Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region, Italy

🇮🇹 Trieste is a city and a seaport in north-eastern Italy. It is towards the end of a narrow strip of Italian territory lying next to the Adriatic Sea.

The city has a long coastline and is surrounded by grassland, forest, and karstic areas. The city has a subtropical climate, unusual in relation to its relatively high latitude, due to marine breezes. It is the Capital of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Trieste belonged to the Habsburg monarchy from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century the monarchy was one of the Great Powers of Europe and Trieste was its most important seaport. As a prosperous trading hub in the Mediterranean region, Trieste became the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (after Vienna, Budapest, and Prague). In the fin de siècle period it emerged as an important hub for literature and music. Trieste underwent an economic revival during the 1930s, and the Free Territory of Trieste became a major site of the struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs after the Second World War.

Trieste, a deep-water port, is a maritime gateway for Northern Italy, Germany, Austria and Central Europe. It is considered the end point of the Maritime Silk Road, with its connections to the Suez Canal and Turkey. Since the 1960s, Trieste has emerged as a prominent research location in Europe because of its many international organisations and institutions. The city lies at the intersection of Latin, Slavic and Germanic cultures where Central Europe meets the Mediterranean Sea, and is home to diverse ethnic groups and religious communities.

Trieste has the highest percentage of researchers in Europe in relation to population. In 2020, the city was also rated as one of the 25 best small cities in the world for quality of life and one of the ten safest cities in the world in 2021.

"Città della Barcolana", "Città della bora", "Città del vento", "Vienna by the sea" and "City of coffee" are also idioms used to describe Trieste.

Economy During the Austro-Hungarian era, Trieste became a leading European city in economy, trade and commerce, and was the fourth-largest and most important centre in the empire, after Vienna, Budapest and Prague. The economy of Trieste, however, fell into a decline after the city's annexation to Italy at the end of World War I. But Fascist Italy promoted a huge development of Trieste in the 1930s, with new manufacturing activities related even to naval and armament industries (like the "Cantieri Aeronautici Navali Triestini (CANT)"). Allied bombings during World War II destroyed the industrial section of the city (mainly the shipyards). As a consequence, Trieste was a mainly peripheral city during the Cold War. However, since the 1970s, Trieste has experienced a certain economic revival.

While Trieste was politically isolated until the end of communism, the fall of the Iron Curtain, the accession of Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the EU and the increasing importance of the maritime Silk Road to Asia and Africa across the Suez Canal resulted in an increase in the Trade via Trieste. The Port of Trieste is a trade hub with a significant commercial shipping business, busy container and oil terminals, and steel works. The port is part of the Silk Road because it can also be used by container ships with very large drafts. In this regard, the Port of Hamburg (HHLA) and the State of Hungary have holdings in the port area of Trieste and the associated facilities will be expanded by the Italian state in 2021 with €400 million.

The oil terminal feeds the Transalpine Pipeline which covers 40% of Germany's energy requirements (100% of the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg), 90% of Austria and 50% of the Czech Republic's. The sea highway connecting the ports of Trieste and Istanbul is one of the busiest RO/RO [roll on roll-off] routes in the Mediterranean. The port is also Italy's and the Mediterranean's (and one of Europe's) greatest coffee ports, supplying more than 40% of Italy's coffee. The city is part of the Corridor 5 project to establish closer transport connections between Western and Eastern Europe, via countries such as Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Ukraine and Bosnia.

The thriving coffee industry in Trieste began under Austria-Hungary, with the Austro-Hungarian government even awarding tax-free status to the city in order to encourage more commerce. Some remnants of Austria-Hungary's coffee-driven economic ambition remain, such as the Hausbrandt Trieste coffee company. As a result, present-day Trieste boasts many cafes, and is still known to this day as "the coffee capital of Italy". Companies active in the coffee sector have given birth to the Trieste Coffee Cluster as their main umbrella organization, but also as an economic actor in its own right. A large part of Italian coffee imports (approx. 2–2.5 million sacks) are handled and processed in the city.

Two Fortune Global 500 companies have their global or national headquarters in the city, respectively: Assicurazioni Generali and Allianz. Other megacompanies based in Trieste are Fincantieri, one of the world's leading shipbuilding companies and the Italian operations of Wärtsilä. Prominent companies from Trieste include: AcegasApsAmga (Hera Group), Adriatic Assicurazioni SpA Autamarocchi SpA, Banca Generali SpA (BIT: BGN), Genertel, Genertellife, HERA Trading, Illy, Italia Marittima, Modiano, Nuovo Arsenale Cartubi Srl, Jindal Steel and Power Italia SpA; Pacorini SpA, Siderurgica Triestina (Arvedi Group), TBS Groug, U-blox, Telit, and polling and marketing company SWG.

The real estate market in Trieste has been growing in recent years. The relevant land register law comes from the old Austrian legislation and was adopted by the Italian legal system after 1918 in Trieste, as well as in the provinces of Trento, Bolzano and Gorizia as well as in some municipalities of the provinces of Udine, Brescia, Belluno and Vicenza.

Education and Research The University of Trieste, founded in 1924, is a medium-size state-supported institution with 12 faculties, and boasts a wide and almost complete range of courses. It currently has about 23,000 students enrolled and 1,000 professors. Trieste also hosts the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA), a leading graduate and postgraduate teaching and research institution in the study of mathematics, theoretical physics, and neuroscience, and the MIB School of Management Trieste, one of Italy's top-five business schools.

As a result of the combination of research, business and funding, there are a growing number of spin-off companies in Trieste (partnerships in the production world exist with companies such as Cimolai, Danieli, Eni, Fincantieri, Generali, Illy, Mitsubishi, Vodafone) and proportionally the highest number of start-ups in Italy, the city also being referred to as Italy's Silicon Valley. Neurala, a company specialising in artificial intelligence, has chosen Trieste as its European research center. Trieste has the highest proportion of researchers in Europe in relation to the population. They also appreciate the high quality of life and leisure time, so, as is often said, you can ski and swim by the sea in one day from Trieste. There are three international schools offering primary and secondary education programs in English in the greater metropolitan area: the International School of Trieste, the European School of Trieste, and the United World College of the Adriatic. Liceo scientifico statale "France Prešeren", and Liceo Anton Martin Slomšek offer public secondary education in Slovene.

Research institutions such as the International Center for Theoretical Physics (logo), SISSA and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics are located in Trieste around Barcola. The city also hosts numerous national and international scientific research institutions: • AREA Science Park, • ELETTRA, a synchrotron particle accelerator with free-electron laser capabilities for research and industrial applications, • International Centre for Theoretical Physics, which operates under a tripartite agreement among the Italian Government, UNESCO, and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), • Trieste Astronomical Observatory, • Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS), which carries out research on oceans and geophysics; • International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, a United Nations centre of excellence for research and training in genetic engineering and biotechnology for the benefit of developing countries, • ICS-UNIDO, a UNIDO research centre in the areas of renewable energies, biofuels, medicinal plants, food safety and sustainable development, • Carso Center for Advanced Research in Space Optics, • The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), • InterAcademy Panel: The Global Network of Science Academies (IAP), • Istituto nazionale di oceanografia e di geofisica sperimental, a national public scientific research organization carrying out multidisciplinary studies in the field of earth sciences, • Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics), • Laboratorio di Biologica Marina, • Laboratory TASC Technology and Nano Science, • Orto Botanico dell'Università di Trieste, Civico Orto Botanico di Trieste. The office of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) will be based in Trieste/Porto Vecchio from 2021.

Trieste is also a hub for corporate training and skills development hosting, among others, Generali's Generali Academy and Illy's Università del Caffe, founded in 1999. This competence centre was created to spread the culture of quality coffee through training all over the world and to carry out research and innovation.

Commercial fishing Fishing boats anchor at Molo Veneziano near Piazza Venezia. In summer it is fished with lampare (large lamps) and in autumn and winter with redi di posta (smaller fishing nets). In the Gulf of Trieste, because of the crystal-clear, nutrient-poor water with little plankton, fishing in itself is challenging. The fishing season basically lasts from May to July. In terms of fish reproduction, fishing is prohibited in August and restricted in winter. As of 2009, there are fewer than 200 professional fishermen in the city. There is also a small fishing port in the suburb Barcola. Some of the fish is sold directly from the boats or delivered to the town's shops and restaurants. The rare alici (anchovies - in the local dialect: Sardoni barcolani) from the Gulf of Trieste near Barcola, which are only caught at Sirocco, are particularly sought after because of their white meat and special taste and fetch high prices for fishermen.