Duchess of Upper and Lower Silesia

Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia
Herzogtum Ober- und Niederschlesien Vévodství Horní a Dolní Slezsko
Kronland of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Empire, from 1867 Cisleithanian Kronland of Austria-Hungary
1742–1918
Flag Coat of arms
Austrian Silesia (shown in red) within Austria-Hungary until 1918
Capital		Troppau (Opava)
Languages		German, Polish, Czech
Government		Principality
History
•	Division of Silesia	1742
•	Part of Austrian Empire	1804
•	Crown land of    Cisleithania	1867
•	Disestablished	1918
Area
•	1910	5,147 km² (1,987 sq mi)
Population
•	1910 est.	756,949
Density		147.1 /km²  (380.9 /sq mi)
Preceded by Succeeded by Duchies of Silesia Province of Silesia Czech Silesia Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship
Today part of		Czech Republic  Poland

Austrian Silesia (German: Österreichisch Schlesien; Czech: Rakouské Slezsko; Polish: Śląsk Austriacki), officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia (German: Herzogtum Ober- und Niederschlesien; Czech: Vévodství Horní a Dolní Slezsko), was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Empire, from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary. It is largely coterminous with the present-day region of Czech Silesia, and was, historically, part of the larger Silesia region.

Austrian Silesia consisted of two territories, separated by the Moravian land strip of Moravská Ostrava between the Ostravice and Oder rivers.

The area east of the Ostravice around Cieszyn reached from the heights of the Western Carpathians (Silesian Beskids) in the south, where it bordered with the Kingdom of Hungary, along the Olza and upper Vistula rivers to the border with Prussian Silesia in the north. In the east the Biała river at Bielsko separated it from the Lesser Polish lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, incorporated into the Austrian Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria upon the First Partition of Poland in 1772.