Slovenian Istria

Slovene Istria ( sl, slovenska Istra, it, Istria slovena) 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 ( sl, Slovenska obala) is located in Slovene Istria; both terms are sometimes used interchangeably, especially in the media, although Slovene Istria includes a wider geographical area.

History

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