Since 1945, at least 500,000 Austrians have emigrated and remained abroad. The actual figures for Austrians who have temporarily or permanently emigrated may be much higher. Approximately 1.2 million of these people have become permanent residents of Austria. This study of Hungary's Transcarpathian frontier with Ukraine and the Austrian province of Burgenland along the Hungarian border took a comparative look at the perceptions of frontiers in two regions. It is important to distinguish between social borders and state frontiers in this context.
Social borders start where social relationships end.
State frontiers delineate not only a territory but also are an expression of a political regime which, contingent upon its ideology, aspires to exercise varying degrees of social control within their limits. During the interwar period, the new national frontiers between Hungary and Czechoslovakia, on one hand, and Austria and Hungary, on the other, only hindered well-established social relationships that antedated the frontiers. However, the fall of the Iron Curtain made state frontiers coextensive with social borders. In other words, Communist regimes severed social relationships with barbed wire. However, the dimensions of the heritage of division cannot be overlooked.