The coat-of-arms consists of a blue escutcheon surmounted by a golden crenellated wall with three visible merlons. Within the escutcheon are five golden eagles, two pairs facing each other and one facing left.

Origins of the coat-of-arms: The coat-of-arms with the five eagles is first documented around 1335 as the heraldic device of the Babenberg Duke Leopold III (later canonised). Rudolph IV adopted it as the coat-of-arms of "Old Austria" alongside the traditional escutcheon of "New Austria". The humanists traced it back to classical antiquity. From 1805 onwards it served as the sole coat-of-arms of the Archduchy Beneath the Enns, the old term for Lower Austria.

Area: 19,174 square kilometres (7,401 square miles).

Population: 1.52 million.

Climate information is here.

Capital: St. Pölten

Patron Saint: Saint Leopold (the Babenberg Duke Leopold III, born 1073, died 1136).

Saint's Day: November 15

Anthem: The words of the Lower Austrian anthem "O Heimat, dich zu lieben" are by Franz Karl Ginzkey, the melody by Beethoven.

History: When the Babenbergs were invested with Austria as a fief in 976, the area that passed into their hands comprised parts of modern-day Lower Austria, notably the Danube Valley. During the reign of Leopold III its territory was further enlarged. Around the middle of the eleventh century its northern and eastern borders were defined. In 1156, when Austria was made a Duchy, the Babenbergs ruled over a land that roughly corresponded to modern-day Lower Austria, except for the south of the province which was added (at the expense of Styria) during the reign of Ottokar II Premysl. In 1919 minor adjustments were made to the northern border, with small areas of land ceded to what was then Czechoslovakia. Lower Austria acquired its own capital, St. Pölten, in 1986.

The server of the Federal Province of Lower Austria is here

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