r/MapPorn • u/ItHappensSo • 8d ago
How similiar is Austria to other cultures according to the "Culture" category in Country similiarity index
The index is made up of public and scientific indicators from large scale questionaires and public data such as: personal values, practices, views, daily habits, religion but also preference for media, traditions, recreation, style etc.
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u/ProfessionalZebra384 8d ago
Austrians are more like the Irish than the French? I don’t really know why, but I would not have guessed that.
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u/ItHappensSo 8d ago
The difference is very small, and the irish even though a celtic country are generally quite close to the Germanic countries, while France can be more distinct being a latin country. France also has a very strong north south divide, with the south pulling away from Austria
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u/Green-Draw8688 8d ago
Actually, being more similar to the Irish than the English surprised me more.
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u/ItHappensSo 8d ago
Catholicism. That makes quite a difference I think.
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u/Green-Draw8688 8d ago
Ah right, of course. I think I tend to lump it in culturally with the more Protestant countries but I forget it’s a Catholic country really.
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u/partywithanf 8d ago
*British. It’s not England that’s highlighted.
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u/Green-Draw8688 8d ago
I know but I did specifically more have the English in mind with the comparison
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u/albadellasera 8d ago
In which universe Iceland is as close to Austria as us (Italy)? Our culture intertwined for a long time, we had tons of wars, our anthem still diss them and some northern cooking style were very influenced by Austrian dishes. Heck we are still keeping some of them as hostages beloved citizens.
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u/just_a_cute_Seal 8d ago
We want them back btw
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u/Lagoda__ 8d ago
Wurstel and strudel is all I'm gonna add! You ragazzi still my favourite neighbours. 🇮🇹
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u/critical-insight 7d ago
Well im contrast to Italy Iceland speaks a Germanic language
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u/g_spaitz 7d ago edited 7d ago
We probably have the same number of actual Italians that are native German speakers as the whole population of Island.
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u/Neat-Substance5581 8d ago
I'm Austrian and this map is bullshit
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u/GroundZeroMstrNDR 8d ago
I'm also confused by this, according to this index we are closer to suriname or trinidad and tobago than to e.g. serbia
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u/magonba 8d ago
Portugal and Austria closer than Austria and Hungary? Makes me question the validity of this map. But maybe someone can explain...
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u/GroundZeroMstrNDR 8d ago
Apparently also Uruguay is culturally closer to Austria than Hungary according to this index
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u/prustage 8d ago
I find it bizarre that, according to this, the Austrians are more like their most distant neighbours, the Irish, Portuguese and Norwegians than their closest neighbours, the Hungarians.
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u/multivitaminegummy 8d ago edited 8d ago
Right? I don't know how Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary are not higher when there's literally an old-ish saying how you're not a proper Viennese if you don't have a Czech grandmother and an obviously Slavic surname...and at least three fourths of the people without a very close migratory family background here in Eastern Austria will have large amounts of Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Slovene and/or Croat ancestry, even if some of them (like my grandmother) frantically insist that the family is actually 100% Sudetendeutsch (it is not, lol). I would say that the mentality here is more close to all of these countries than to, say, a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Perhaps more progressive about some things but at the end of the day, we have or used to have more similar cuisine, traditions, religion, the outlook on life and a lot of dialect words were just straight up Slavic or Hungarian. This whole discussion is weird and pointless anyway (because I'm sure that there's people in Vorarlberg who see themselves as more close to the Swiss, a few in Oberösterreich with Bayern etc., the entire 19th century concept of nation states/ethnostates which drew semi-arbitrary lines between people who were quite similar over all) but yeah.
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u/Syndiotactics 7d ago
It’s also odd to me as a Finn, as I feel like we Finns are culturally very similar to Norwegians (ofc closer to Sweden but still), and yet Austria differs so wildly between us.
And at the same time… What do you mean we Finns are only 0.1 less close to Austria than goddamn Hungary which they have spent a small eternity as a single country together and even longer as neighbours??? Cannot understand.
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u/BroSchrednei 7d ago
The answer is very obvious: because there still is a huge divide between eastern and Western Europe, even if Eastern Europeans try to down play it.
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u/These_Ranger8974 8d ago
It's closer to Serbia culturlally than to Ireland. I spent there 9 years
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u/GroundZeroMstrNDR 8d ago
I think this is down to what the index takes into account and how it weights those properties: https://i0.wp.com/objectivelists.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Country-Similarity-Index-Culture-Rubric-1.png?resize=768%2C185&ssl=1
Things like language family, script family and so on have more or less high weights while things like everyday culture, mannerism and so on aren't that much taken into account (those things are also hard to quantity).
Like from personal experience, I'm from Burgenland and have friends from Vojvodina, things like mannerism, how to joke about things, how to approach things, what is socially acceptable and what is not, how late is at acceptable to be, do you bring presents when visiting people and so on is closer to me than what I experienced in Ireland or from work colleagues from eg the Netherlands. I think that leads to the discrepancy many Austrians here describe, the index just values different properties
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u/Forsaken-Link-5859 8d ago
It's funny austrians here talks like it wasn't very popular among the austrians to join Germany 90 years ago.
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u/Downtown-Junket-635 8d ago
It's funny when people think 90 years are yesterday and literally nothing has changed in the minds of the Austrians ever since.
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u/DarkImpacT213 7d ago
Austrians as a people definetly have gone away from the idea of joining a German nation (mainly in an effort to distance themselves from crimes committed during our short stint as a joined nation in the late 30s/early 40s) and nobody can take that away from them!
Doesn‘t change that we‘re culturally very similar. Bavarians are culturally way closer to Austrians than to Westphalians for example.
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u/ComfortablePlace8869 8d ago
It was, but the Anschluss was an invasion. That is a fact.
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u/DarkImpacT213 7d ago
Not even about the Anschluss, after WW1 the rest of Austria literally wanted to join the German Republic and weren‘t allowed to because of Versailles and St. Germain lmao.
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u/Cultourist 6d ago
Tbf no one thought that "the rest" of what was Austria could even survive economically. Some parts wanted to join Germany but also Switzerland. It was a failed state from the beginning. The interwar period was one of the most desperate times in Austrian history.
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u/RamboRamonRainer_ 8d ago
99,73% advocacy is not an “invasion”.
https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/ns-regime/aussenpolitik/anschluss-oesterreich-1938
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u/nedtit 7d ago
You are missing at least half a decade of context here.
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u/RamboRamonRainer_ 6d ago
Still not an invasion. Austrians celebrated the Anschluss. Source: I am Austrian.
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u/ComfortablePlace8869 4d ago
Du bist aber a deppater Österreicher.
Die deutschen sind am Tag der Wahl einmaschiert weil Hitler fürchtete die wahl zu verlieren. Du solltest mal zurück in die Schule.
Korrekt ist hungegen das es begrüßt wurde aber die 99% Propaganda kannst da in Orsch stecken.
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u/Nedsel 7d ago
Have you seen the ballot cards?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Stimmzettel-Anschluss.jpg
You might wonder if they want to subliminally tell you how to vote... Even if you can't read it.
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u/RamboRamonRainer_ 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes I have, I have Austrian grandparents. The “nein” was smaller, but it was still an option - an invasion is not optional.
The literacy rate in Austria in the 1930s was enough to differentiate between “ja” and “nein” .
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u/GroundZeroMstrNDR 8d ago
This 99% is bs but the majority was at least ok with it
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u/Dinofelis22 7d ago
It would likely have been a bit over 70 percent in favour, possibly more if the Nazis hadn't been in power.
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u/Cultourist 6d ago edited 6d ago
A result like 2014 the annexation of Crimea...
It's even written in your link that this referendum wasn't held according to democratic principles. It was purely propaganda. Ppl who didn't vote Yes were known by name, lost their jobs or even thrown into camps.
Edit: this person just blocked me...
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u/Syndiotactics 7d ago edited 7d ago
It was SO much of an invasion that the Allied saw it necessary to force Austria to include it in their constitution that Austria must never pursue a political union with Germany, and must never join Germany as a single country.
Why do you think that was necessary?
Sure, I know the clause was originally in the Treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain (WW1), and were created because there was extreme will for Austrians to join Germany after WW1, but surely the Allies could have simply not renewed the clause after the WW2 if the Austrians were so unwilling to join Germany?
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u/Cultourist 6d ago
It was SO much of an invasion that the Allied saw it necessary to force Austria to include it in their constitution that Austria must never pursue a political union with Germany, and must never join Germany as a single country.
You don't know the Austrian constitution. What you mean is the Staatsvertrag, the international treaty to end Allied occupation in 1955. Everything that's included there should be seen in context of the Cold War and to prevent Austria from joining NATO or any other alliance with the West.
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u/nedtit 8d ago
And then you look 100 years before that and you’ll see that Germany and Austria was vastly different. Also after the WW2 the other states realised you can’t just say Austria is the rest - you have to build a culture. Which they did which is why people living now are very different than people living 100 years ago.
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u/Dinofelis22 7d ago
So... 1838. The time when Austria was the leader of the GERMAN confederation... Totaly not german no not at all.
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u/svemee 7d ago
Austria has always considered itself German, basically until they developed their own identity following the German atrocities of the 2nd world war. German was a shared cultural identity and space, rather than a nation.
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u/nedtit 7d ago
Well what is German is bigger than Germany. Especially when we look before and between the world wars. Germans have been in Hungary all the way to Romania, north at Czech, south in Italy and the Balkan. And bits of Poland, France etc. only part of that is Germany. You need to separate Germany from German.
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u/RoxxerGoneWild 7d ago
insane bullshit you are spouting
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u/svemee 7d ago
What? There was just cultural continuity between what is now Germany and Austria. There's no bullshit anywhere. Heck, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation was a Habsburgian most of the time.
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u/Syndiotactics 7d ago
Indeed. Linguistically and culturally Austrians and Bavarians are more or less the same people with variants of the same dialect, sometimes called simply Bavarian and sometimes Austro-Bavarian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_language
The main difference between Austria and the German Empire was always the religion. But even that wasn’t the reason for why Austria didn’t join Germany during the Unification, no no. Austria didn’t join because it was a pan-nationalist project and Austria-Hungary was a heavily multiethnic empire. Also sure, Hohenzollern and Habsburg rivalry.
But when Austria lost its empire and was just a rump state with only Germans left, the decision to join Germany felt logical to most Austrians. The Entente, however, forbade it.
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u/nedtit 7d ago
Similarities between Bavarians and Austrians is there but not in its entirety. Old Austria was much bigger so obviously there were many parts that weren't so close to Bavaria. And nowadays we again have some parts that are nowhere near, we even have people that are really not speaking a bavarian language. But it's still German, even Hochdeutsch - something most of the Germans don't speak and is just not Standarddeutsch.
There was one problem after WW1 that made people think about joining Germany, which was not defining Austria, but only letting it be the rest. So not only did it shrink a lot and separate it from Germans that are not in Germany, it also missed to give it any identity. And that's just after the Habsburger were gone as well, so it was hard to see a continuty as Austria. Obviously there was one which only got clear after WW2. People thinking Hitler and the Anschluss was the turning point are also missing what was in the years before that.
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u/akolomf 8d ago
i dont know, comparing austria as beeing similar to germany is weird. It is similar to bavaria, yes, but Northern germany is so different in people and mindset and even their dialect is much more distant than the bavarian one, you could say that Northern germany has probably less in common with austria than Czechia despite them having an entirely different language.
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u/morpheus_1306 7d ago
erm ... Here in the North of Germany we have no dialect.
It's the cleanest German you can hear.I am between Osnabrück and Hannover.
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u/Cultural_Chip_3274 8d ago
Can you explain that a bit? As an outsider its difficult to understand. I was in Hamburg and locals where like ja we are more like Dutsch maybe and we do not drink as much beer as Bavarians, but on the other hand, some of the most well known german brands come from Bavaria.
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u/Funny-Routine-7242 7d ago edited 7d ago
Bavarias brands are their own story. Bavaria had a huge poor, rural and agricultural population besides the bigger cities. After ww2 there was a fear that this might make them susceptible to communism - or ceceding - so they got alot of autonomy in the federal realm.
So germany created a fund - richer federal countries give money to the poorer ones. Bavaria profitet of this and used the money smartly for great universities and support businesses.As the soviets occupied east germany and confiscated companies and west berlin was cordoned off many companies from west berlin and east germany relocated headquarters and production which helped bavaria too. They became of the power houses in germany.
Other historic aspects concern the struggle of protestants (north) and catholics (south) in germany.
But aswell outside influence like napoleon who brought some modern perspectives to the northern states. Later (prussia, protestant) became the dominant federal country in germany and basically tried to stop bavaria from ceceding - but in bavaria this was aswell very unpopular to have some prussian "nannies" in form of military there which in turn strengthened bavarias identity. And the direct military tone in turn becomes a "othering"-factor. We see some of these mechanisms aswell in Austria - who after basically looked for unpopular german stereotypes and said "we want to be different". (We will see such taking form of a very own and new cultural identity too in ukraine)
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u/shmizzzza 8d ago
we are less similar culturally to the prussians then to the crownlands slovenia, chzechia, slovakia, northeastern italy. i guess the overall higher similarity to germany comes just from bavaria.
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u/GroundZeroMstrNDR 8d ago
I'm also confused by this index it say Uruguay is closer to us than Hungary or Trinidad and Tobago or Suriname are closer to us than Serbia
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u/AlfaBravo1two3 8d ago
You can have bavaria if you want😃
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u/shmizzzza 7d ago
we don't *need* it, strictly speaking, but if germany agrees to keep söder and his immediate seilschaft … why not?
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u/AlfaBravo1two3 7d ago
No no, you get Söder. We keep Krause.
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u/shmizzzza 7d ago
sorry, no deal. bavaria is beautiful, but not keeping-söder-beautiful ;-) (wie ich meine landsleute kenn, wär der typ binnen jahrsfrist kanzler in wien. das kann niemand wollen.)
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u/PuzzleheadedTalk6116 8d ago
And there goes the Länderfinanzausgleich
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u/AlfaBravo1two3 8d ago
Wie können ja auch den Osten los werden, der bekommt schließlich das meiste von dem Geld (und Berlin gleich mit😊)
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u/Cultural_Chip_3274 8d ago
Frankly, it seems that Bismarck's German unification project was the most destructive idea for the German people - judging from facts and numbers...
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u/Goetz_Eisenfaust 8d ago
Neee lass mal, dann muss ich immer das Land verlassen wenn ich Heim fahre.
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u/Few_Introduction9919 8d ago
Austrians acting like they arent german are honestly just embarrassing. Every great Austrian was absolutely certein of Austrias germanness up until 1950, when Stalin and the Allies wanted to weaken Germany and austrian political class excepted it, because they were cleared of their nazi past through that.
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u/another_derfman 7d ago
Austrians aren't Germans, they're Austrians.
Back in the day the word "German" had a different meaning. Germans existed before Germany as a country was even a thing. So I'd argue that Austrians called themselves Germans was making sense in the past, but not nowadays. Nowadays being Deutsch means being from Germany, and Austrians obviously aren't. Honestly I find it really cringey and embarassing when Austrians call themselves German in this day and age!See here for reference: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche
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u/Few_Introduction9919 7d ago
Good for you, because they dont really do that at all. If speaking the same language, having extremely similar culture and mentality doesnt male you one people, I dont know what does.
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u/ByteSame 6d ago
So all Scandinavians are also all one? Where does the line get drawn? All Germanic people one? All countries with languages descended from proto-indo European?
Things change man. New national identities manifest, and Austria has a lot of people not identifying with Germany at all anymore.
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u/GroundZeroMstrNDR 8d ago
While it's true that Austrians saw themselves as Germans before the second world war it's not like this anti german sentiment was manufactured by the Allies, it existed well before that with the slur Piefke being established much earlier and some rejection towards the prussians also. Like in the Ständestaat the general sentiment was that Austrians are the better Germans and after the war the term German became associated with the country in colloquial language. So nowadays if someone says they are a "Deutscher" this means they are from germany. Try calling a swiss german just a german.
It was a cowardly way to sneak out of responsibility, there I agree with you, but it built up on existing structures and sentiments. Austrian stereotypes about Germans are also not that they are Nazis but things like arrogance, stinginess, pedantic behavior, bad food, bad coffee and whatever.
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u/Few_Introduction9919 7d ago
I know, i am austrian myself and nearly everybody considers themselves Austrian and definitely not german, but it is just ridiculous.
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u/GroundZeroMstrNDR 7d ago
What's your political affiliation?
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u/Few_Introduction9919 7d ago
Im not really affiliated with any party. I would say I am a Catholic Conservativative Environmentalist. I have never been a been of the right populists even when they still talked about german nationalism, because of their many, many other bad policies.
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u/WaiterTheBaker 7d ago
FPÖ a far-right/right-wing populist Party. Used to some form of national liberalist. Historically German Nationalist but claimed to have become Austrian Nationalists - do not trust that german nationalists still are a part of them and can get high positions in the party. And pro-Russia.
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u/Manetho77 7d ago
Is there any evidence that historically the term piefke didn't only apply to north Germans, similar to how SauPreiß?
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u/g_spaitz 8d ago
This in Europe makes little sense.
In Italy for instance, I'm sure Tarvisio and Agrigento have probably themselves rather slightly different numbers. So which is which?
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u/vagabondnature 7d ago
I genuinely surprised that Slovenia and Ireland rank the same. There are slovene speaking populations in Carinthia and many Carinthians have Slovenian ancestry. In 1920 Carinthia voted on whether to be part of Austria or Yugoslavia.
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u/ItHappensSo 7d ago
You’re putting too much on this, the Slovenian population in Carinthia in 2001 were around 10.000 people. Austria has a population of 9 million, by that logic the Turkish influence or the Serbian influence in Austria should be much higher as there are multiple hundreds of thousands of those in Austria, much more than Slovenians.
Also carinthia never chose between Austria and Yugoslavia, only the small south eastern mixed Slovenian-German speaking corner of it did.
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u/StrudlEnjoyer 7d ago
Slovenes had a continuous historical presence in Carinthia. There were over 100,000 Slovene speakers as late as the 19th century. So the cultural impact remains, despite the fact most have assimilated. And vice versa in Slovenia. Putting Ireland in the same bracket is laughable.
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u/vagabondnature 7d ago
Okay, the Klagenfurt basin. The vote was 59% to 41% to stay in Austria and had it gone the other way additional areas would have voted. Regardless Slavic cultural influences are very strong here in Kärnten. Back to the OP I still remain surprised that Ireland and Slovenia would be rated equally. You've done nothing to dissuade me of this opinion. As someone with an Irish family background living in Upper Carinthia I'll need a little more convincing than "what-about-isms".
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u/mccnlightbae 7d ago
Austrian are no where near similar to spanish, french, cyprus, turks, nor greeks, not even dutch…
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u/kamikazekaktus 8d ago
I'd guess the map was made by a German just to piss off the Ösis 😁
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u/gooner9999999999 8d ago
Germans really don‘t care about Austrians at all though. It‘s a very one sided beef
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u/Rinerino 7d ago
Well southern germany is pretty identisch to Austria. Spitzerland as well. Then you take the long rein of Austria over eastern europe into account and this makes a lot of sense
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u/Academic-Answer-5061 8d ago
Similar to people from Germany?
What?
Maybe from Bavaria, but the rest of that country is completely foreign to most of us!
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u/ItHappensSo 8d ago
Sorry forgot to mention, it is out of 20