District (Austria) provincial governor; the district civil servants are province employees. In the provincial laws of Lower Austria and Vorarlberg, districts headed by district commissions are called administrative districts ("Verwaltungsbezirke"). In Burgenland, Carinthia, Salzburg, Styria, Upper Austria, and Tyrol, the term used is political district ("politischer Bezirk"). National law, including national constitutional law, uses all three variants interchangeably. A statutory city is a city vested with both municipal and district administrative responsibility. Town hall personnel also serves as district personnel; the mayor also discharges the powers and duties of a head of district commission. City management thus functions both as a regional
Burgenland 1990 Burgenland regained its traditional role as a bridge between the western and eastern parts of Central Europe. Cross-border links were strengthened when Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the European Union in 2004. All three countries became part of the Schengen zone in late 2007 when border controls finally ceased to exist in the region. Burgenland has notable Croatian (29,000–45,000) and Hungarian (5,000–15,000) populations. The Croats arrived after the devastating Ottoman war in 1532, when the Ottoman army destroyed some settlements in their ethnic territory. The emigration in great haste of the Catholic remained population of western Slavonia into the