Native name | ''Österreichisches Küstenland''''Litorale austriaco''''Avstrijsko primorje'' |
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Conventional long name | Austrian Littoral |
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Common name | Austrian Littoral |
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Continent | Europe |
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Region | Central Europe |
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Country | Italy, Slovenia, Austria |
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Era | Modern history |
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Status | subdivision of Austria-Hungary comprising the Imperial Free City of Trieste, the Margravate of Istria, and the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca |
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Empire | Austria-Hungary |
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Government type | Stadtholder |
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Year start | 1849 |
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Year end | 1919 |
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Event start | Spring of Nations |
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Date start | 4 March |
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Event end | Treaty of Saint-Germain |
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Date end | 10 September |
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P1 | Kingdom of Illyria |
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Flag p1 | CoA of Kingdom of Illyria.svg |
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S1 | Julian March |
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Flag s1 | Flag_of_Italy_(1861-1946).svg |
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Flag | } ---> |
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Flag type | flag |
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Image coat | Wappen Österreichisches Küstenland.png |
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Symbol | } ---> |
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Symbol type | coat of arms |
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Image map caption | Austrian Littoral within Cisleithanian Austria-Hungary |
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Image map2 | |
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Capital | Trieste |
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Common languages | Italian, Slovene, Croatian, German |
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Religion | Roman Catholic |
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Leader1 | Franz Joseph I |
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Leader2 | Karl I |
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Year leader1 | 1848 - 1916 |
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Year leader2 | 1916 - 1918 |
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Title leader | Emperor of Austria |
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Representative1 | Johann von Grimschitz |
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Representative2 | Franz Graf Wimpffen |
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Representative3 | Eduard von Bach |
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Representative4 | Alfred von Fries-Skene |
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Year representative1 | 1849 - 1850 |
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Year representative2 | 1850 - 1854 |
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Year representative3 | 1867 - 1868 |
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Year representative4 | 1915 - 1918 |
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Title representative | Statthalter of Trieste |
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Legislature | |
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House1 | Landtag |
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Type house1 | |
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House2 | |
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Type house2 | |
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Stat year1 | 1880 |
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Stat area1 | 7967 |
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Stat pop1 | 648000 |
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Stat year2 | 1910 |
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Stat area2 | 7967 |
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Stat pop2 | 894287 |
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Footnotes | }} |
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The
Austrian Littoral (, , , , ) was established as a
crown land (''Kronland'') of the
Austrian Empire in 1849. In 1861 it was divided into the three crown lands of the
Imperial Free City of Trieste and its suburbs, the
Margraviate of Istria, and the
Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, which each had separate administrations and
Landtag assemblies, but were all subject to a ''
k.k.''
statholder at
Trieste.
Trieste had strategic importance as Austria-Hungary's primary sea port and the coast of the Littoral was a resort destination, the Austrian Riviera. The region was a multi-national one with Italians, Slovenes, Croats, Germans, Friulians, and Istriots being the main ethnic groups. In 1910, it had an area of and a population of 894,287.
History
The territory of the medieval
Patriarchate of Aquileia had gradually been conquered by the
Republic of Venice (''
Domini di Terraferma'') until the early 15th century. In the east, the
Habsburg archdukes of
Austria, based on the
March of Carniola they held from 1335, had gained suzerainty over Istrian
Pazin in 1374 and the port of Trieste in 1382. They also purchased
Duino and
Rijeka (Fiume) on the northern
Adriatic coast in 1474, and inherited the
Friulian lands of the extinct
Counts of Görz in 1500. In 1511 Emperor
Maximilian I annexed the city of
Gradisca from Venice.
The Habsburgs however did little initially to consolidate or develop their holdings in the Littoral. The supremacy of ''La Serenissima'' in the Adriatic and the attention to the threat posed by an expanding
Ottoman Empire gave the Austrian archdukes little opportunity to enlarge their coastal possessions. Incorporated into the
Austrian Circle of the
Holy Roman Empire, Görz, Trieste and Istria remained separately administered and retained their
autonomy until into the 18th century.
Emperor Charles VI increased sea power of the Habsburg Monarchy by making peace with the Ottomans and declaring free shipping in the Adriatic. In 1719, Trieste and Fiume were made free ports. In 1730, administration of the Littoral was unified under the Intendancy in Trieste. However, in 1775, Emperor Joseph II divided the administration of the two main ports, assigning Trieste as the port for the Austrian "hereditary lands" and Fiume for the Kingdom of Hungary. Shortly after, Trieste was merged with the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca in the north.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Habsburg Monarchy gained Venetian lands in the Istrian Peninsula and the Quarnero (Kvarner) Islands as part of the Treaty of Campo Formio of 1797. However, these territories and all of the new Austrian Empire's Adriatic lands were soon lost to the French Empire's puppet state, the Kingdom of Italy by the Treaty of Pressburg of 1805. The 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn then transferred the area to the Illyrian Provinces which were directly ruled by France.
With
Napoleon's defeats, the Austrian Empire regained the region and, in 1813, all of the Littoral including Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca, all of Istria, the
Quarnero Islands, Fiume, and the hinterland of Fiume,
Civil Croatia, including
Karlstadt (Karlovac) became one administrative unit. From 1816, the Littoral was a part of the Austrian Empire's
Kingdom of Illyria. In 1822, Fiume and Civil Croatia were separated from the territory and ceded to the
Kingdom of Hungary (and in 1849 to
Croatia).
The Littoral was officially the Trieste (''Triest'') Province, one of two provinces (or ''gouvernements'') of the Kingdom, the other being Laibach (Ljubljana). It was subdivided into four districts (''kreis''): Gorizia (''Görz''; including Gorizia and the Julian March), Istria (''Istrien''; Eastern Istria and the Quarnero Islands), Trieste (''Triest''; the Trieste hinterland and Western Istria), and Trieste city (''Triester Stadtgebiet'').
Around 1825, the Littoral was reorganized into only two subdivisions: Istria with its capital at Mitterburg (Pisino/Pazin) and Gorizia with Trieste and its immediate surroundings under the direct control of the crown and separate from the local administrative structure.
In 1849, the Kingdom of Illyria was dissolved and the Littoral became a separate crown land with a governor in Trieste. It was formally divided into the Margravate of Istria and the Princely County (''Gefürstete Grafschaft'') of Gorizia and Gradisca with Trieste remaining separate from both.
By the 1861 February Patent, Gorizia and Gradisca and Istria became administratively separate entities and, in 1867, Trieste received separate status as well.
Following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the Littoral fell within Italy's newly expanded borders as part of the Julian March. An area of similar extent under the name of Adriatic Littoral (''Adriatisches Küstenland'') was one of the operational zones of German forces during World War II after the capitulation of Italy in September 1943 until the end of the war. After World War II, most of it was included in the Second Yugoslavia.
Today Croatia and Slovenia each hold portions of the territory and the city of Trieste remains under Italian rule. The name of the region lives on in its Slovene version, ''Primorska'' (Slovenian Littoral), a region of Slovenia.
Area and population
Area:
Gorizia and Gradisca: 2918 km2
Istria: 4956 km2
Triest: 95 km2
Population (1910 Census):
Gorizia and Gradisca: 260,721 - 89.3 persons/km2
Istria: 403,566 - 81.4 persons/km2
Triest: 230,000 - 2414.8 persons/km2
Linguistic composition
According to the last Austrian census of 1910 (1911 in Trieste), the Austrian Littoral was composed of the following linguistic communities:
Total:
Italian: 356,676 (including estimated 60,000-75,000 Friulian language speakers) (40 %)
Slovene: 276,398 (31 %)
Croatian: 172,784 (19 %)
German: 29,077 (3 %)
Other languages or unknown: 59,347(7 %)
Gorizia and Gradisca:
Slovene: 154,564 (58 %)
Italian: 90,119 (including 60,000-75,000 Friulian-speakers) (36 %)
German: 4,486 (2 %)
Trieste:
Italian: 118.957 (51.85%)
Slovene: 56.845 (24.78%)
German: 11.856 (5.17%)
Croatian: 2.403 (1.05%)
Other: 779 (0.34%)
Non-Austrian citizens, among them 75% from Italy: 38.597 (16.82%)
Istria:
Croatian: 168,184 (43.5 %)
Italian: 147,417 (38.1 %)
Slovene: 55,134 (14.3 %)
German: 12,735 (3.3 %)
The Austrian censuses did not count ethnic groups, nor the mother tongue, but the "language of daily interaction" (''Umgangssprache''). Except for a small Serbian community in Trieste, and the village of Peroj in Istria, inhabited by ethnic Montenegrins, the vast majority of Croatian speakers in the Austrian Littoral can be identified as Croats.
After 1880, Italian and Friulian languages were counted under one category, as Italian. The estimated number of Friulian speakers can be extrapolated from the Italian census of 1921, the only one in the 20th century when Friulian was counted as a distinct linguistic category. The Austrian Littoral had a large number of foreign nationals (around 71,000 or 7,9% of the overall population), which were not asked about their language of interaction. More than half of them resided in the city of Trieste. The majority were citizens of the Kingdom of Italy, followed by citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary (part of the Dual Monarchy)] and the German Reich. It can be supposed that the majority of these foreign citizens were Italian speakers, followed by German, Croatian (from Rijeka and Croatia-Slavonia) and Slovene (from Venetian Slovenia), and Hungarian speakers.
Districts
Gorizia and Gradisca
Gorizia City (''Stadt Görz'')
Gorizia (''Görz Land'')
Gradisca
Monfalcone (''Falkenberg'')
Sežana (''Sesana'')
Tolmin (''Tolmein'', ''Tolmino'')
Istria
Koper (''Capodistria'')
Krk (''Veglia'')
Lošinj (''Lussin'')
Poreč (''Parenzo'')
Pazin (''Mitterburg'', ''Pisino'')
Pula (''Pola'')
Volosko (''Volosca'')
See also
Austrian Riviera
London Pact
Battles of the Isonzo
Croatian Littoral
References
Küstenland
Map
Category:Kingdoms and countries of Austria-Hungary
Category:States of the German Confederation
Category:History of Austria-Hungary
Category:History of Slovenia
Category:History of Italy
Category:History of Croatia
Category:States and territories established in 1813
Category:1918 disestablishments
bg:Австрийско приморие
cs:Rakouské přímoří
de:Österreichisches Küstenland
es:Litoral austríaco
eo:Aŭstria Marbordo
fr:Littoral autrichien
hr:Austrijsko primorje
it:Litorale austriaco
la:Litorale Austriacum
nl:Küstenland
no:Küstenland
pl:Pobrzeże Austriackie
ru:Австрийское Приморье
sl:Avstrijsko primorje
fi:Rannikkomaa
sv:Österrikiska kustlandet
uk:Австрійське Примор'я