Slovene Istria

Medieval centre of Piran.

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.

Fortified Holy Trinity Church in Hrastovlje

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–Dalmatian 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–Dalmatian 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.

The 43 kilometers long coastline of Slovenian Istria has numerous peninsulas and bays such as Piran peninsula and Gulf of Piran, Gulf of Koper and Ankaran peninsula on which is at the same time one of only two nature reserves on Slovenian coast, the other one being the Strunjan reserve.[2] In the Strunjan reserve lies the only coastal cliff in Slovenia which is at the same time the only cliff in Trieste Bay. The inner part of the region is more hilly, with various types of landscape, including the most known karst landscape in the Karst region.

The most important water-flows in Slovenian Istria are the Dragonja and Rižana rivers.

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  Koper
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  Izola
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  Piran
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  Portorož

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  Rural landscape in Slovenian Istria
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  Sečovlje Saltworks
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  Moon Bay, Strunjan
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  Debeli Rtič Peninsula and Ankaran
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  A cruise ship in Koper harbour

Slovenian Istria is the second most prosperous region in Slovenia after Central Slovenia. The two most important economic branches are transport and tourism, followed by services and industry.

The Port of Koper is the only international port in Slovenia and one of the largest in the Adriatic Sea. It is considered as one of the strategically most important firms in Slovenian economy.

A multilingual sign in Slovene and Italian (also partly in Croatian) near Koper.

In the Slovenian Riviera and some villages in the interior, both Slovene and Italian are official languages.[3] In the rest of Slovenian Istria, comprising most of its rural area, only Slovene is recognized as official language.

According to the 2002 census, Slovene is spoken as the first language by 70.2% of the inhabitants of Slovenian Istria, Italian by 3.3%, and various forms of Serbo-Croatian, dominated by Croatian, by 16% of the population. The highest percentage of Italian speakers is in the municipality of Piran (7%), while the highest percentage of Croatian speakers is in Izola (31%). General population polls have shown that the majority of the population in Slovenian Istria is conversational in several languages: Slovene, Italian, Croatian and English, all of which have at least some degree of presence in press, administration, business and popular culture.

• Mladinsko zdravilišče Debeli rtič

45°33′9.09″N 13°54′11.51″E