Burgenland Croats
Burgenland Croats (Croatian: Gradišćanski Hrvati, German: Burgenlandkroaten, Hungarian: Burgenlandi horvátok, Slovak: Burgendlandskí Chorváti) is the name for ethnic Croats in the Austrian state of Burgenland, along with Croats in neighboring Hungary and Slovakia.
There are around 320,000 Croats that live in Austria. 87,000 to 130,000 of them are Burgenland Croats. Another 56,785 have Croatian citizenship.
Since 1993, Croatian organizations are appointing their representatives to the Council for National Minorities of the Austrian government.
Burgenland Croats began to emigrate from Lika, Krbava, Kordun, Banovina, Moslavina and Western Bosnia. These areas were occupied by the Turks in the 16th century during the Turkish wars (1533-1584). The refugee Croats were given land and independent ecclesiastical rights by the Ferdinand I, because many of their villages had been pillaged by the Turks. This gave the Croats a safe place to live while providing Austria with a buffer zone between Vienna and the Ottoman Empire to the south and east.