Upper Austria is one of the nine states or Länder of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg. With an area of 11,982 km2 (4,626 sq mi) and 1.49 million inhabitants, Upper Austria is the fourth-largest Austrian state by land area and the third-largest by population.

Bavarian, alternately Austro-Bavarian, is a major group of Upper German varieties spoken in the southeast of the German language area, including the German state of Bavaria, most of Austria and the Italian region of South Tyrol. Prior to 1945, Bavarian was also prevalent in parts of the southern Sudetenland and western Hungary. Bavarian is spoken by approximately 12 million people in an area of around 125,000 square kilometres (48,000 sq mi), making it the largest of all German dialects. In 2008, 45 percent of Bavarians claimed to use only dialect in everyday communication.