Friuli-Venezia Giulia is one of the 20 regions of Italy and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The regional capital is Trieste on the Gulf of Trieste, a bay of the Adriatic Sea.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia has a population of 1,193,496 in an area of as of 2026. A natural opening to the sea for many central European countries, the region is traversed by the major transport routes between the east and west of Southern Europe. It encompasses the historical-geographical region of Friuli and a small portion of the historical region of —also known in English as the Julian March—each with its own distinct history, traditions and identity.

Etymology Friuli comes from the Latin term ('Julius' forum'), a center for commerce in the Roman times, which today corresponds to the city of Cividale. The denomination Venezia Giulia ('Julian Venetia', not referring to the city of Venice but to the Roman province of Venetia et Histria) was proposed by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, with the intention of marking the Italian cultural spirit of the area.

History

In Roman times, modern Friuli-Venezia Giulia was located within Regio X Venetia et Histria of Roman Italy. The traces of its Roman origin are visible all over the area. In fact, the city of Aquileia, founded in 181 BC, served as the regional capital and rose to prominence in the Augustan era.

Following the Lombard settlements in the 6th century, the historical paths of Friuli and Venezia Giulia began to diverge. In 568, Cividale del Friuli (the Roman Forum Iulii (from which the name Friuli is derived)) became the capital of the first Lombard dukedom in Italy. In the 6th century, the Alpine Slavs, ancestors of present-day Slovenes, settled the eastern areas of the region. They settled in the easternmost mountainous areas of Friuli known as the Friulian Slavia, as well as in the Karst Plateau and in the area north and south of Gorizia. In the 12th and 13th centuries, they also moved closer to Trieste.

In 774 Charlemagne conquered Lombard Italy and absorbed it into Francia (the Frankish Empire from 800), with the Lombard Duke of Friuli replaced by a Frankish one. In 787 Charlemagne established a new patriarch at Aquileia. The duchy was dissolved in 828 and partitioned into smaller counties. In 843 the Empire was partitioned in the Treaty of Verdun placing Friuli at the frontier between Middle Francia (later the Kingdom of Italy) and East Francia (later the Kingdom of Germany) and in 846 the former duchy was reconstituted as the March of Friuli. In 961 Otto the Great of Germany took control of the Kingdom of Italy and established the Holy Roman Empire. In 1077, the Holy Roman Emperor recognized the territorial powers of the Patriarchate of Aquileia that temporarily extended its rule to areas to the east; however, by the 12th century the County of Gorizia had become independent. Trieste developed into the Imperial Free City of Trieste. The coastal territory between Gorizia and Trieste was controlled by the March of Carniola (Duchy of Carniola from 1364).

Friuli became Venetian territory in 1420; Trieste and Gorizia, which remained within the Holy Roman Empire, came under Habsburg (Austrian) dominance in 1382 and 1500 respectively. The Venetian fortress of Gradisca d'Isonzo was retaken by the Empire in 1511 and incorporated into Gorizia but Monfalcone to the south remained an effective Venetian exclave. Pordenone was a , under Austrian influence until 1515, when it fell to Venetian rule. Gradisca was separated from Gorizia in 1647 but were reunited in 1754 to form the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca.

With the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio, Venetian domination came to an end and Friuli was ceded to the Habsburg Monarchy (formally part of the Austrian Empire from 1804); however, Austria was forced to cede it to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in the 1805 Peace of Pressburg, along with the parts of the County of Gorizia and Gradisca west of the Isonzo (the boundary was formalized in the 1807 Treaty of Fontainebleau). Trieste and Gorizia were then also ceded to the Napoleonic Illyrian Provinces in the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn.

In 1815, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna returned the area to Austria: Friuli was included in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, while Gorizia and Trieste were assigned to the Kingdom of Illyria (both crown lands of the Austrian Empire), with the boundary roughly following the former Imperial-Venetian border. In 1849 Illyria was abolished and Gorizia and Trieste both became part of the Austrian Littoral crown land, along with Istria and several islands in the Kvarner Gulf.

Under the enlightened government and policies set by the Austrian Empire and continued by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, Trieste flourished, reaching an extraordinary economic development as the main harbor of the Habsburg empire. The Third Italian War of Independence led to the annexation of Lombardy-Venetia, including Friuli, to the Kingdom of Italy, while the Littoral remained in Austrian hands.

During the First World War, the region was a prominent theatre for military operations and suffered serious damage and loss of lives. After the war, the former Littoral was annexed by Italy in the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo, although Venezia Giulia's borders were the subject of an international dispute.

The Second World War led to the creation of the Anglo-American Administration in Trieste until the border was defined in the 1954 Memorandum of London. After Trieste was reassigned to Italy, the Autonomous Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia was finally established.

The region's name was Friuli-Venezia Giulia (hyphenated) until 2001, when the official spelling Friuli Venezia Giulia (without hyphen) was adopted following the modification of Article No.116 of the Italian Constitution.Sarti, Gianpaolo: La Lega lancia la regione "Friuli e Trieste", in: , 9 September 2014, p. 14. The term "Venezia Giulia" was coined by Graziadio Isaia Ascoli.

Geography

Friuli-Venezia Giulia is Italy's north-easternmost region. It covers an area of 7,858 km2 and is the fifth smallest region of the country. It borders Austria to the north and Slovenia to the east, the three countries meeting at the tripoint on the mountain of Dreiländereck, known as Monte Forno in Italian. To the south, it faces the Adriatic Sea and to the west the Veneto region.

The region spans a wide variety of climates and landscapes from the mild Oceanic in the south to Alpine continental in the north. The total area is subdivided into 42.5% mountainous-alpine terrain in the north, 19.3% is hilly, mostly to the southeast, while the remaining 38.2% comprises the central and coastal plains.

Morphologically the region can be subdivided into four main areas. The mountainous area in the north: this part of the region includes Carnia and the ending section of the Alps (Carnic Alps and Julian Alps), of which the highest peaks exceed 2,700 m above sea level (Jôf di Montasio 2,754 m). Its landscapes are characterised by vast pine forests and pastures, mountain lakes (e.g. Sauris, Fusine, and Barcis), and numerous streams and small rivers descending from the mountains.

The area is also known for its tourist destinations, especially during the winter season (Monte Zoncolan, Tarvisio, Sella Nevea, Forni di Sopra and Piancavallo). The hilly area is situated to the south of the mountains and along the central section of the border with Slovenia. The main product of agriculture in this area is wine, whose quality, especially the white, is known worldwide. The easternmost part of the hilly area is also known as Slavia Friulana, as it is mostly inhabited by ethnic Slovenes.

The central plains are characterized by poor, arid, and permeable soil. The soil has been made fertile with an extensive irrigation system and through the adoption of modern intensive farming techniques. In this part of the region, most of the agricultural activities are concentrated. The coastal area can be further subdivided into two, western-eastern, subsections separated by the River Isonzo's estuary.

To the west, the coast is shallow and sandy, with numerous tourist resorts and the lagoons of Grado and Marano Lagunare. To the east, the coastline rises into cliffs, where the Karst Plateau meets the Adriatic, all the way to Trieste and Muggia on the border with Slovenia. The Carso has geological features and phenomena such as hollows, cave networks, and underground rivers, which extend inland in the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia, with an altitude ranging between 300m and 600m.

The rivers of the region flow from the North and from Slovenia into the Adriatic. The two main rivers are the Tagliamento, which flows west–east in its upper part in the Carnic Alps and then bends into a north–south flow that separates the Julian Alps from Alpine foothills and the Isonzo (Slovenian: Soča) which flows from Slovenia into Italy. The Timavo is an underground river that flows for 38  km from Slovenia and resurfaces near its mouth north-west of Duino.

The region Friuli-Venezia Giulia has a temperate climate. However, due to the terrain's diversity, it varies considerably from one area to another. Walled by the Alps on its northern flank, the region is exposed to air masses from the East and the West. The region receives also the southerly Sirocco from the Adriatic Sea, which brings in heavy rainfall. Along the coast, the climate is mild and pleasant.

Trieste records the smallest temperature differences between winter and summer and between day and night. The climate is Alpine-continental in the mountainous areas, where, in some locations, the coldest winter temperatures in Italy can often be found. The Kras plateau has its own weather and climate, influenced, mostly during autumn and winter, by masses of cold air coming from the northeast. These generate a very special feature of the local climate: the north-easterly wind Bora, which descends onto the Gulf of Trieste with gusts occasionally exceeding speeds of 150  km/h.

Julian March

The Julian March (Croatian and ), also called Julian Venetia (; ; ; ), is an area of southern Central Europe which is currently divided among Croatia, Italy, and Slovenia.The New Europe by Bernard Newman, pp. 307, 309Contemporary History on Trial: Europe Since 1989 and the Role of the Expert Historian by Harriet Jones, Kjell Ostberg, Nico Randeraad p. 155 The term was coined in 1863 by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, a native of the area, to demonstrate that the Austrian Littoral, Veneto, Friuli, and Trentino (then all part of the Austrian Empire) shared a common Italian linguistic identity. Ascoli emphasized the Augustan partition of Roman Italy at the beginning of the Empire, when Venetia et Histria was Regio X (the Tenth Region).Bernard Newman, The New Europe, pp. 307, 309Marina Cattaruzza, Italy and Its Eastern Border, 1866–2016, Routledge 2016 - ch. I

The term was later endorsed by Italian irredentists, who sought to annex regions in which ethnic Italians made up most (or a substantial portion) of the population: the Austrian Littoral, Trentino, Fiume and Dalmatia. The Triple Entente promised the regions to Italy in the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in exchange for Italy's joining the Allied Powers in World War I. The secret 1915 Treaty of London promised Italy territories largely inhabited by Italians (such as Trentino) in addition to those largely inhabited by Croats or Slovenes; the territories housed 421,444 Italians, and about 327,000 ethnic Slovenes.Lipušček, U. (2012) Sacro egoismo: Slovenci v krempljih tajnega londonskega pakta 1915, Cankarjeva založba, Ljubljana. Cresciani, Gianfranco (2004) "Clash of civilisations" , Italian Historical Society Journal, Vol.12, No.2, p.4