Istra Map

View Larger Map

About Istra

The land called Istria is a region of Europe across the bay from Venice at the head of the Adriatic Sea and gently tucked between the Gulf of Trieste and Bay of Kvarner. It consists of the largest peninsula in the Adriatic and a collection of islands caressing it.

Istria is an unique place that has welcomed visitors and settlers from other parts of the world for as long as we have recorded history. Recent archeological excavations, however, reveal that it is an ancient land with traces of human existence during the Bronze Age and vital signs of life going even further back to the age of the dinosaurs. 

When did modern civilization begin in this misty and mysterious land nestled at the foothills of the Julian Alps and cradled by the azure waters of the Adriatic Sea? What little is known of our Istria's early history is that the Histri, an Indo-European people who were kindred to the Veneti and Liburni, founded a colony here around the 11th century B.C. They were mentioned for the first time in the 6th century B.C. by Hecataeus of Miletus in his Tour Round the World where he described them as "a people in the Ionic Bay" (i.e. the Adriatic). After several wars with the Romans, the Histri were subjugated by the Roman consul C.Clodius Pulcher in 177 B.C., and a Roman colony was established in their place around 45 B.C. The Romans were then followed by the Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Avars, Langobards, Slavs, Franks, Venetians, Genoese, Romanians, Magyars and Austrians, and in the last century Italians, Serbs and Croats. Even Attila's Huns passed through and Napoleon Bonaparte's French forces briefly ruled, thereby blending into the complex fabric of this uniquely historic and beautiful place. 

Istria is currently subdivided politically and undemocratically by three separate countries - Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. In spite of this, abundant fragments of her past civilizations remain, including the fabric left behind by people who lived in Istria for centuries but who have been scattered all over the world by a series of conflicts and tragic events in the 20th century. Multi-ethnic and multi-lingual, the Istrian people are part of a rich and colorful tapestry which some would further tear apart by pulling out and segregating its individual silken threads - that is, analysize Istrians in two-dimensional and mono-ethnic ways that are neither an accurate nor a comprehensive representation of the Istrian people in either Istria or around the world. Our internet domain does not subscribe to the polarization of our Istrian family in these ways and treats all Istrians as equal, irrespective of their real or proclaimed ethnicity, the language(s) they speak, where they live, their socio-economic background, or their philosophies.

Information provided by