Austria 1852

This map of Austria is from “The College Atlas” by H.G. Collins, 22 Paternoster Row, London which was published in 1852. The descriptive text that follows is compiled from the “Universal Gazetteer and Geographical Dictionary" published by John Thomson & Co, Edinburgh in 1843.

The map shows the Austrian Empire, consisting of all the various states that are under the dominion of the Imperial House of Austria. It is bounded in the west by Piedmont, Switzerland and Bavaria; in the north by Bavaria, Silesia and Poland; in the east by Russia, Moldavia and Wallachia; and in the south by Turkey in Europe, the Adriatic Sea and Middle Italy. The Danube, the largest river in Europe, runs through its whole extent from west to east; the most northern part of the empire is in Bohemia, and the most southern in the territory of Cattaro in Dalmatia. The chief towns in the Austrian Empire are Vienna, Lintz, Saltzburg, Innspruck, Prague, Olmutz, in Moravia; Lemburg, or Leopold in Galicia [modern day Lviv, in Ukraine]; Presburg, Pesth, and Buda, in Hungary; Hermannstadt, Carlstadt, and Zagrab; Laybach, Clagenfurt, and Gratz; Trent, Venice, Trieste, Ragusa, Milan, Mantua, and Verona. Austria exports corn, wine, saffron, cattle, horses, gold, mercury, copper, iron, steel, lead, and precious stones etc. The chief products of industry are thread, cotton, linen, lace, various sorts of silk stuffs, stockings, spirituous liquors, wrought iron, steel, and brass, kitchen and farming utensils, glass, porcelain, and earthenware. The imports consist, for the most part, in raw materials, such as wool, cotton, raw silk, rice, oil, drugs, and spiceries, of which a great part comes from the Levant. In Hungary, the nation shares the legislative, and even the executive power, with the emperor; the Tyrolese possess to a certain degree the same privileges. In other parts of the empire there are indeed provincial diets, but they are consulted only as to the mode of raising the taxes in their particular districts; so that the emperor is, in great measure, an absolute sovereign. In Austria, the taxes are levied almost entirely on the land and articles of internal consumption. The other sources of revenue are the imperial domains, the monopoly of tobacco, and the duties on stamps, hair-powder, china, glass, starch, wine, beer, brandy, carriages, and other objects of luxury; legacy duties, fees on titles of nobility. The military force amounts to 300,000 men.