Schönau im Mühlkreis is önauimMüa municipality in the district of Freistadt in Upper Austria, Austria. As of January 2013, the village has 1899 inhabitants.
Geography
Schönau im Mühlkreis lies at 635 m above sea level in the Mühlviertel area of Upper Austria. The community runs 9.7 km from north to south, and 8.5 km from east to west, encompassing a total area of 38.6 km². Forests cover 17.4% of the community, while 19.7% of it is used for agriculture. Schönau is a relatively large community, area-wise, and is bordered in the north by the river Waldaist, and in the south by the lesser river Naarn.
Districts
Neighboring communities
History
Schönau was founded by the House von Perg und Machland, and is first found in written records from around 1230. The parish church, whose patron saint is James, son of Zebedee (James the Elder), is likewise first mentioned in historical records from 1230. During the Middle Ages, the town was a stopping point for pilgrims from Poland following the Way of St. James, on their way to Santiago de Compostella in Spain.
The Thirty Years' War and the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna both spared Schönau, which remained relatively untouched. In 1536 the Protestant Hilleprant Jörger bought the Prandegg Castle from Regensburg. The Jörger family made Schönau a base for the new religion, but with the Counter-Reformation of the mid-1500s, Schönau became a majority Catholic community once again. From 1660 to 1730, the town was the site of several witch trials. Until 1848 the community was part of other surrounding entities, including the domaines of Prandegg, Zellhof Castle, Schwertberg and Ruttenstein.
Following administrative changes in 1848, Schönau became its own self-governing community. Since 1918 the village has belonged to the nation of Austria. The village released its own emergency currency in 1920, to help lessen the economic hardship of the area, following the end of World War I.
The day after the Anschluss on March 12, 1938 (in which Germany annexed Austria into the German Reich), Schönau was incorporated into the Reichsgau Oberdonau (Gau Oberdonau). Following the end of World War II in 1945, the town lay in the Soviet Occupation zone. Until the end of 2002, the town belonged to the judicial district of Unterweißenbach, but beginning 1 January 2003, it now lies within the judicial district of Pregarten.
Population
Development and structure
By 1869, 1667 people lived in the village. Until 1971 the population fluctuated roughly around this point, and did not change much. In 1991 the community contained 1823 residents, though according to the 2001 census, only 1818 people were located within the village, representing a 0.3% decrease. On 1 January 2008 the community contained 1885 residents, which was the highest number of residents in the history of the town. The population also experienced a positive change following the building of new construction. Through the continual improvement of the roads, Schönau has become more and more easily reached by Linz: it is now possible to reach the northern entrance of the city in half an hour.
As determined by the 2001 census, the proportion of residents who were 60 years or older was 18.3%. Of the residents, 20.6% were under the age of 15. The proportion of the population that is female was 49.8%.
Of the 1443 inhabitants of Schönau who were over 15 years old in 2001, 1.9% completed university, Fachhochschule, or study at an Academy. A further 5.4% had completed a Matura (the Austrian equivalent of the Abitur), while 46% had attended an Apprenticeship or berufsbildende mittlere Schule (a kind of vocational training program). Another 46.6% of all Schönau residents had completed only the minimum level required by the compulsory education laws of Austria.
Origin and language
The German dialect spoken in Schönau, as well as all over Austria, is the Central Bavarian dialect of the larger Bavarian language. As of 2001, 99.7% of Schönau residents listed the German language as the language they speak natively. A further 0.1% spoke mainly Czech, with a handful of others speaking yet other languages.
The percentage of Schönau residents coming from other countries (as of 2001) was 0.9%, far below the average for Upper Austria. Roughly 0.1% of Schönau residents come from Bosnia-Herzegovina, 0.4% are from Germany, with the rest coming from other nations. Overall, about 0.8% of Schönau residents, as of 2001, were born in other countries.