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Ethnic groups

Historically, before 1945, Austrians were regarded as ethnic Germans and viewed themselves as such, although this national identity was challenged by Austrian nationalism in the decades after the end of World War I and even more so after World War II. Austria was part of East Francia (Kingdom of Germany) and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from 996 to 1806 and was part of the German Confederation, a loose confederation of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states, from 1815 until the Austro-Prussian war in 1866, which resulted in the dissolution of the German Confederation and the creation of the North German Confederation led by Prussia and excluding Austria. In 1871, Germany was founded as a nation-state, Austria was not a part of it. After World War I and the breakup of the Austrian monarchy, politicians of the new republic declared its name to be "Deutschösterreich" (Republic of German-Austria) and that it was part of the German Republic. A unification of the two countries was forbidden by the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye as one of the conditions imposed by the victorious Allies of World War I upon the vanquished nation, to prevent the creation of a territorially extensive German state. In 1938, Austria became part of Nazi Germany. After the events of World War II and Nazism, Austria declared independence from Germany on 27 April 1945 and Austrian national identity has been popular in Austria since then, and nowadays Austrians do not consider themselves as Germans but as ethnic Austrians.

Austrians today may be described either as a nationality or as a homogeneous Germanic ethnic group, that is closely related to neighbouring Germans, Liechtensteiners, and German-speaking Swiss. Today 91.1% of the population are regarded as ethnic Austrians.

The Turks are the largest single immigrant group in Austria, closely followed by the Serbs. Serbs form one of the largest ethnic groups in Austria, numbering around 300,000 people. Historically, Serbian immigrants moved to Austria during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when Vojvodina was under Imperial control. Following World War II the number of Serbs expanded again, and today the community is very large. The Austrian Serbian Society was founded in 1936. Today, Serbs in Austria are mainly found in Vienna, Salzburg, and Graz.

Of the remaining number of Austria's people who are of non-Austrian descent, many come from surrounding countries, especially from the former East Bloc nations. Guest workers (Gastarbeiter) and their descendants, as well as refugees from the Yugoslav wars and other conflicts, also form an important minority group in Austria. Since 1994 the Romani people and Sinti have been an officially recognised ethnic minority in Austria.

An estimated 13,000 to 40,000 Slovenes in the Austrian federal state Carinthia (the Carinthian Slovenes) as well as Croats (around 30,000) and Hungarians in Burgenland were recognised as a minority and have had special rights following the Austrian State Treaty (Staatsvertrag) of 1955.