The Innviertel is a traditional Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n region south-east of the Inn river. It forms the western part of the state

States of Austria

Austria is a federal republic made up of nine states, known in German as Länder . Since Land is also the German word for a country, the term Bundesländer is often used instead to avoid ambiguity. The Constitution of Austria uses both terms...

 of Upper Austria

Upper Austria

Upper Austria is one of the nine states or Bundesländer of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders on Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as on the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg...

 and borders the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 state of Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

. The Innviertel is one of the four traditional "quarters" of Upper Austria, the others being Hausruckviertel

Hausruckviertel

The Hausruckviertel is an Austrian region belonging to the state of Upper Austria: it is one of four "quarters" of Upper Austria the others being Traunviertel, Mühlviertel, and Innviertel...

, Mühlviertel

Mühlviertel

The Mühlviertel is an Austrian region belonging to the state of Upper Austria: it is one of four "quarters" of Upper Austria, the others being Hausruckviertel, Traunviertel, and Innviertel. It is named for the two rivers and .-Region:...

, and Traunviertel

Traunviertel

The Traunviertel is an Austrian region belonging to the state of Upper Austria: it is one of four "quarters" of Upper Austria the others being Hausruckviertel, Mühlviertel, and Innviertel...

.

Geography

The quarter spans the Austrian political district

Districts of Austria

Austria is divided into 84 political districts , and 15 Statutarstädte which form their own districts.-Function:The Austrian Bezirk is roughly equivalent to the Landkreis in Germany and County in the United States. The administrative office of a district, the Bezirkshauptmannschaft is headed by the...

s of Schärding

Schärding (district)

Bezirk Schärding is a district of the state ofUpper Austria in Austria.- Municipalities :Towns are indicated in boldface; market towns in italics; suburbs, hamlets and other subdivisions of a municipality are indicated in small characters.*Altschwendt*Andorf*Brunnenthal*Diersbach*Dorf an der...

, Ried im Innkreis

Ried im Innkreis (district)

Bezirk Ried im Innkreis is a district of the state ofUpper Austria in Austria.- Municipalities :Towns are indicated in boldface; market towns in italics; suburbs, hamlets and other subdivisions of a municipality are indicated in small...

 and Braunau am Inn

Braunau am Inn (district)

Bezirk Braunau am Inn is a district of the state ofUpper Austria in Austria.-History:While the Bavarian uprising in 1705 and 1706 the country defense congress was held in Braunau...

. Major towns in Innviertel include the district capitals Braunau am Inn

Braunau am Inn

Braunau am Inn is a town in the Innviertel region of Upper Austria , the north-western state of Austria. It lies about 90 km west of Linz and about 60 km north of Salzburg, on the border with the German state of Bavaria. The population in 2001 was 16,372...

, Ried im Innkreis

Ried im Innkreis

Ried im Innkreis is a town in the state of Upper Austria in Austria, approximately 70 km west of Linz and 60 km north of Salzburg...

 and Schärding

Schärding

Schärding is a town in northern Upper Austria, Austria, capital of the district of the same name, and a major port on the Inn River. As of 2001, it has a population of 5,052. Historically it was owned by the Wittelsbach family, which reflects on the town's architecture...

 as well as Mattighofen

Mattighofen

Mattighofen is a town in the district Braunau am Inn, part of the Innviertel region, in the Austrian state of Upper Austria.Initially Mattighofen belonged to the stem duchy of Bavaria, that became a part of Francia. In 757 a Kaiserpfalz of the ruling Carolingian dynasty was documented here...

 and Altheim

Altheim, Austria

Altheim is a town in western Upper Austria of 4,810 people.Altheim lies in the Bezirk of Braunau am Inn in the traditional region of Innviertel of Upper Austria. Altheim lies on the stream the Mühlheimer Ache, a tributary of the Inn....

.
Located within the Alpine foothills, the rural Innviertel is approximately 2250 km² in area and comprises the broad Inn valley, which is largely flat and fertile, and the adjacent undulating landscape in the east, which is rich in granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 in the north and coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

.

History

Since the Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

 the region had belonged to the German stem duchy

Stem duchy

Stem duchies were essentially the domains of the old German tribes of the area, associated with the Frankish Kingdom, especially the East, in the Early Middle Ages. These tribes were originally the Franks, the Saxons, the Alamanni, the Burgundians, the Thuringii, and the Rugii...

 of Bavaria

History of Bavaria

The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empires to its status as an independent kingdom and, finally, as a large and significant Bundesland of the modern Federal Republic of...

 and was called Innbaiern. Administered from the town of Burghausen

Burghausen, Altötting

Burghausen is the largest city in the Altötting district of Oberbayern in Germany. It is situated on the Salzach river, near the border with Austria. Its castle, atop a ridge, is the longest castle in Europe .- History :...

, the lands beyond the Inn river for centuries had two important roles: strategically as an eastern defence line against the rising Archduchy of Austria

Archduchy of Austria

The Archduchy of Austria , one of the most important states within the Holy Roman Empire, was the nucleus of the Habsburg Monarchy and the predecessor of the Austrian Empire...

, and economically as arable land

Arable land

In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...

 for crop

Crop

Crop may refer to:* Crop, a plant grown and harvested for agricultural use* Crop , part of the alimentary tract of some animals* Crop , a modified whip used in horseback riding or disciplining humans...

 farming. In the course of the Bavarian People's Uprising

Bavarian People's Uprising

The Bavarian People's Uprising, or Bavarian Popular Uprising is the name of a revolt in 1705-06 against the Austrian occupation during the War of Spanish Succession . It lasted from early November 1705 to 18 January 1706, approximately 75 days. Henric L...

 against the occupation by the Habsburg Emperor Joseph I

Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor

Joseph I , Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, King of Hungary, King of the Romans was the elder son of Emperor Leopold I and his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg....

, the short-lived Braunau Parliament convened in 1705, an early occurrence of a parliamentary system

Parliamentary system

A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....

 in the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

.

Following the War of the Bavarian Succession and the Treaty of Teschen

Treaty of Teschen

The Treaty of Teschen was signed on May 13, 1779, in Cieszyn , Austrian Silesia, between Austria and Prussia, which officially ended the War of the Bavarian Succession sparked by the death of Elector Maximilian III Joseph...

 in 1779 it was ceded to Austria. During the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 it was once again restored to Bavaria after the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn

Treaty of Schönbrunn

The Treaty of Schönbrunn , sometimes known as the Treaty of Vienna, was signed between France and Austria at the Schönbrunn Palace of Vienna on 14 October 1809. This treaty ended the Fifth Coalition during the Napoleonic Wars...

, but finally attached to the Austrian Empire

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

 in 1816 according to the Final Act of the Vienna Congress

Congress of Vienna

The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...

.

Demographics

Today the Innviertel has about 200,000 people in its towns, villages and hamlets. Its Bavarian roots show in the local German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 dialect, Innviertlerisch, a Western Central Austro-Bavarian

Central Austro-Bavarian

The Central Bavarian Germanic dialects forming a subgroup of the Bavarian dialects. The subgroup covers all dialects spoken along the rivers Isar and Danube, on the northern side of the Alps....

 variant similar to the languages spoken in adjacent Lower Bavaria

Lower Bavaria

Lower Bavaria is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany, located in the east of the state.- Geography :Lower Bavaria is subdivided into two regions - Landshut and Donau-Wald. Recent election results mark it as the most conservative part of Germany, generally giving huge...

.

Notable people

The Innviertel is the birth place of the physicist Anton Zeilinger

Anton Zeilinger

Anton Zeilinger is an Austrian quantum physicist. He is currently professor of physics at the University of Vienna, previously University of Innsbruck. He is also the director of the Vienna branch of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information IQOQI at the Austrian Academy of Sciences...

, of Franz Xaver Gruber, the composer of the Silent Night

Silent Night

"Silent Night" is a popular Christmas carol. The original lyrics of the song "Stille Nacht" were written in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria, by the priest Father Joseph Mohr and the melody was composed by the Austrian headmaster Franz Xaver Gruber...

Christmas carol, of the Schwanthaler

Schwanthaler

Schwanthaler:* The Schwanthaler Family of Ried im Innkreis** Ludwig Schwanthaler...

 family of Baroque sculptors, but also of the SS official Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Ernst Kaltenbrunner was an Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany during World War II. Between January 1943 and May 1945, he held the offices of Chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt , President of Interpol and, as a Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei und Waffen-SS, he was the...

 and the conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter

Franz Jägerstätter

Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, O.F.S., was an Austrian conscientious objector during World War II. Jägerstätter was sentenced to death and executed...

. Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 was born at the border town of Braunau am Inn

Braunau am Inn

Braunau am Inn is a town in the Innviertel region of Upper Austria , the north-western state of Austria. It lies about 90 km west of Linz and about 60 km north of Salzburg, on the border with the German state of Bavaria. The population in 2001 was 16,372...

, as well as the diplomat Egon Ranshofen-Wertheimer

Egon Ranshofen-Wertheimer

Egon Ranshofen-Wertheimer was a diplomat, journalist, doctor of laws and state.-Early life:...

.