Editing Geography of Austria (section)

==== 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" />