It belonged to the
Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I and was then
annexed by Italy in 1918. Gorizia was directly affected by the dramatic events that unfolded on Italy’s
eastern border during the Fascist era and World War II.
At the end of the war, the municipality lost part of its outlying districts to what was then Yugoslavia, and it was divided by the so-called “
Gorizia Wall”, which was built across Piazza Transalpina. This wall became one of the symbols of the political and ideological separation between Western and Eastern Europe during the
Cold War.
The border crossing was removed when
Slovenia joined the European Union in 2004, and today it is a unifying element. It is precisely in the name of the friendship and cooperation between Gorizia and Nova Gorica that the two cities were jointly chosen as
European Capital of Culture 2025.
