Dalmatia
Dalmatia (/dælˈmeɪʃə, -tiə/; Croatian: Dalmacija [dǎlmaːtsija]; Italian: Dalmazia [dalˈmattsja]; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia,[1][4] alongside Central Croatia, Slavonia and Istria, located on the east shore of the Adriatic Sea in Croatia.
For other uses, see Dalmatia (disambiguation).
Dalmatia
12,158 km2 (4,694 sq mi)
1,831 m (6,007 ft)
938,272
77/km2 (200/sq mi)
Dalmatian
Dalmatia is a narrow belt stretching from the island of Rab in the north to the Bay of Kotor in the south. The Dalmatian Hinterland ranges in width from fifty kilometres in the north, to just a few kilometres in the south; it is mostly covered by the rugged Dinaric Alps. Seventy-nine islands (and about 500 islets) run parallel to the coast, the largest (in Dalmatia) being Brač, Pag, and Hvar. The largest city is Split, followed by Zadar, Šibenik, and Dubrovnik.
The name of the region stems from an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae, who lived in the area in classical antiquity. Later it became a Roman province (with much larger territory than modern region), and as result a Romance culture emerged, along with the now-extinct Dalmatian language, later largely replaced with related Venetian and Italian, which were mainly spoken by the Dalmatian Italians. With the arrival of the Sclaveni (South Slavs; mostly Croats) to the area in the late 6th century, who eventually occupied most of the coast and hinterland, Slavic and Romance elements began to intermix in language and culture.
After the medieval Kingdom of Croatia, in which most of Dalmatia resided, entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102, its cities and lands were often conquered by, or switched allegiance to, the kingdoms of the region during the Middle Ages. At one time, most of Dalmatia came under rule of the Republic of Venice, which controlled most of Dalmatia between 1420 and 1797 as part of its State of the Sea, with the exception of the small but stable Republic of Ragusa (1358–1808) in the south. Between 1815 and 1918, it was a province of the Austrian Empire known as the Kingdom of Dalmatia. After the Austro-Hungarian defeat in World War I, Dalmatia was split between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which controlled most of it, and the Kingdom of Italy, which held several smaller parts. After World War II, the People's Republic of Croatia as a part of Yugoslavia took complete control over the area. Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Dalmatia became part of the Republic of Croatia.
Name[edit]
The regional name Dalmatia originates from Dalmatae, the name of the Illyrian, Balkan tribe who were the original inhabitants of the region, and from which the later toponym, Delminium, is derived.[5][6][7] It is considered by some to be connected to the Albanian dele and its variants which include the Gheg form delmë, meaning "sheep", and to the Albanian term delmer, "shepherd",[8][9][10][11][12][13] although there is lack of compelling evidence in ancient literary sources that Delmatae is derived from a word meaning "sheep".[14] According to Vladimir Orel, the Gheg form delmë hardly has anything in common with the name of Dalmatia because it represents a variant of dele with *-mā, which is ultimately from proto-Albanian *dailā.[15] According to Sorin Paliga, the toponym is pre-Indo-European.[16] Other scholars propose that the name comes from the Indo-European roots *dhe/-l*dhol- "vault, cavity" (cf. English "dale"), or (3) *dhel- "to shine".[16] The ancient name Dalmana, derived from the same root, testifies to the advance of the Illyrians into the middle Vardar, between the ancient towns of Bylazora and Stobi.[13] The medieval Slavic toponym Ovče Pole ("plain of sheep" in South Slavic) in the nearby region represents a related later development.[13] According to István Schütz, in Albania, Delvinë represents a toponym linked to the root *dele.[11]
The form of the regional name Dalmatia and the respective tribal name Dalmatae are later variants as is already noted by Appian (2nd century AD). His contemporary grammarian Velius Longus highlights in his treatise about orthography that the correct form of Dalmatia is Delmatia, and notes that Marcus Terentius Varro who lived about two centuries prior to Appian and Velius Longius, used the form Delmatia as it corresponded to the chief settlement of the tribe, Delminium.[17] The toponym Duvno is a derivation from Delminium in Croatian via an intermediate form *Delminio in late antiquity.[7] Its Latin form Dalmatia gave rise to its current English name. In the Venetian language, once dominant in the area, it is spelled Dalmàssia, and in modern Italian Dalmazia. The modern Croatian spelling is Dalmacija, and the modern Serbian Cyrillic spelling is Далмација (pronounced [dǎlmaːt͡sija]).
Dalmatia is referenced in the New Testament at 2 Timothy 4:10, therefore the name has been translated in many of the world's languages.
Culture and ethnicity[edit]
The inhabitants of Dalmatia are culturally subdivided into two groups. The urban families of the coastal cities, commonly known as Fetivi,[29] are culturally akin to the inhabitants of the Dalmatian islands (known derogatorily as Boduli). The two are together distinct, in the Mediterranean aspects of their culture, from the more numerous inhabitants of the Hinterland. Referred to (sometimes derogatorily) as the Vlaji, their name originated from the Vlachs with whom they have no ethnic connection.[30]
According to the Austrian census, they constituted 18.5% of the population in 1857, which decreased to 17.4% by 1900.[31] They formed 19.9% in the 1830-1850 period.[32]
The former two groups (inhabitants of the islands and the cities) historically included many Venetian and Italian speakers, many of whom identified as Dalmatian Italians (especially after the Italian unification). Their presence, relative to those identifying as Croats, decreased dramatically over the course of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. The Italian speakers (Italians and italophone Croats) constituted (according to the Italian linguist Matteo Bartoli) nearly one third of Dalmatians in the second half of the 18th century.[33] According to the Austrian census it had decreased to 12.5% in 1865 and 3.1% in 1890.[31] There remains, however, a strong cultural, and, in part, ancestral heritage among the natives of the cities and islands, who today almost exclusively identify as Croats, but retain a sense of regional identity. This same regional identity and heritage is displayed in the Hinterland, where the architectural and cultural legacy remains evident in many villages and towns that have a distinct Mediterranean style.