Austro-Hungarian+Empire

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was originally formed in 1867 and then fell in 1918, as a result of the end of World War I. It spanned a total of around 700,000 square kilometers at its peak, and housed over 52.8 million people as of 1914. During it's existence, it was a huge empire, taking up a lot of Europe. The people in the area consisted of Germans, Hungarians, Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, Slovak, Slovene, Croatians, Serbs, Italians and Romanians. This is a diverse group, and it makes scene as it covered up parts of almost ever one of the countries listed above. Austro-Hungary, aka the Dual Monarchy,was originally formed in a compromise between Vienna and Budapest. During the early years and creation of the empire, Franz Joseph was the Emperor, up until 1889, when Franz Ferdinand inherited the throne. This was the guy that was later murdered to trigger WWI, but that happens later in his ruling. The empire itself was actually divided into two provinces, each separately ruled and with a different parliament and everything, which was why it got stuck with the nickname "The Dual Monarchy". These two places where Austria and Hungry,along with a few others, hence the name. The one thing that was combined out of the two groups was the military though, and this showed to be one of the main powers in world war one. Economically, the Empire was thriving at the time of WWI, because of the mass production of weapon led to profits on their part. The east of the Empire was also a big agriculture area, which also brought in some large quantities of money.Another reason for the increased profits was the updated railroad systems being built by the imperial army at the time. This allowed better transportation of goods, increasing profit. The fall of the empire happens relatively quickly in 1914-1918, as the murder of Franz Ferdinand was assassinated to trigger WWI and the war was rapped up soon later, which led to the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire.