Burgenland (; ; ; Austro-Bavarian: ; ; ) is the easternmost and least populous state of Austria. It consists of two statutory cities and seven rural districts, with a total of 171 municipalities. It is long from north to south but much narrower from west to east ( wide at Sieggraben). The population of Burgenland as of 1 January 2025 is 301,790. Burgenland's capital is Eisenstadt.
The area once belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary, which was obliged under the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 to cede what was then German West Hungary (Deutsch-Westungarn) to the newly formed Republic of Austria. In 1921, the annexation of Burgenland was completed; the newly acquired territory was given the legally binding name Burgenland by the Federal Constitutional Act of 25 January 1921.
Burgenland borders the city of Bratislava to the north, the Hungarian counties of Győr-Moson-Sopron and Vas to the east, the two municipalities of Kuzma and Rogašovci (Slovenia) for a few kilometers to the south, and the Austrian federal states of Styria and Lower Austria to the west.
The proportion of permanent settlement area within the state territory amounts to 62.76%, the second-highest value among Austria's nine territorial federal states after Vienna.
Burgenland is characterized by Lake Neusiedl in the north and the foothills of the Alps in the hilly south. It is elongated in shape and narrows at Sieggraben in the Ödenburg Mountains to a width of 4 km. The region is part of the Centrope Project.
History The territory of present-day Burgenland was successively part of the Roman Empire, the Hun Empire, the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, the Italian Kingdom of Odoacer, the Kingdom of the Lombards, the Avar Khaganate, the Frankish Empire, Dominion Aba belonging to the Aba (family); Aba – Koszegi, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Habsburg monarchy, the Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary, and lastly Austria.
Burgenland is the only Austrian province that has never been part of the Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire, German Confederation nor Austria-Hungary's Cisleithania.
Prehistory and antiquity From the 4th century BC, the area was dominated by Celts and in the 1st century AD it became part of the Roman Empire. During Roman administration, it was part of the province of Pannonia, and later part of the provinces of Pannonia Superior (in the 2nd century) and Pannonia Prima (in the 3rd century). During the late Roman Empire, Pannonia Prima province was part of larger administrative units, such are Diocese of Pannonia, Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum and Praetorian prefecture of Italy.
Early Germanic states
The first Germanic people to settle in this region were the Ostrogoths, who came to Pannonia in AD 380. The Ostrogoths became allies of Rome and were allowed to settle in Pannonia, being tasked to defend the Roman borders. In the 5th century, the area was conquered by the Huns, but after their defeat, an independent Kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Pannonia was formed. The territory of present-day Burgenland became part of the Italian Kingdom of Odoacer, but at the end of the 5th century the Ostrogothic king Theodoric conquered this kingdom and restored Ostrogothic administration in western Pannonia.
In the 6th century, the territory was included in another Germanic state, the Kingdom of the Lombards. However, the Lombards subsequently left towards Italy and the area came under the control of the Avars. For a brief period in the 7th century, the area became part of the Slavic State of Samo, however it subsequently came back under Avar control. After the Avar defeat at the end of the 8th century, the area became part of the Frankish Empire. After the Battle of Lechfeld (or Augsburg) in 955, new Germanic settlers came to the area.
Medieval Kingdom of Hungary In 1043, Henry III and King Samuel Aba of Hungary signed a peace treaty. On 20 September 1058, Agnes of Poitou and Andrew I of Hungary met to negotiate the border.Landeschronik Niederösterreich: 3000 Jahre in Daten, Dokumenten und Bildern, Seite 104, Karl Gutkas, C. Brandstätter, 1990. The area of Burgenland remained the western frontier of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary until the 16th century.
The majority of the population was Germanic, except for the Hungarian border guards of the frontier March (Gyepű). Germanic immigration from neighbouring Austria was also continuous in the Middle Ages.
Habsburg administration
In 1440 the territory of present-day Burgenland was controlled by the Habsburgs of Austria, and in 1463 the northern part of it (with the town of Kőszeg) became a mortgage-territory according to the peace treaty of Wiener Neustadt. In 1477 King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary had retaken the area, but in 1491 it was mortgaged again by King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary to Emperor Maximilian I. In 1647 Emperor Ferdinand II returned it to the Kingdom of Hungary (which itself was a Habsburg possession in this time).
In the 16th century, the medieval Kingdom of Hungary lost its independence and its northwestern part that was not conquered by the Ottoman Empire was included in the Habsburg Empire. This Habsburg possession was known as Royal Hungary and it included territory of present-day Burgenland and western Hungary. Royal Hungary still had counties. What is today Burgenland was in those times the Moson, Sopron and Vas counties of Hungary.
In the 16th and 17th centuries German Protestant refugees arrived in Western Royal Hungary to shelter from the religious wars of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly from the suppression of the Reformation in Austrian territories, then ruled by the staunchly Roman Catholic Habsburgs. After the Habsburg military victory against the Ottomans at the end of the 17th century, the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary was enlarged to include much of the territory of the former medieval Kingdom of Hungary. In the 17th and 18th centuries the region of Western Hungary was dominated by the wealthy Catholic landowning families, for example the Esterházys and Batthyánys. In 1867, the Habsburg Empire was transformed into the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary.
Dissolution of Austria-Hungary According to the 1910 census 291,800 people lived on the territory of present-day Burgenland. Among them 217,072 were German-speaking (74%), 43,633 Croatian-speaking (15%) and 26,225 (9%) Hungarian-speaking. Roma people were counted according to their native language.
In December 1918, the Republic of Heinzenland was declared by Austrian politician with the goal of the territory being annexed by Austria. However, it was taken over within two days by Hungary.
From March to August 1919, Burgenland was part of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
The area had also been discussed as the site of a Czech Corridor to Yugoslavia. The decision on "German West Hungary" () was fixed in the treaties of Saint Germain and Trianon. Despite diplomatic efforts by Hungary, the victorious parties of World War I set the date of Burgenland's official unification with Austria for 28 August 1921. However, on that day sharpshooters with the support of Hungary prevented the establishment of Austrian police control and customs. Lieutenant Colonel Pál Prónay and his men, the Rongyos Gárda, defended western Hungary from occupation by Austrian officials and forces of the Austrian Gendarmerie. Prónay had help from Hungarians and Croatians who did not want to live under Austrian rule, leading to the Uprising in West Hungary in 1921. Prónay occupied the whole area and created the state of Lajtabánság.
Ninth Austrian province
With the help of Italian diplomatic mediation in the Venice Protocol, the crisis was resolved in the autumn of 1921, when Hungary committed to disarm the sharpshooters by 6 November 1921. This was in exchange for a plebiscite on the unification of certain territories, including Ödenburg (Sopron), the designated capital of Burgenland, and eight surrounding villages. The vote took place from 14 to 16 December, and resulted in a clear (but doubted by Austria) vote of the people who inhabited the Sopron district to be part of Hungary. Consequently, the territory was incorporated into Austria, except for the Sopron district which was united with Hungary.
Further border adjustments were made in 1922 by the League of Nations border committee. After their decision was approved on 17 September, 10 Settlements were returned to Hungary. That included 8 settlements in the Pinka valley: Kisnarda, Nagynarda, Felsőcsatár, Alsócsatár, Németkeresztes, Magyarkeresztes, Horvátlövő and Pornóapáti, as well as Rendek (Liebing) and Rőtfalva (Rattersdorf) north of Kőszeg. The last two were handed back to Austria in a swap agreement on 22 November in exchange for Szentpéterfa and Ólmod.
In contrast to all the other present Austrian states, which had been part of Cisleithania, Burgenland did not constitute a specific , and when it was formed it did not have its own regional political and administrative institutions such as a (representative assembly) and (Imperial governor).
On 18 July 1922, the first elections for the parliament of Burgenland took place. Various interim arrangements were required due to the changeover from Hungarian to Austrian jurisdiction. The parliament decided in 1925 on Eisenstadt as the capital of Burgenland, and moved from the various provisional estates throughout the country to the newly built Landhaus in 1929.
The first Austrian census in 1923 registered 285,600 people in Burgenland. The ethnic composition of the province had changed slightly: the percentage of German speakers increased compared to 1910 (227,869 people, 80%) while the percentage of Hungarian speakers rapidly declined (14,931 people, 5%). This was due mainly to the emigration of the Hungarian civil servants and intellectuals after the territory was ceded to Austria.
In 1923, emigration to the United States of America, which started in the late 19th century, reached its climax; in some places up to a quarter of the population went overseas.
After the Nazi German of Austria, the administrative unit of Burgenland was dissolved. Northern and central Burgenland joined the district of Niederdonau (Lower Danube) while southern Burgenland joined Styria. The Jews of Burgenland were forced to emigrate in the immediate aftermath of the .
The policy of Germanization also affected other minorities, especially Burgenland Croats and Hungarians. Minority schools were closed and the use of their native language discouraged.
In 1944, Nazi Germany began to build the (South-east wall) with the help of mostly Jewish forced labor and collaborating inhabitants. Soviet troops crossed the Hungarian–Austrian border during the Vienna offensive and were only somewhat delayed by the unfinished fortifications. In the last days of the Nazi regime many executions and death marches of Jewish forced laborers took place.
Occupation
On 1 October 1945, Burgenland was reestablished as a state with Soviet support. as part of their occupation zone.
Under Soviet occupation, people in Burgenland had to endure a period of serious mistreatment and an extremely slow economic progress, the latter induced by the presence of Soviet troops which discouraged investment. The Soviet occupation ended with the signing of the Austrian Independence Treaty of Vienna in 1955 by the Occupying Forces.
The brutally crushed Hungarian Revolution on 23 October 1956 resulted in a wave of Hungarian refugees on the Hungarian–Austrian border, especially at the Andau Bridge (). They were received by the inhabitants of Burgenland with overwhelming hospitality.