 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Slovaks in Austria" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 35,326 (2016)[1]–40,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Vienna, easternLower Austria,Styria | |
| Languages | |
| Slovak,German | |
| Religion | |
| PredominantlyRoman Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Slovak diaspora |
Slovaks inAustria (Austrian German:Österreichisch Slowaken;Slovak:Rakúski Slováci) have a history dating back to the early centuries of the Common Era. Currently, there are 35,326 Slovaks in Austria as of 2016. Large communities of Slovaks can be found inVienna andLower Austria, with a smaller community inStyria.
Between the fifth and ninth centuries AD, Slovaks controlled the eastern part of what is now consideredLower Austria, where many ethnic Slovaks still remain.[2]
From the 1880s the 1890s, around 230,000Czechs andSlovaks emigrated to Austria proper, mainly for construction work and other menial labor jobs in the larger cities, particularlyVienna. At the turn of the century, an estimated 70,000 Slovak speakers in Austria, the vast majority being concentrated inVienna andMarchfeld. Over the next 14 years, this number was decimated to 20,000.[2]
After the foundation ofCzechoslovak Republic in 1918, many Slovaks emigrated back to theSlovakia region. In the 1923 census, only 5,000 Slovacophones declared their language.[2]
In 1976, as part of the Treaties of St. German and Brno and the Austrian Ethnic Groups Act, Slovaks were recognized as an autochthonous ethnicity, and freedom to use the Slovak language officially was permitted.[2]
In recent years, many thousands of Slovaks have emigrated from Slovakia, mainly due to the open borders of theEuropean Union. The population of Slovaks had increased by 800% in 2016.[2]
