabinet are elected under a system of proportional representation based on the number of delegates of the political parties in the Landtag. The results of the 2004 elections were 42,5%/16 seats for the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), 38,4%/14 seats for the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), 11,6%/4 seats for the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and 6,7%/2 seats for the Greens. The plurality of the national-liberal FPÖ is unique among all Austrian states, while the results of the conservative-clerical ÖVP are remarkably weak. In April 2005 the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) emerged from the FPÖ and all FPÖ-MPs - except one - turned to the BZÖ.

One of the BZÖ founders was the current Landeshauptmann and long-time FPÖ-leader Jörg Haider. Haider is a rather controversial figure, who was elected as the Carinthian governor in 1989 but had to resign two years later after remarks about a "proper employment policy" of the Third Reich in a parliamentary debate. Nevertheless he has been elected again as Landeshauptmann in 1999 and in 2004, this time even with consent of the SPÖ and ÖVP representatives. Haider is also reproached with notorious contempt for the Carinthian Slovenes minority rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Austria.