Austria has granted citizenship to 4,285 people in the first half of 2016, marking a 7.7 percent year-over-year increase in naturalization, Statistics Austria revealed on Wednesday.

The statistics office said in a press release that 35.8 percent of the total were born in Austria. More than half (54.4 percent) were women, while persons aged under 18 made up 37.4 percent of the total.

The most commonly-held previous citizenships for the new Austrians were those of Bosnia and Herzegovina (647 persons), Turkey (464 persons), and Serbia (368 persons).

Source : XINHUA