Istria County
Half-millennium of Venetian rule, then 200,000+ Italians fled post-WWII. What remains: world's best olive oil (Flos Olei #1 for 8 years), white truffles, and GDP 11% above Croatian average.
Istria is a peninsula that has never quite belonged to anyone—which is precisely why it developed such a distinctive character. Greeks planted the first vines here in the 6th century BC. The Histri tribe gave the region its name before Rome absorbed them. Venice ruled the coastal cities for 500 years starting in 1267, shaping architecture, language, and commerce until Napoleon dissolved the republic in 1797. The peninsula then cycled through Austria, Italy (1920-1945), and Yugoslavia before becoming Croatian in 1991. Throughout, the constant was the peninsula's productive isolation: close enough to major powers to trade with all of them, marginal enough to avoid their worst conflicts.
The 20th century inflicted one great wound. Between 1943 and 1954, somewhere between 200,000 and 350,000 Italians left Istria—fleeing first Nazi occupation, then Yugoslav communism, then the final partition that gave the peninsula to Tito's state. A population that was 36% Italian in 1910 became 5% by 1991. The exodus emptied villages, erased dialects, and created a cultural rupture that the region is still processing. Today Italian remains an official language alongside Croatian, but the bilingual signs feel more like memorial than living practice.
What survived—and flourished—was the land itself. Istria now produces the world's best olive oil, ranked first by Flos Olei for eight consecutive years (2017-2024). The red terra rossa soil supports wines that rival Tuscany. The Motovun forest yields white truffles, including a 1.3-kilogram specimen that held the Guinness record until 2014. The county leveraged this terroir into a premium brand: Istria as the 'new Tuscany' or 'Croatian Provence.' GDP per capita runs 11% above the national average, with tourism, agriculture, and the remaining shipyards at Uljanik driving employment.
By 2026, Istria faces the question all successful regional brands encounter: can the premium positioning survive mass tourism, or will the crowds that came for authenticity destroy the authenticity they came for?