The House of Deputies (German: Abgeordnetenhaus, Czech: Poslanecká sněmovna, Polish: Izba Posłów, Italian: Camera dei deputati) was, from 1861, the lower house of the bicameral Imperial Council parliament of the Austrian Empire and, from 1867 to 1918, of the Cisleithanian lands within Austria-Hungary.

[1] The first provisional chamber of deputies established in Austria was held in 1861 in the Währinger Straße in Vienna, in the building referred to as the " Schmerling Theater " which was used until 1883 to accommodate parliamentary meetings.

In 1867 the first allocations of seats were established among parliamentarians who were framed in the number of 203: 54 Bohemians, 38 Galicians, 22 Moravians and 18 Austrians.

A subsequent electoral reform of 1873 brought the number of members from 203 to 353 also to open up this lower house more to the bourgeoisie and to favor the greater participation of non-aristocratic social classes in government operations.

With the government of Prime Minister Count Eduard Taaffe, based on a strong centralization in Austro-German politics, it indelibly marked the decline of the parliamentary institution as a place of convention for the different nationalities of the Empire and after 1893 no government could maintain constant support of the majority in the imperial chamber of deputies.