Österreich,¹ Helvetia,² the Česká³ Republic and the Slovenská⁴ Republic

How is the land laid out?

This area is a zig zag across the center of Europe. In the west a line starts east of France and includes Helvetia and Tyrol⁵ in a mountainous belt from west to east between Deutschland⁶ and Italia.⁷ Further east this line ends at Magyarország⁸ and we turn northward from the heartland of Austria to Česky.⁹ Once again our line ends--this time in a wedge between eastern Deutschland and Polska¹⁰--and a new line heads west through Moravia¹¹ and the Slovenská Republic to taper to a deadend at Україна (Ukrayina).¹²

The Alps dominate the Switzerland-to-Steiermark line, rising above 4500 meters at Dufourspitze,¹³ and including a spur, the Jura that forms the north bound of the plateau. The next line is crossed by Europe's second longest river, the Danube,¹⁴ and continues to the basin of the upper Labe,¹⁵ which is fringed by mountains. Heading east one arrives at the Moravian Basin and, beyond, the Carpathians, which are drained southward toward the Hungarian Plain.

There are five World Heritage Sites that honor natural places: the Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst¹⁶ (partly in Magyarország) and the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians¹⁷ (partly in Україна or Ukrayina), both in the Slovenská Republic; and Monte San Giorgio, the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsh and the Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona, all in Helvetia.

Map

Who lives there?

About four in ten speak a dialect of High¹⁸ German,¹⁹ more than three in ten speak Czech and less than two in ten Slovak.²⁰ (Czeck and Slovak belong to the Czeck-Slovak group. This plus most of the other languages belong to the Indo-European group, accounting for more than 19 of 20 locals.) Religious affiliations are tricky: a large number of Czechs and Slovaks do not profess any particular religion, a legacy of communist rule. Of the rest almost all are Christians: about two thirds Roman Catholics and most of the balance one of the Protestant religions like Lutheran, Calvinist or Evangelical.

There are four metropolitan areas centered in the country with more than a million residents. See Table of Austrian, Swiss, Czech and Slovak cities.

There are numerous World Heritage Sites honoring culture. In Österreich are: the City of Graz--Historical Center; Fertö/ Neusedlersee Cultural Landscape, a lakeside location that features the medieval town of Rust and Fertö Esterházy Palace; Hallstatt-Dachstein/ Salzkammergut Cultural Landscape, which honors the old city of Hallstatt, the prehistoric use of the salt deposits, and the caves in the Dachstein Mountains; the Historic Centre of Vienna (Wien); the Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn in Wien; the Semmering Railway connecting tourist resorts in the mountains; and the Wachau Cultural Landscape at and near Krems. In the Česká Republic are: the Gardens and Castle of Kroměříž; the Historic Centre of Česky Krumlov, a medieval and Renaissance town; the Historic Center of Prague (Praha); the Historic Center of Telž, a town rebuilt in the 14th century; the Holašovice Historical Village Reservation, which preserves its medieval plan; the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc; the Jewish Quarter and St. Procopius' Basilica in Třebíž; and Kutná Hora: Historic Town Centre with the Church of St. Barbara and the Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec; the Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape with the chateaus of Lednice and Valtice; and Litomyšl Castle, a representative of an arcade castle; the Pilgrimage Church of St. John of Nepomukat Zelená Hora at Zdár and Sázavou; the Tugendhat Villa in Brno and five locations of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings.²¹ In the Slovenská Republic are: the Bardejov Town Conservation Reserve; the Historic Town of Banská Stiavnica and the Technical Mounuments in its Vicinity, which illustrates mining history as well as architecture; Levoža, Spišský Hrad and the Associated Cultural Monuments, a set of 14th century buildings; Vlkolínec, a preserved medieval village; and the Wooden Churches of the Slovak part of the Carpathian Mountain Area,²² with examples from three branches of Christianity. In Helvetia are: the Benedictine Convent of St. John at Müstir, with its Romanesque and Carolingian frescoes; the Convent of St Gall (St. Gallen); "La Chaux-de-Fonds/ Le Locle, watchmaking town planning;" "Lavaux, Vinyard Terraces," with over ten thousand terraces; the Old City of Berne (Bern); the Rhaetian Railway in the Albula/ Bernina Landscapes, two high mountain railways; and the Three Castles, Defensive Wall and Ramparts of the Market Town of Bellinzone and 56 locations of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings. Tourists also enjoy the Chateau de Chillon at Montreux.

Who was there before?

People arrived here from Africa many tens of thousands of years ago but much of the area was uninhabitable until the shrinking of the glaciers that covered all of Switzerland and Austria.

Eventually Indo-Europeans arrived in the area, ultimately from Україна (Ukrayina). Artifacts indicate that Scythians, speaking an Iranian language, arrived about 2600 plus years ago but left no linguistic traces. Continental Celts, also identified by artifacts, were here and elsewhere about 2500 years ago. They left tribal names on the English name for the Vlatava Basin--from the Boii--and on the former province of Raetia, giving Switzerland one of its names--from the Helvetii. But their linguistic influence has dwindled to borrowed words like reich (realm). The Roman Empire conquered up to the Danube River and Latin's legacy is shown in the French spoken in western Switzerland and the Italian of the Swiss nation's southern fringe. In the first century speakers of West Germanic dialects began arriving in Moravia, and the Germans continued expanding their influence, especially in cities, until very recent times when about three million were expelled from Czechoslovakia. Germans remain in Switzerland and Austria. Two Turkic groups, the Huns in the fifth century and the Bulgars in the eighth, invaded but left no lasting influences, any more than the Avars, a Northeast Caucasian group that ruled part of Slovakia in the mid-seventh century. Speakers of West Slavonic²³ dialects arrived in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia in the sixth century from the west. Less than a century ago two million Czechs and Slovaks moved westward into Moravian and Bohemian cities that Germans were forced out of. Magyars, an Ugrian group, invaded in the tenth century and became the dominant land owners in Slovakia until World War II.

The religion of early Indo-Europeans and Celts was similar to that of Celts in Britain and France. The first Roman state religion left no vestiges but the second imperial religion, Christianity, continued to expand after the western empire fell, now under Frankish sponsorship. By the tenth century the urban commmunities had converted, to be evenually followed by the country folk.²⁴ Christianity had started without unity--many of the region's early Christians followed the teachings of Arius, who eventually lost the battles that determined Roman Christianity's orthodoxy. Dissent again manifested in the last millenium. It first arose among the Czechs, only to be quashed after centuries of struggle by the murder of all noble born non-Roman Catholics. Next Luther's teachings, later also Calvin's and Zwingli's, introduced conflict throughout the region, leaving Switzerland diverse, while Austria and Czechoslovakia became solidly Catholic.

Around the area

west of the Czech Republic, northwest of Austria and north of Switzerland
north of the Czeck and Slovak republics
east
southeast
south, from the west
west

Footnotes

1. Austria in English. The German translates as Eastern Realm.
2. Schweiz in German, Svizzera in Italian and la Suisse in French. Helvetia is used in some official contexts. Switzerland in English.
3. Czech in English.
4. Slovak in English.
5. Tirolia in English.
6. Germany in English.
7. Italy in English.
8. Hungary in English.
9. Bohemia in English. Česky is also the language's name by its speakers.
10. Poland in English.
11. Morava in Czech, March in German.
12. The Ukraine in English.
13. Part of the Monte Rosa Massif.
14. Donau in German, Dunaj in Slovak.
15. Elbe in German and English.
16. Sites within this region are: Dobšinská Ice Cave; Konlar plateau; Plešivec plateau; and the neighborhoold of Silica and Jasov.
17. Sites within this region are: Sutzica/ Bukovské vrchy; Rožok; Vihorlat; and Havešová.
18. High German includes Standard German and is the group of dialects traditionally spoken at higher elevations.
19. Deutsch in German.
20. But Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible and these two dialects are only considered separate languages for political reasons.
21. Pile dwelling locations are listed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Pile_dwellings_around_the_Alps, accessed 11/19/2013.
22. Sites are: two spot in Hronsek; Tvrdošín; Lešiny; Kežmarok; Henvatov; Ladomirová; Bodružal; and Ruská Bystrá.
23. Also known as Slavic or Schlavonic.
24. Slavic paganism here was presumably similar to that followed by their contemporaries in Україна (Ukrayina).