Editing Geography of Austria (section)

===Landform regions===
[[File:Austria 1999 CIA map.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Detailed map of Austria]]
[[File:Satellitenaufnahme der Alpen.jpg|thumb|Satellite photo of the Alps]]

Austria may be divided into three unequal geographical areas. The largest part of Austria (62%) is occupied by the relatively young mountains of the Alps, but in the east, these give way to a part of the [[Pannonian plain]], and north of the river [[Danube]] lies the [[Bohemian Forest]], an older, but lower, [[granite]] mountain range.

==== River Danube ====
The [[Danube]] has its source near [[Donaueschingen]] in southwestern Germany and flows through Austria before emptying into the [[Black Sea]].<ref name=":0" /> It is the only major European river that flows eastwards, and its importance as an inland waterway has been enhanced by the completion in 1992 of the [[Rhine-Main-Danube Canal]] in [[Bavaria]], which connects the rivers [[Rhine]] and [[Main (river)|Main]] with the Danube and makes [[barge]] traffic from the [[North Sea]] to the Black Sea possible.<ref name=":0" />

The major rivers north of the watershed of the Austrian Alps (the [[Inn (river)|Inn]] in Tyrol, the [[Salzach]] in Salzburg, and the [[Enns (river)|Enns]] in Styria and Upper Austria) are direct tributaries of the Danube and flow north into the Danube valley, whereas the rivers south of the watershed in central and eastern Austria (the [[Gail (river)|Gail]] and [[Drava|Drau]] rivers in Carinthia and the [[Mürz]] and [[Mur (river)|Mur]] in Styria) flow south into the drainage system of the Drau, which eventually empties into the Danube in [[Serbia]].<ref name=":0" /> Consequently, central and eastern Austria are geographically oriented away from the watershed of the Alps: the provinces of Upper Austria and Lower Austria toward the Danube and the provinces of Carinthia and Styria toward the Drau.<ref name=":0" />

==== The Alps ====
Three major ranges of the [[Alps]] – the [[Northern Calcareous Alps]], [[Central Eastern Alps|Central Alps]], and [[Southern Calcareous Alps]] – run west to east through Austria.<ref name=":0" /> The Central Alps, which consist largely of a granite base, are the largest and highest ranges in Austria.<ref name=":0" /> The Central Alps run from Tyrol to approximately the Styria-Lower Austria border and include areas that are permanently glaciated in the [[Ötztal Alps]] on the Tyrolean&ndash;[[Italy|Italian]] border and the [[High Tauern]] in [[East Tyrol]] and Carinthia.<ref name=":0" /> The Northern Calcareous Alps, which run from Vorarlberg through Tyrol into Salzburg along the German border and through Upper Austria and Lower Austria toward Vienna, and the Southern Calcareous Alps, on the Carinthia-Slovenia border, are predominantly [[limestone]] and [[Dolomite (rock)|dolomite]].<ref name=":0" /> At 3,797 m, [[Großglockner]] is the highest mountain in Austria.<ref name=":0" /> As a general rule, the farther east the Northern and Central Alps run, the lower they become.<ref name=":0" /> The altitude of the mountains also drops north and south of the central ranges.<ref name=":0" />

As a geographic feature, the Alps literally overshadow other landform regions.<ref name=":0" /> Just over 28% of Austria is moderately hilly or flat: the Northern Alpine Foreland, which includes the Danube Valley; the lowlands and hilly regions in northeastern and eastern Austria, which include the Danube Basin; and the rolling hills and lowlands of the Southeastern Alpine Foreland.<ref name=":0" /> The parts of Austria that are most suitable for settlement – that is, arable and climatically favorable – run north of the Alps through the provinces of Upper Austria and Lower Austria in the Danube Valley and then curve east and south of the Alps through Lower Austria, Vienna, Burgenland, and Styria.<ref name=":0" /> Austria's least mountainous landscape is southeast of the low [[Leithagebirge]], which forms the southern lip of the [[Vienna Basin]], where the steppe of the Hungarian Plain begins.<ref name=":0" />

==== Bohemian Forest (mountain range) ====
The [[granite]] massif of the [[Bohemian Forest]] (known in [[German language|German]] as the ''Böhmerwald''), a low mountain range with bare and windswept plateaus and a harsh climate, is located north of the Danube Valley and covers the remaining 10% of Austria's area.<ref name=":0" /> Notable is the [[Manhartsberg]] a granite ridge which separates [[Waldviertel]] from [[Weinviertel]].