Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Template:Infobox RegionIT With an area of 7844 km² and 1.2 million inhabitants, Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Italian; Friulian Friûl Vignesie Julie; Slovenian and Croatian Furlanija-Julijska krajina; German Friaul-Julisch Venetien) is an autonomous region of north-eastern Italy, bordering on the Region of Veneto, the republics of Austria and Slovenia and the Adriatic Sea. The principal cities are Trieste (Slovene Trst, German Triest pop. 210,000) and Udine (Slovene Videm pop. 95,000). The name comes from the latin name of the town of Cividale, ancient capital of the lombard duchy, who was "Forum Iulii" ("Julius' market", where Julius was Julius Caesar).
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, considered by some linguists to be a dialect of Italian, and by others a completely separate language. There is also a sizeable Slovenian, and a small German minority.
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.
