| Tyrol | |
| Native Name: | Tirol |
| Settlement Type: | Federal state |
| Flag Size: | 120px |
| Image Blank Emblem: | LandTirol.svg |
| Blank Emblem Type: | Brandmark |
| Blank Emblem Size: | 85px |
| Anthem: | Andreas-Hofer-Lied |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Seat Type: | Capital |
| Seat: | Innsbruck |
| Leader Party: | ÖVP |
| Leader Title: | Governor |
| Leader Name: | Anton Mattle |
| Leader Title1: | Deputy Governors |
| Leader Name1: | Josef Geisler (ÖVP), Georg Dornauer (SPÖ) |
| Area Total Km2: | 12534 |
| Population Total: | 771304 |
| Population As Of: | 1 January 2023 |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Demographics Type1: | GDP |
| Demographics1 Footnotes: | [1] |
| Demographics1 Title1: | Total |
| Demographics1 Info1: | €45.400 billion (2021) |
| Demographics1 Title2: | Per capita |
| Demographics1 Info2: | €46,700 (2021) |
| Coordinates: | 47.27°N 11.4°W |
| Timezone1: | CET |
| Utc Offset1: | +1 |
| Timezone1 Dst: | CEST |
| Utc Offset1 Dst: | +2 |
| Iso Code: | AT-7 |
| Blank Name Sec1: | HDI (2019) |
| Blank Info Sec1: | 0.933[2] · 3rd of 9 |
| Blank Name Sec2: | NUTS Region |
| Blank Info Sec2: | AT3 |
| Blank1 Name Sec2: | Votes in Bundesrat |
| Blank1 Info Sec2: | 5 (of 62) |
| Website: | www.tirol.gv.at |
| Governing Body: | Tyrolean Landtag |
Tyrol (;[3] German: Tirol pronounced as /de/; Italian: Tirolo) is an Austrian federal state. It comprises the Austrian part of the historical Princely County of Tyrol. It is a constituent part of the present-day Euroregion Tyrol–South Tyrol–Trentino (together with South Tyrol and Trentino in Italy). The capital of Tyrol is Innsbruck.[4]
Tyrol is separated into two parts, divided by a 7adj=midNaNadj=mid strip of Salzburg State. The two constituent parts of Tyrol are the northern and larger North Tyrol and the southeastern and smaller East Tyrol (). Salzburg State lies to the east of North Tyrol, while on the south Tyrol has a border to the Italian province of South Tyrol, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the First World War. With a land area of 12683.85km2, Tyrol is the third-largest federal state in Austria.
North Tyrol shares its borders with the federal states Salzburg in the east and Vorarlberg in the west. In the north, it adjoins the German federal state of Bavaria; in the south, it shares borders with the Italian province of South Tyrol and the Swiss canton of Graubünden. East Tyrol shares its borders with the federal state of Carinthia to the east and Italy's Province of Belluno (Veneto) to the south.
The federal state's territory is located entirely within the Eastern Alps at the Brenner Pass. The highest mountain in the federal state is the Großglockner, part of the Hohe Tauern range on the border with Carinthia. It has a height of 3,797 m (12,457.35 ft), making it the highest mountain in Austria.
See main article: History of Tyrol.
In ancient times, the region was split between the Roman provinces of Raetia (west of the Inn River) and Noricum. From the mid-6th century, it was resettled by Germanic Bavarii tribes. In the Early Middle Ages it formed the southern part of the German stem duchy of Bavaria, until the Counts of Tyrol, former Vogt officials of the Trent and Brixen prince-bishops at Tyrol Castle, achieved imperial immediacy after the deposition of the Bavarian duke Henry the Proud in 1138, and their possessions formed a state of the Holy Roman Empire in its own right.
When the Counts of Tyrol died out in 1253, their estates were inherited by the Meinhardiner Counts of Görz. In 1271, the Tyrolean possessions were divided between Count Meinhard II of Görz and his younger brother Albert I, who took the lands of East Tyrol around Lienz and attached it (as "outer county") to his committal possessions around Gorizia ("inner county").
The last Tyrolean countess of the Meinhardiner Dynasty, Margaret, bequeathed her assets to the Habsburg duke Rudolph IV of Austria in 1363. In 1420, the committal residence was relocated from Merano to Innsbruck. The Tyrolean lands were reunited when the Habsburgs inherited the estates of the extinct Counts of Görz in 1500.
In the course of the German mediatization in 1803, the prince-bishoprics of Trent and Brixen were secularized and merged into the County of Tyrol (which in the next year became a constituent land of the Austrian Empire), but Tyrol was ceded to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1805. Andreas Hofer led the Tyrolean Rebellion against the French and Bavarian occupiers. Later, South Tyrol was ceded to the Kingdom of Italy, a client state of the First French Empire, by Bavaria in 1810. After Napoleon's defeat, the whole of Tyrol was returned to Austria in 1814.
Tyrol was a Cisleithanian Kronland (royal territory) of Austria-Hungary from 1867. The County of Tyrol then extended beyond the boundaries of today's federal state, including North Tyrol and East Tyrol; South Tyrol and Trentino (Welschtirol) as well as three municipalities, which today are part of the adjacent province of Belluno. After World War I, these lands became part of the Kingdom of Italy according to the 1915 London Pact and the provisions of the Treaty of Saint Germain. From November 1918, it was occupied by 20,000–22,000 soldiers of the Italian Army.[5] Tyrol was the center of an important resistance group against Nazi Germany around Walter Caldonazzi, which united with the group around the priest Heinrich Maier and the Tyrolean Franz Josef Messner. The Catholic resistance group very successfully passed on plans and production facilities for V-1 rockets, V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet and other aircraft to the Allies, with which they could target German production facilities. Maier and his group informed the American secret service OSS very early on about the mass murder of Jews in Auschwitz. For after the war they planned an Austria united with South Tyrol and Bavaria.[6]
After World War II, North Tyrol was governed by France and East Tyrol was part of the British Zone of occupation until Austria regained independence in 1955.
The capital, Innsbruck, is known for its university, and especially for its medicine. Tyrol is popular for its famous ski resorts, which include Kitzbühel, Ischgl and St. Anton. The 15 largest towns in Tyrol are:
| Town | Inhabitants January 2017 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 132,236 | ||
| 2. | 18,973 | ||
| 3. | 15,582 | ||
| 4. | 13,801 | ||
| 5. | 13,606 | ||
| 6. | 13,537 | ||
| 7. | 11,945 | ||
| 8. | 10,371 | ||
| 9. | 9,425 | ||
| 10. | 9,063 | ||
| 11. | 8,341 | ||
| 12. | 8,134 | ||
| 13. | 7,870 | ||
| 14. | 7,764 | ||
| 15. | 7,088 |
The historical population is given in the following chart:
ImageSize = width:400 height:auto barincrement:28PlotArea = left:35 bottom:40 top:20 right:10DateFormat = x.yPeriod = from:0 till:800TimeAxis = orientation:horizontalAlignBars = lateScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:50 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:10 start:0 BackgroundColors = canvas:sfondo
PlotData= color:skyblue width:22 shift:(-55,-5) fontsize:M anchor:till bar:1869 from:0 till:236 text:236,426 bar:1880 from:0 till:245 text:244,736 bar:1890 from:0 till:250 text:249,984 bar:1900 from:0 till:266 text:266,374 bar:1910 from:0 till:305 text:304,713 bar:1923 from:0 till:314 text:313,888 bar:1934 from:0 till:349 text:349,098 bar:1939 from:0 till:364 text:363,959 bar:1951 from:0 till:427 text:427,465 bar:1961 from:0 till:463 text:462,899 bar:1971 from:0 till:544 text:544,483 bar:1981 from:0 till:587 text:586,663 bar:1991 from:0 till:631 text:631,410 bar:2001 from:0 till:674 text:673,504 bar:2011 from:0 till:710 text:710,048 bar:2021 from:0 till:760 text:760,105TextData= fontsize:M pos:(35,20) text:"Source: Statistik Austria"
The federal state's gross domestic product (GDP) was 34.6 billion euro in 2018, accounting for 9% of Austria's economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 40,900 euro or 136% of the EU27 average in the same year.[7]
Tyrol has long been a central hub for European long-distance routes and thus a transit land for trans-European trade over the Alps. As early as the 1st century B.C. Tyrol had one of the most important north–south links of the Roman Empire, the Via Claudia Augusta. Roman roads crossed the Tyrol from the Po Plain in present-day Italy, following the course of the Etsch and Eisack in present South Tyrol over the Brenner and then following the northern Wipp valley to Hall. From there roads branched along the River Inn. The Via Raetia went westwards and up onto the Seefeld Plateau, where it crossed into Bavaria where Scharnitz is today. The Porta Claudia, built in the early 17th century is a fortification that underlines the importance of the road in the Early Modern Period.
Today Tyrol has international road, rail and air connections. Innsbruck Airport is Tyrol's international airport. In addition there are several smaller airports in various places such as St. Johann in Tirol, Höfen in the Außerfern or Langkampfen. Many public transit companies operate a common tariff scheme as part of the Tyrol Transport Association.
The federal state is divided into nine districts (Bezirke); one of them, Innsbruck, is a statutory city. There are 277 municipalities. The districts and their administrative centres, from west to east and north to south, are:
The traditional form of mural art known as Lüftlmalerei is typical of Tyrolean villages and towns.
Kletzenbrot is a sweet bread made with dried fruits and nuts for the Advent season. Because it is associated with Tyrol it is also known as "Tyrolean Dried Fruit Bread".
The question of which regional unit was the bearer of primary identification was raised in the 1987 Austrian Consciousness Survey.The possible answers were: the hometown (local patriotism), one's own province (regional patriotism), (Central) Europe (European consciousness), the world (cosmopolitanism).[8]
| in: | Vienna | Lower Austria | Burgenland | Tyrol | Carinthia | Vorarlberg | Styria | Upper Austria | Salzburg | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homeplace | 38 | 30 | 31 | 16 | 23 | 21 | 25 | 35 | 24 | |
| Bundesland | 8 | 16 | 24 | 58 | 53 | 44 | 39 | 23 | 33 | |
| Austrian | 46 | 55 | 44 | 19 | 24 | 28 | 32 | 37 | 35 | |
| German | 1 | 0 | - | 1 | - | - | 2 | 1 | 2 | |
| (Middle-)European | 4 | 1 | - | 1 | - | 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 | |
| World Citizen | 4 | - | 1 | 2 | - | 3 | 1 | 2 | - | |
| other | 2 | 0 | - | - | 1 | - | 0 | 0 | 3 |
A research project led by Peter Diem[9] offers a thoroughly comparable picture: In Vienna and Lower Austria, Austria patriotism dominated (1988) over territorial consciousness. In Upper Austria, Salzburg and Styria, national patriotism slightly outweighed federal state patriotism. In Carinthia, Tyrol and Vorarlberg, national patriotism clearly dominated. When asked to rate their own national patriotism on a ten-point scale, 83% of Carinthians, 69% of Tyroleans, 63% of Vorarlbergers, Burgenlanders and Styrians, 59% of Upper Austrians, 55% of Lower Austrians, 47% of Viennese and 43% of Salzburgers gave it the highest value.
The results of this study underline the assumption of a highly developed sense of national identity in most Austrian provinces. Peculiarly, the federal provinces are also largely "endogamous" in relation to other provinces, i.e. they correspond to what ethnologists would call a gentile association, a "tribe".
It is therefore also permissible to identify the inhabitants of the Austrian provinces as the "tribes" that a book published in London would like to portray. (The Times Guide to the Peoples of Europe, London 1994The Times guide to the peoples of Europe)