page_title: Slovene Istria
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Slovene Istria / History
caption_attribution_description: Piran (Panoramabild von der Stadtmauer) Vorne rechts: Sankt Georg (Sv. Jurij), Mitte hinten: San Clemente (Sv. Klementa); Mitte vorne: Tartini-Platz
context_page_description: Slovene Istria is a region in southwest Slovenia. It comprises the northern part of the Istrian peninsula, and it is part of the wider geographical-historical region known as the Slovene Littoral. Its largest urban center is Koper. Other large settlements are Izola, Piran, and Portorož. The entire region has around 120 settlements. In its coastal area, both Slovene and Italian are official languages.
  The Slovene Riviera is located in Slovene Istria; both terms are sometimes used interchangeably, especially in the media, although Slovene Istria includes a wider geographical area.
context_section_description: The Istrian peninsula was known to Romans as the terra magica. Its name is derived from the Histri, an Illyrian tribe whom the geographer Strabo stated lived in the region. Romans described them as pirates who were hard to conquer due to the difficulty of navigating their territory. After two military campaigns, Roman legions finally subdued them in 177 BC. Many remains of ancient harbours and settlements still remain today, mostly in Ankaran, Hrvatini, Izola, Koper, and Piran.
  With the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, Istria was conquered by the Goths and the Byzantines. At the end of the 6th century, Slavs arrived and built their first permanent settlement around AD 700. During Byzantine rule, the area was briefly ruled by the Avars. Istria was annexed by the Lombards in 751 and by the Avars in 774. It came under Frankish rule during the reign of Charlemagne, when his son Carloman conquered the peninsula in 789, and it was incorporated into the Carolingian March of Friuli.
  In 952 King Otto I of Germany ceded Istria together with the vast March of Verona and Aquileia to the Dukes of Bavaria. From 976 onward Verona was ruled by the Dukes of Carinthia, until in 1040 King Henry III established the separate March of Istria, which thereafter was successively controlled by various noble dynasties such as the Bavarian House of Andechs (temporarily ruling as the Dukes of Merania). In 1208/09 it fell to the Patriarchs of Aquileia, while large parts of the estates were held by the comital House of Gorizia.
  
  Starting in 1267 the Republic of Venice gradually annexed the Istrian coast, also aided by the strong presence of the native Romance-speaking communities; the region regained its overseas ties which were loosened by the barbarian invasions. The coastal area somewhat reflowered, but the Venetian government's enmity toward Austria and the Ottoman Empire limited relations with the hinterland. After Napoleon's triumph in Padania, the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797 gave most of the Venetian Republic and all of the peninsula to the Habsburgs. 
  Between 1805 and 1813, it was under French rule, first as part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, then as a province within the Illyrian Provinces. In 1813, it became part of the Austrian Empire, which unified the whole peninsula under a single administration with the capital in Pazin. In 1860, Istria became an autonomous province within the Austrian Littoral, with its own Provincial diet (Assembly). What is today Slovenian Istria was divided among the administrative district of Koper and Volosko: the former extended to the present-day municipalities of Koper, Izola and Piran, while the latter extended to the present-day municipality of Hrpelje-Kozina.
  After World War I, according to the peace Treaty of Rapallo, in 1920 Istria became part of Italy. Fascism and, later, Nazi occupation spoiled ethnic relations. After World War II, Istria was assigned to Yugoslavia. As a consequence, between 1945 and 1954, an estimated 350,000 ethnic Italians left the Slovenian Istria in the so-called Istrian exodus, together with several thousand Slovenes. Between 1947 and 1954, Slovenian Istria was divided between the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia and the Free Territory of Trieste. After the abolition of the Free Territory in 1954, the region became part of the People's Republic of Slovenia within Yugoslavia.
  Between the 1950s and 1970s, the region experienced profound changes. A significant portion of the rural population moved to the coastal towns, which remained semi-deserted after the Istrian Exodus. The local Italian population shrank in number. Many villages were depopulated, while the towns grew in number. Koper developed in an important portal town, and one of the major centres of Slovenian economy.
caption: View of the Medieval centre of Piran.
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