The legacy of the multi-cultural Habsburg Empire dominates the visual identity of the region, with its Gründerzeit avenues, Italianate Cityscapes and Rugged Karst Landscape. However, it was here that the Austrian Empire fought for its survival, in the Crucible of the Izonzo Front of the First World War. A line of Trenches and resting wartime relics mark the full length of the ancient border.
Once of Europe's most renown borderland regions, it was a melting pot for Italian, German, Slovene and Croatian cultures. Today, nation state boundaries have sorted the region's peoples into distinct areas, but the legacy of the Venetian and Habsburg multi-cultural empires which ruled over the region can still be seen in the architecture and identity of the Region. In German, the region was called the Küstenland, or literally the Coastal-Lands, better translated as the Littoral. Today this toponym can still be found in a handful of places, notably in the Slovene name for its part of the region Primorkse, which also translates to Littoral. The region is famous for its Venetian Adriatic settlements dotting the coast, the Austro-Hungarian cities of Trieste and Pula and the Soaring Julian Alps.
