Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol

Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol (Italian: Trentino-Alto Adige [trenˈtiːno ˈalto ˈaːdidʒe]; Austrian German: Trentino-Südtirol; Ladin: Trentin-Südtirol), often known in English as Trentino-South Tyrol or by its Italian name Trentino-Alto Adige, is an autonomous region of Italy, located in the northern part of the country. The region has a population of nearly 1.1 million, of whom 62% speak Italian as their mother tongue (in areas where the local languages are transition dialects between Eastern Lombard and Venetian), 30% speak German (around 93% of whom are fluent in the local South Tyrolean dialect of Bavarian), and the remaining are minority speakers of Ladin, Mòcheno or Cimbrian and immigrant communities speaking several foreign languages. Since the 1970s, most legislative and administrative powers have been transferred to the two self-governing provinces that make up the region: the province of Trento, commonly known as Trentino, and the province of Bolzano, commonly known as South Tyrol (Italian: Alto Adige; German: Südtirol). In South Tyrol, German remains the sizeable majority language.

From the 9th century until 1806, the region was part of the Holy Roman Empire. After briefly being part of the newly-formed Kingdom of Bavaria and the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, the region was part of the County of Tyrol within the Austrian Empire and its successor Austria-Hungary from 1815 until its 1919 transfer to Italy in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye at the end of World War I. Together with the Austrian state of Tyrol, it is part of the Euroregion of Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino.

History

The Romans conquered the region in 15 BC. After the end of the Western Roman Empire, it was divided between the invading Germanic tribes in the Lombard Duchy of Tridentum (today's Trentino), the Alamannic Vinschgau, and the Bavarians (who took the remaining part). After the creation of the Kingdom of Italy under Charlemagne, the Marquisate of Verona included the areas south of Bolzano, while the Duchy of Bavaria received the remaining part.

From the 11th century onwards, part of the region was governed by the prince-bishops of Trent and Brixen, to whom the Holy Roman Emperors had given extensive temporal powers over their bishoprics. Soon, they were overruled by the Counts of Tyrol and Counts of Görz, who also controlled the Puster Valley: in 1363 its last titular countess, Margarete of Tyrol, ceded the region to the House of Habsburg.