Friuli-Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty Regions of Italy, and one of four with administrative autonomy. Located in northeastern Italy, Friuli-Venezia Giulia borders the region of Veneto to the west, the republics of Austria and Slovenia to the north and east, and the Adriatic Sea to the south. Friuli-Venezia Giulia has an area of 7844 km² and 1.2 million inhabitants and the coastal length is 111,7 km. Its capital is Trieste (Slovene Trst, German Triest) pop. 210,000.
Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Friulian: Friûl-Vignesie Julie; Croatian and Slovenian: Furlanija - Julijska krajina; German: Friaul-Julisch Venetien) is comprised of two historical regions:
- Friuli, which forms 90% of the territory, including the city of Udine (Friulian Udin, Slovenian Videm) pop. 97,000;
- Venezia Giulia, including the capital city of Trieste (Slovenian Trst) pop. 207,000.
The name comes from the Latin name of the town of Cividale, ancient capital of the Lombard duchy, which used to be "Forum Iulii" ("Julius' forum", named after Julius Caesar).
History
Main articles: History of Friuli and Venezia Giulia.
This artificial region was created after World War II to solve to problem of Trieste, who had lost its natural hinterland, that was the major part of Venezia Giulia and has been included in Jugoslavia. Therefore it was decided to aggregate the historical region of Friuli to Trieste.
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.
Apart from Italian, the Friulian language is spoken throughout the region; there is also a sizeable Slovenian and a small German minority.
The entrance of the regional council, with text in the four languages of the region
Slovene language community
German language community
The number of German speakers in Friuli-Venezia Giulia is estimated to be around 2,000. They live in the Channel Valley (municipalities of Tarvis, Malborghetto-Valbruna, and Pontebba), which is adjacent to Austria, and in the municipality of Zahre and the village of Tischlbong (municipality of Paluzza), which each form a language exclave.
External links
The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friuli-Venezia_Giulia under GFDL
