Cross-border Contacts between the Czech Republic and Austria: An Assessment of the Border regions, Northern Austria and South Bohemia

Since the physical barriers between the Czech Republic and Austria no longer exist and cross-border cooperation was promoted by policy programmes, the article takes stock of the cross-border contacts of people in the border region and explores factors which foster or hinder cross-border contacts in the bor-der regions of South Bohemia and Northern Austria. The empirical study uses data from the intercultural European Union project “RegioTalent”. In order to get an in depth-view, quantitative results from 1018 telephone interviews and 58 semi-structured face-to-face interviews are combined. Empirical findings on typical “patterns of contact” are related to explanations in the literature on cross-cultural standards.