The peopled who live there

The people of Austria are almost entirely German, and speak the German language. They are mostly of the Roman Catholic religion. About a third of them live in cities (most of these in Vienna). The people in each district of Austria have their own local costumes and customs, and there are several different dialects spoken in different parts of the country. In some places the people are lively and gay; in other districts they are more quiet and serious. Some are tall and blonde, others are thin and dark.

The farmer in the Tyrol, which is a district in the Alps, usually wears coarse woolen clothes, and his wife wears a long dress covered by a clean apron. However, on Sundays and holidays she looks particularly colorful with a silk apron, a colored kerchief over her shoulders, and a stiff hat with gold braid and tassels, with long satin or velvet ribbons hanging down her back. In other districts, the costume varies, but it is always bright and charming, though very different from the holiday clothes of people in the United States. The people living in large cities like Vienna, the capital, look more like the people in any large city in the world. Once Vienna was said to be the happiest city on earth. The people went to the theater and to many dances. Vienna was called "the city of the waltz." Now it is much poorer, and the people do not live nearly as well. Their clothes are shabby, and many of their beautiful buildings are in ruins since World War II. This has made the people serious and even pessimistic, and there is little of the gaiety of fifty years ago.