Fucking Austria

Fucking is an Austrian village in Tarsdorf (Upper Austria) inhabited by some 106 people. The settlement is believed to have been founded in the 6th century AD by Focko, a Bavarian nobleman. The ending -ing is an old Germanic suffix indicating the people belonging to the root word to which it is attached, thus Fucking means: “(place of) Focko's people”.

Fucking is best known for the four traffic signs at its entrances, to which many English-speaking tourists flock to have their photograph taken beside. These signs however attract a terrifying type of criminal - British tourists armed with a sense of humour and a screwdriver, but more on that later...

It all started after World War II, when British and United States soldiers noticed the name and began traveling to the village to have their photos taken with the signs. The local residents - the Fuckingers - were bemused, as they had not previously been aware of their village's name's meaning in English.

The town's road signs were regularly stolen by souvenir-hunting vandals, costing 300 euros each to replace! This however was put to a stop in 2005, when the signs were upgraded to be theft-resistant: welded and secured in concrete. In 2009, the village installed surveillance cameras to deter tourists from continuing to attempt to steal the road signs.

Augustina Lindlbauer, the manager of a local guesthouse, said that the area had lakes, forests and vistas worth visiting, but there was an “obsession with Fucking”. She continued: “Just this morning I had to tell an English lady who stopped by that there were no F---ing postcards.”

The mayor of Tarsdorf said that tourists were still welcome, though the local police chief firmly stated: “we will not stand for the Fucking signs being removed. It may be very amusing for you British, but Fucking is simply Fucking to us. What is this big Fucking joke?”

There was a campaign launched in 2004 to change the village's name to “Fugging”, however it failed. A second was launched in late 2020 which finally succeeded.