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A district (german: Bezirk) is a second-level division of the
executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive di ...
arm of the
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 ...
n government. District offices are the primary point of contact between resident and state for most acts of government that exceed municipal purview: marriage licenses, driver licenses, passports, assembly permits, hunting permits, or dealings with public health officers for example all involve interaction with the district administrative authority (). Austrian constitutional law distinguishes two types of district administrative authority: *district commissions (), district administrative authorities that exist as stand-alone bureaus; *statutory cities ( or ), cities that have been vested with district administration functions in addition to their municipal responsibilities, i.e. district administrative authorities that only exist as a secondary role filled by something that primarily is a city (marked in the table with an asterisk (*). As of 2017, there are 94 districts, of which 79 are districts headed by district commissions and 15 are statutory cities. Many districts are geographically congruent with one of the country's 114 judicial venues. Statutory cities are not usually referred to as "districts" outside government publications and the legal literature. For brevity, government agencies will sometimes use the term "rural districts" () for districts headed by district commissions, although the expression does not appear in any law and many "rural districts" are not very rural.


District commissions

A district headed by a district commission typically covers somewhere between ten and thirty municipalities. As a purely administrative unit, a district does not hold elections and therefore does not choose its own officials. It is administered by the district commission ((german: Bezirkshauptmannschaft, also translated as ''district authority'') The district governor (') is appointed by the provincial governor; the district civil servants are province employees. In the provincial laws of
Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...
and
Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( , ; gsw, label= Vorarlbergisch, Vorarlbearg, , or ) is the westernmost state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with th ...
, districts headed by district commissions are called administrative districts (''Verwaltungsbezirke''). In Burgenland,
Carinthia Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Bavarian group. Carin ...
,
Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...
,
Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered ...
,
Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, an ...
, and
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 ...
, the term used is political district (''politischer Bezirk''). National law, including national constitutional law, uses all three variants interchangeably.Kaiserliche Entschließung vom 26. Juni 1849, wodurch die Grundzüge für die Organisation der politischen Verwaltungs-Behörden genehmiget werden
RGBl. 295/1849
The district commission is the representative organ of the state administration, and through that of the national administration. Its tasks include, for example: * Issuing of identification documents,
passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...
s or driver's licenses * Registration and regulation of companies and associations District commissions were first introduced in 1849 during the rule of by
Franz Joseph I Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until ...
. In their current form they were defined in 1868, in a decree that stated that every province had to be divided into political subdivisions – districts – headed by a district governor. The 1868 Act establishing districts in their modern form adds the terms "administrative district" (''Amtsbezirk'') and "political administrative district" (''politischer Amtsbezirk'').Gesetz von 19. Mai 1868, über die Einrichtung der politischen Verwaltungsbehörden
RGBl. 44/1868
The 1920 Federal Constitutional Law prefers "district" but occasionally uses "political district" to emphasize is it not referring to judicial districts. Over the course of the dozens of revisions the Law has undergone since 1920, all occurrences of either were excised; the version currently in force still mentions district administrative authorities but no longer mentions districts. The 1955
Austrian State Treaty The Austrian State Treaty (german: Österreichischer Staatsvertrag ) or Austrian Independence Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state. It was signed on 15 May 1955 in Vienna, at the Schloss Belvedere among the Allied occupying p ...
contains a reference to the "administrative districts" of Carinthia, Burgenland, and Styria, even though local legal documents would have called them "political districts".


Statutory cities

A statutory city is a city vested with both municipal and district administrative responsibility. Town hall personnel also serves as district personnel; the mayor also discharges the powers and duties of a head of district commission. City management thus functions both as a regional government and a branch of the national government at the same time. Most of the 15 statutory cities are major regional population centers with residents numbering in the tens of thousands. The smallest statutory city is barely more than a village, but owes its status to a quirk of history:
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( ...
, Burgenland, current population 2000 (2021), has enjoyed special autonomy since it was made a
royal free city Royal free city or free royal city (Latin: libera regia civitas) was the official term for the most important cities in the Kingdom of Hungary from the late 12th centuryBácskai Vera – Nagy Lajos: Piackörzetek, piacközpontok és városok Mag ...
by the
Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coronation of the Hungarian monarch, c ...
in 1681; its privilege was grandfathered into the district system when Hungary ceded the region (later called Burgenland) to Austria in 1921. The constitution stipulates that a community with at least 20,000 residents can demand to be elevated to statutory city status by its respective province, unless the province can demonstrate this would jeopardize regional interests, or unless the national government objects. The last community to have invoked this right is Wels, a statutory city since 1964. As of 2021, fifteen other communities are eligible but not interested. The statutory 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 ...
, a community with well over 1.9 million residents, is divided into 23 municipal districts (''Gemeindebezirke''). Despite the similar name and the comparable role they fill, municipal districts have a different legal basis than districts. The statutory cities of
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 popula ...
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 ...
also have subdivisions referred to as "municipal districts," but these are merely neighborhood-size divisions of the city administration.


Naming quirks

Austria strictly speaking does not name districts but district administrative authorities. The German term for "district commission" and "city," ''Bezirkshauptmannschaft'' and ''Stadt'', respectively, is part of the official proper name of each such entity. This means that there can be pairs of districts whose two proper names contain the same toponym. Several such pairs do in fact exist. There are, for example, two district administrative authorities sharing the toponym ''Innsbruck'': the (statutory) city of Innsbruck and the Innsbruck district commission. To avoid confusion, the names of the rural districts in these pairs are commonly rendered with the suffix ''-Land'', in this context roughly meaning "region." The customary name for the city of Innsbruck is ''Innsbruck'', the customary name for the district headed by the Innsbruck district commission is ''Innsbruck-Land''. While this usage is nearly universal both in the media and in everyday spoken German and even appears in the occasional government publication, the suffix ''-Land'' is not part of any official, legal designation in Lower Austria.


History


Austrian Empire

From the
middle ages 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 period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
until the mid-eighteenth century, the
Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central- Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, ...
was an
absolute monarchy Absolute monarchy (or Absolutism as a doctrine) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch rules in their own right or power. In an absolute monarchy, the king or queen is by no means limited and has absolute power, though a limited constituti ...
with no written constitution and no modern concept of the
rule of law The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannic ...
. Provinces were ruled by the monarch, usually the emperor himself or a vassal of the emperor, supported by their personal advisors and the
estates of the realm The estates of the realm, or three estates, were the broad orders of social hierarchy used in Christendom (Christian Europe) from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe. Different systems for dividing society members into estates developed a ...
. The precise nature of the relationship between ruler and estates was different from region to region. Regional administrators were appointed by the monarch and answerable to the monarch. The first step towards modern bureaucracy was taken by
Empress An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (empr ...
Maria Theresa Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position '' suo jure'' (in her own right) ...
, who in 1753 imposed an empire-wide system of district offices (''Kreisämter''). A major break with tradition, the system was unpopular at first; "in some provinces considerable resistance had to be overcome." The district offices never became fully operational in the
Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coronation of the Hungarian monarch, c ...
. Following the first wave of the
revolutions of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europ ...
, Emperor Ferdinand I and his minister of the interior, Franz Xaver von Pillersdorf, enacted Austria's first formal constitution. The constitution completely abolished the estates and called for a separation of executive and judicial authority, immediately crippling most existing regional institutions and leaving district offices as the backbone of the empire's administration. Ferdinand having been forced to abdicate by a second wave of revolutions, his successor Franz Joseph I swiftly went to work transforming Austria from a
constitutional monarchy A constitutional monarchy, parliamentary monarchy, or democratic monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in decision making. Constitutional monarchies dif ...
back into an absolute one but kept relying on district offices at first. In fact, he strengthened the system. His March Constitution retained the separation of judiciary and executive. It prescribed a partition of the empire into judicial venues, with courts to be headed by professional judges, and a separate partition into administrative districts, to be headed by professional civil servants. An 1849 Imperial Resolution fleshed out the details. The districts started functioning in 1850, many of them already in their present-day borders. The March Constitution was never fully implemented and formally scrapped in 1851.Kaiserliches Patent vom 31. Dezember 1851
RGBl. 3/1851
Officially returning to full autocracy, the Emperor abolished the separation of powers. Administrative districts were merged with judicial venues; district administrative authorities with district courts. Intellectuals aside, few objections were raised. The bulk of the population was still living and working on manorial lands and was still used to the lord of the manor being head of some form of manorial court.


Cisleithania

Following the
Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (german: Ausgleich, hu, Kiegyezés) established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Compromise only partially re-established the former pre-1848 sovereignty and status of the Kingdom of Hunga ...
, Franz Joseph was forced to assent to the December Constitution, a set of five of Basic Laws that restored constitutional monarchy in
Cisleithania Cisleithania, also ''Zisleithanien'' sl, Cislajtanija hu, Ciszlajtánia cs, Předlitavsko sk, Predlitavsko pl, Przedlitawia sh-Cyrl-Latn, Цислајтанија, Cislajtanija ro, Cisleithania uk, Цислейтанія, Tsysleitaniia it, Cislei ...
. One of these Basic Laws, in particular, restored the separation of judiciary and executive. Pursuant to this stipulation, the merger of administrative and judicial districts was reversed the following year; the law in question established the districts in essentially their modern form. No attempt was made this time to impose the scheme on Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary was now a separate country, fully independent in every respect save defense and international relations, and neither needed nor wanted to copy civil administration policies enacted in Vienna. No significant changes were made between the 1868 restoration and the 1918 collapse of the Habsburg monarchy. Vienna was growing significantly during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, absorbing dozens of suburbs. Three districts disappeared between 1891 and 1918 due to their domains being incorporated into the imperial capital wholesale. Two other districts lost parts of their territories to Vienna. Eleven new districts were carved out of existing districts between 1891 and 1918 due to general population growth.


First Republic

Following the collapse of the monarchy, the 1920 constitution of the
First Austrian Republic The First Austrian Republic (german: Erste Österreichische Republik), officially the Republic of Austria, was created after the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 10 September 1919—the settlement after the end of World War I w ...
retained the district system. At least one of the principal framers,
Karl Renner Karl Renner (14 December 1870 – 31 December 1950) was an Austrian politician and jurist of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria. He is often referred to as the "Father of the Republic" because he led the first government of German ...
, had suggested to endow districts with
county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
-like elected councils and some degree of legislative authority, but could not gain consensus for this idea. The 1920 constitution characterizes Austria as a
federal republic A federal republic is a federation of states with a republican form of government. At its core, the literal meaning of the word republic when used to reference a form of government means: "a country that is governed by elected representatives ...
and its provinces as quasi-sovereign
federated state A federated state (which may also be referred to as a state, a province, a region, a canton, a land, a governorate, an oblast, an emirate or a country) is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. Such sta ...
s. A 1925 constitutional reform, a broad revision of general devolutionary tendency, transformed districts from divisions of the national executive into divisions of the new "state" executives. The replanting had virtually no practical consequences; enforcing national law and handling applications to the national government remain every district's main activities. Province governments have the authority to redraw district boundaries but can neither create nor dissolve districts, nor change how they work, without the assent of the
cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...
. In 1921, Hungary ceded the German-speaking part in the western region to Austria, this was created a new province and became Burgenland. While part of the Kingdom of Hungary, the rural border region had been partitioned into seven wards (''Oberstuhlrichterämter''), clusters of small towns and villages headed by a magistrate who served as both the district judge and the supervisor of the local administrators. Austria simply transformed the seven wards into seven new districts. The region also included two royal free cities,
Eisenstadt Eisenstadt (; hu, Kismarton; hr, Željezni grad; ; sl, Železno, Austro-Bavarian: ''Eisnstod'') is a city in Austria, the state capital of Burgenland. It had a recorded population on 29 April 2021 of 15,074. In the Habsburg Empire's Kingdom ...
and
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( ...
; these were made into statutory cities, thus also becoming districts.


Land Österreich

With the March 1938 annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, Austria initially became a state (''Land'') of the German Reich. In May, Vienna was expanded to create Greater Vienna (''Groß-Wien''), absorbing another four districts. Two weakly populated rural districts were discontinued as well. In October, Burgenland was dissolved, its northern half being attached to
Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...
and its southern half to
Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered ...
. Between May 1939 and March 1940, Austria was dissolved. Its eight remaining provinces became seven
Reichsgau A (plural ) was an administrative subdivision created in a number of areas annexed by Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945. Overview The term was formed from the words (realm, empire) and , the latter a deliberately medieval-sounding word w ...
e, answerable not to Vienna but directly to Berlin. Several statutory cities lost their special status and were incorporated into the respectively adjacent rural districts; the city of Krems on the other hand was promoted to district status. The districts otherwise remained intact, but they were now German ''Kreise'' instead of Austrian ''Bezirke''.


Second Republic

Reborn with the downfall of Nazi Germany in 1945, the Republic of Austria immediately restored the administrative structure torn down between 1938 and 1940, putting the districts back in place. The only exception were the districts that had been absorbed into Vienna. Austria had been divided into four occupation zones and jointly occupied by the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
,
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
,
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, and
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. Lower Austria, the region surrounding Vienna, was part of the Soviet zone. The capital itself was considered too valuable to be left to any one power and was, just like Berlin, separately divided into four sectors. In drafting their plans, the allies worked from the city's pre-1938 borders. The Nazi expansion of Vienna, however, had made some sense. A number of rural areas incorporated into Greater Vienna were inimical. Most of Lower Austria had been leaning conservative to nationalist for a century; Vienna had been a bastion of
Social Democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
for decades. The bureaucracy steering Vienna, a city of industry and finance, was sociologically distant from the agricultural countryside. Some of the suburbs affected, however, had long had much closer ties to the capital than to the rest of their former province, both socially and in terms of infrastructure. Permanently ejecting these suburbs from Vienna would have been inadvisable. Reaffirming the Nazi border changes either entirely or in part, on the other hand, would have led to demarcation discrepancies between Austrian and allied administrative divisions. Disputes regarding communal debt added to the problem. Hotly contested between the Social Democrats dominating Vienna and the People's Party ruling Lower Austria, the question was not resolved until 1954. One of the traditional districts annexed by the city in 1938 was restored. Parts of several other traditional districts annexed were united to form a second new district. In 1964, the city of Wels was elevated to statutory city status. Two other new districts were established in 1969 and 1982, respectively. Effective January 1, 2012,
Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered ...
merged the districts of
Judenburg Judenburg ( bar, Judnbuag) is a historic town in Styria, Austria. It is the administrative centre of the Murtal district, which was created on 1 January 2012 from the former Judenburg District and former Knittelfeld District. Until 31 Decembe ...
and
Knittelfeld Knittelfeld is a city in Styria, Austria, located on the banks of the Mur river. The name of the town has become notorious for the Knittelfeld Putsch of September 7, 2002, a party meeting of the Freedom Party of Austria, which resulted in the 2 ...
to form the
Murtal district Bezirk Murtal is a district of the state of Styria in Austria. It was formed on January 1, 2012, through a merger of the former Judenburg District and Knittelfeld District.(30 December 2011)Steirische Fusion: „Murtal“ ab Jänner neuer Bezirk ...
. The merger was part of program aimed at streamlining the regional bureaucracy. On January 1, 2013, three more mergers followed:
Bruck an der Mur Bruck an der Mur is a city of some 13,500 people located in the district Bruck-Mürzzuschlag, in the Austrian state of Styria. It is located at the confluence of the Mur and Mürz Rivers. Its manufacturing includes metal products and paper. Bru ...
was merged with Mürzzuschlag, Hartberg with Fürstenfeld, and Feldbach with Radkersburg. Effective January 1, 2017,
Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...
split the district of
Wien-Umgebung Bezirk Wien-Umgebung was a district of the state of Lower Austria in Austria. The district comprised four non-contiguous districts on the outer fringes of Vienna: Klosterneuburg and Gerasdorf to the north of the city, Schwechat to its south-east ...
into parts which were merged with the districts of Bruck an der Leitha, Korneuburg, St. Pölten and
Tulln Tulln an der Donau () is a historic town in the Austrian state of Lower Austria, the administrative seat of Tulln District. Because of its abundance of parks and gardens, Tulln is often referred to as ''Blumenstadt'' ("City of Flowers"), and "The C ...
.


List of current districts

In Lower Austria only the suffix ''-Land'' is not part of the official name of the three districts using it. In cases where a statutory city and a rural district share the same toponym, the rural district has ''-Land'' or ''Umgebung'' attached to its name as a matter of customary usage to avoid ambiguity (officially in other parts of Austria). All 13 of these rural districts have their administrative centers located in the respective statutory cities, thus outside of the districts themselves. : M. = Municipalities (as of 2022); state capitals in bold


Historical districts

This section only lists districts covering regions that are still part of present-day Austria. Districts lost following the dissolution of Cisleithania in 1918 are omitted.


Notes


References


See also

* District Captaincy (Austria) {{DEFAULTSORT:Districts Of Austria Austria 2 Austria 2 Districts, Austria Austria geography-related lists