Burgenland (German pronunciation: [ˈbʊʁɡn̩lant] ⓘ; Hungarian: Őrvidék; Croatian: Gradišće; Austro-Bavarian: Burgnland; Slovene: Gradiščanska; Slovak: Hradsko) is the easternmost and least populous state of Austria.

Burgenland is the only Austrian province which has never been part of the Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire, German Confederation nor Austria-Hungary's Cisleithania.

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 December 1918, the Republic of Heinzenland was declared by Austrian politician Hans Suchard with the goal of the territory being annexed by Austria.

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.

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.

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.

[9] In contrast to all the other present Austrian states, which had been part of Cisleithania, Burgenland did not constitute a specific Kronland, and when it was formed it did not have its own regional political and administrative institutions such as a Landtag (representative assembly) and Statthalter (imperial governor).

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.

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.

In 1944, the Nazis began to build the Südostwall (South-east wall) with the help of mostly Jewish forced labor and collaborating inhabitants.

After recovering from the scandal, vintners in Austria, and not only in Burgenland, started focusing on quality and mostly stopped producing low-quality wine.

[citation needed] On 27 July 1989, the foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary, Alois Mock and Gyula Horn, cut the Iron Curtain in the village of Klingenbach in a symbolic act with far-reaching consequences.

[citation needed] After 1990 Burgenland regained its traditional role as a bridge between the western and eastern parts of Central Europe.

This was due to the change of flood protection measures along the river Lafnitz, which forms part of the border between Burgenland and Styria, in the late 1970s.

Burgenland and Hungary share the Neusiedler See (Hungarian: Fertő-tó), a lake known for its reeds and shallowness, as well as its mild climate throughout the year.

The emigration in great haste of the remaining Catholic population of western Slavonia into Burgenland was – as far as possible – organized by estate owners.

As reported in the spring of 1538 by the Ban of Croatia, Petar Keglević, who himself owned large estates in western Slavonia, that the country's population at the Ottoman border was preparing to emigrate.

Between 1918 and 1921 Croats opposed the planned annexation of West-Hungary to Austria, and in 1923 seven Croatian villages voted for a return to Hungary.

In the Nazi era (1938–45) the Croatian language was officially prohibited, and the state pursued an aggressive policy of Germanization.

The three villages together are called Upper Őrség (Hun: Felső-Őrség, German: Wart), and they have formed a language island since the 11th century.

The Hungarians of Burgenland were "őrök", i.e. guards of the western frontier, and their special dialect is similar to the Székelys in Transylvania.

In addition to Germans, Croats and Hungarians, Burgenland used to have substantial Roma and Jewish populations, but these were wiped out by the Nazi regime.

[18] After the war, Jews from Burgenland founded the Jerusalem haredi neighbourhood of Kiryat Mattersdorf, reminding of the original name of Mattersburg, once a centre of a famous yeshiva.

The Hungarian translation of the German name, "Várvidék", was invented by László Juhász, an expert of the region in the 1970s, and it is becoming increasingly popular especially in tourist publications.

Alternatively, the Serbs, Czechs and Slovaks call the western shores of the Neusiedler See, the lake adjoining the town of Rust, Luzic or Lusic.

However, the descendants of Luzic Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats, Czechs and Slovaks were eventually assimilated into the ethnic German or Hungarian cultures over four centuries.

The cultural offerings are diverse and especially in the summer famous for the Seefestspiele Mörbisch and the Nova Rock Festival with numerous international rockbands.

The permanent exhibition at Forchtenstein Castle shows an impressive collection of the dukes of Esterházy, at whose court at Esterházy Palace worked the world-famous musician Joseph Haydn, who composed from the Burgenland Croatian folk-song "V jutro rano se ja stanem" ("In the morning I rise up early") the melody of "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" ("God save Franz the Emperor"), which became the melody of today's national anthem of Germany.