Austria Emigration and Immigration

Austria Emigration and Immigration

Austrian emigration patterns have been difficult to determine. There was no state known as Austria until 1918; prior to then the sprawling Habsburg Empire, an amalgam of a dozen nationalities, encompassed the idea of Austria. Thus Austrian immigration can rightly be seen as the immigration of Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Slovenian, Serbian, and Croatian peoples as well as a plethora of other national and ethnic groups.

Between 1860 and 1974 Austria provided 4.3 million emigrants to the United States. These included ethnic German, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene, Romanian, Italian, Croatian and Serbian peoples. During many of these years Latin America also received many Austrian emigrants. Many North and South Americans need Austrian records.

The Austrian Americans website provides a historical overview of emigration to America.

Sometimes it is possible to guess where an immigrant originated through surname distribution maps.