Austria

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Austria (German: Österreich), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich), is a country in Central Europe. It borders Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The capital city of Austria is the city of Vienna on the Danube River.

Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. It has declared permanent neutrality and includes the concept of everlasting neutrality in its constitution. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955 and joined the European Union in 1995.

What is now Austria was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I, when the non-German-speaking areas of the Empire became independent countries; as the French statesman Clemenceau put it at the time, "Austria is what's left over." The state became a republic, but was absorbed by Nazi Germany in 1938. After World War II, Austria again established a republican government, although it was occupied by the Allies (divided into four sectors, like Germany) until it regained full sovereignty in 1955.

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