Austria VS Australia: Don’t Make the Classic Tourist Mistake!

A post circulated online in October 2023, claiming that the Salzburg Airport in Austria had set up a desk for travelers who mistakenly ended up in Austria while they intended to travel to Australia.

This hilarious post went viral, as expected, and we briefly all believed it, simply because we had experienced the naming confusion first hand in the last decades.

The Salzburg airport debunked the post eventually on Facebook, explaining that it was a brilliant advertisement campaign with the slogan “Austria not Australia”!

Yet, that made me think back to all the instances that I, as an Austrian, had to explain to people that Austria and Australia were not the same place.

Why are Austria and Australia not the same?

Austria is that small landlocked country in Central Europe, sandwiched between Germany and Italy. Cows, mountains and green pastures dominate the landscape here.

Australia, on the other hand, is the continent and country down under, known for kangaroos, boomerangs, and the outback.

They, Austria and Australia, have both similar names, but they have literally nothing else in common. The people are different, the language is different, one is cold and the other it hot.

We Austrians yodel, and Down Under they hop. Australia is the big one and Austria is the tiny speck in the center.

Name Origins

Austria is called Österreich in Austrian-German, which translates to Eastern empire. This is because the country was a multicultural empire until WWI.

The English name “Austria” may have been derived over the ages from ancient old high German ostar, equivalent to the old Norse austr, which just means east, and the native ancient Celtic Norig name (Nor is East and -ig means realm). Noricum was the territory in the eastern alps (see source Holy Roman Empire by Friedrich Heer).

The name Australia comes from the Latin, australis meaning southern. When Australia was colonized, it was called by the Europeans Terra Australis (southern lands), which then became New Holland (the Dutch had a hand in it) and then the more recognizable Australia.

Funny Austria VS Australia Situations

As an Austrian, I can tell you, that this country naming mix-up has resulted in some funny situations.

Here are the most hilarious situations that I encountered:

• Whenever I say I'm from Austria, people talk about kangaroos and the heat. That's why I say I'm from Europe whenever I'm abroad. (We are at fault, that Americans call us, collectively, Europeans)
• Australian skiing instructors are common in Austria, and learners from around the world think they are natives.
• Post cards and parcels that are sent to Australia and that were meant to go to Austria are a common occurrence. That is why we need to add EUROPE in caps to the address.