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Hardegg () is a town in the district of Hollabrunn in Lower Austria, Austria. It is situated in the Waldviertel region on the river Thaya, directly on the border with the Czech Republic. The Thaya valley is protected as the Thayatal National Park, adjacent to the Podyjí National Park on the Czech shore.
Since 1975 the municipality comprises the Katastralgemeinden of Hardegg, Felling, Heufurth, Mallersbach, Merkersdorf, Niederfladnitz, Pleissing, Riegersburg, Umlauf (unpopulated, is entirely located within the Thayatal national park and comprises a mere 12 fishermen's huts), and Waschbach. Hardegg is often referred to as "Austria's smallest city": for historical reasons, the municipality has city status (), but Hardegg proper only has 78 inhabitants.
Emperor Maximilian I granted Hardegg to his ministerialis of the Prueschenk noble family and elevated them to immediate Counts of Hardegg in 1499. Two years later Count Ulrich purchased the Bohemian County of Kladsko from the Dukes of Münsterberg. From the Thirty Years' War onwards the castle decayed, until it was acquired by the Khevenhüller dynasty and rebuilt in the late 19th century according to plans designed by Carl Gangolf Kayser. After World War II until the fall of the Iron Curtain, Hardegg was particularly isolated. The only connection to the Czech Republic is via a bridge built in 1874 across the Thaya to the neighbouring village of Čížov (part of the Horní Břečkov municipality) in Moravia.
In 2001 there were 56 non-agricultural businesses, according to a 1999 census there were 108 farmsteads and silviculture businesses. In 2001 the number of economically active persons was 597, the employment ratio was at 40.8%. In Riegerburg there is a former coal mine and Felling is the seat of RM Austria – Perlmuttdesign, Austria's last mother of pearl turnery. In Mallersbach and Niederfladnitz, kaolinite was mined. After the seasonal opening of the Thaya bridge border crossing from Hardegg to Čížov on 12 April 1990, the crossing point was opened hourly throughout the year for pedestrians, cyclists and on 9 May 2006. In July the crossing Felling to Podmyče was opened to pedestrians and cyclists. After the expansion of the European Union's Schengen Area, the border may now be crossed anywhere at any time and formal checkpoints are obsolete.
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