The Republic of Austria is a landlocked country, situated in the south of Central Europe. It is made up in part by the Eastern Alps and by the Danube basin. Its total surface area is 83.859 Km2. Austria has 2.637 Km of borders, which separate it from the Federal Republic of Germany and from the Czech and Slovak Republics to the north, from Hungary to the east, from Slovenia and Italy to the south and from Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west.

Austria has a predominantly mountainous terrain, with the average altitude being 910 meters above sea level. Most of the countrys surface lies within the eastern Alps. The highest peak is the Grossglockner at an altitude of 3797 meters. Austrias main areas that do not lie within the Alps region include the northern and eastern border regions. The north consists of a rolling plateau while the east encompasses part of the Danube basin.

The Austrian population speaks mostly German, however a varied ethnic mix of languages also exists. The population is also made up of a considerable number of Croatians and Magyars (in Bugerland), Slovenians (in Carinthia), Czechs (in Vienna), as well as small groups of Italians, Serbs and Rumanians. Austria has a population of approximately 8.123.000 inhabitants. The average population density is 97 inhab/Km2. Sixty four percent of the population is urban based; almost a third of the inhabitants live in the larger cities: Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck.

Vienna, the countrys federal capital, is home to one of the United Nations Offices and houses the offices for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (ONIDO), and various divisions of the United Nations, such as the United Nations Program for the International Fiscalization of Drugs (PNUFID), the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), the HYPERLINK http://www.ifs.univie.ac.at/~uncjin/uncjin.html United Nations Crime and Justice Information Network (UNCJIN), the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space (COPUOS), and the United States Committee on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Vienna is also home to the headquarters of the Permanent Council Secretariat of the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Vienna is therefore a city of internationally important summits.