Lower Austria ranks only fourth in population density even though it contains Vienna's suburbs; this is due to large areas of land being predominantly agricultural.

The wealthy alpine federal state Vorarlberg is something of an anomaly due to its small size, isolated location and distinct Alemannic culture.

Vienna, the capital of Austria, plays a double role as a city and a federal state.

Austria's constitution initially granted all legislative powers to the federal states, but many powers have been subsequently taken away, and only a few remain, such as planning and zoning codes, nature protection, hunting, fishing, farming, youth protection, certain issues of public health and welfare and the right to levy certain taxes.

This centralisation follows a historic model where central power during the time of the empire was largely concentrated in Vienna.

In terms of boundaries, the present-day federal states arose from the crown lands of Austria-Hungary, an extensive multiethnic realm whose German-speaking nucleus emerged as the Republic of Austria after the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy in the end of World War I.

The federal state of Vorarlberg is made up of territories acquired by the House of Habsburg in the 14th and 15th centuries,[2]: 73  and was a semi-autonomous part of the County of Tyrol from 1861.

[3] The federal state of Burgenland is made up of the predominantly German-speaking area that the Kingdom of Hungary ceded to the First Austrian Republic after World War I as a result of the Treaties of Trianon and Saint-Germain-en-Laye.