Danube-Auen National Park Danube-Auen National Park Donau-Auen National Park () covers 93 square kilometres in Vienna and Lower Austria and is one of the largest remaining floodplains of the Danube in Middle Europe. The German word Aue (variant Au) means "river island, wetland, floodplain, riparian woodland", i.e. a cultivated landscape in a riparian zone. The words Aue and Au occur in a large number of German place names—including Donau, the German word for the Danube River—and refer to forests, meadows, and wetlands in river and stream lowlands and floodplains. The Danube-Auen National Park protects a large area of lowland forests, meadows, wetlands, and
Danube Swabians Danube Swabians The Danube Swabians () is a collective term for the German-speaking population who lived in various countries of southeastern Europe, especially in the Danube River valley. Most were descended from 18th-century immigrants recruited as colonists to repopulate the area after the expulsion of the Ottoman Empire. The Danube Swabians are the most recently formed distinct line of ethnic German people. They are made up of ethnic Germans from many former and present-day countries: Germans of Hungary; Satu Mare Swabians; the Banat Swabians; and the Vojvodina Germans in Serbia's Vojvodina, and Croatia's Slavonia (especially in the Osijek region). They