South Tyrol (Alto Adige) — geography, languages, autonomy and culture

South Tyrol is located entirely in the Alps. The country is both the northernmost and, with a total area of 7400 km², one of the largest provinces in Italy. It is crossed in a north-south direction by the important Brenner transit route, which connects Germany and Austria with Upper Italy. The nearest megacities are Munich about 180 km north of Bolzano and Milan about 200 km southwest.

South Tyrol lies on both the Italian-Austrian and the Italian-Swiss border. In the north and east, South Tyrol meets the Austrian provinces of Tyrol (North Tyrol, East Tyrol) and - on a small section - Salzburg. Since the division of Tyrol after the end of the First World War, the northern border has largely followed the main Alpine ridge. In the west, South Tyrol borders on the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Within Italy, it is surrounded in the southwest by the Lombard province of Sondrio, in the south by Trentino and in the southeast by the province of Belluno, which belongs to Veneto.

"South Tyrol" as a designation of a political administrative unit: South Tyrol was politically and legally separated from the larger Tyrolean context only as a direct consequence of the First World War: If Tyrol had been a closed part of Austria-Hungary until then, today's South Tyrol and Trentino (formerly Welschirol) were awarded to Italy with the peace treaty of 1919. In January 1927, the fascist administration founded the majority German-speaking province of Bolzano. With the First Statute of Autonomy of 1948, this province attained its present geographical extent, although it was still officially referred to as the Tyrolean Etschland. The name South Tyrol, which had been generally used for this area since the 1920s, was officially recognised for the first time with the Second Statute of Autonomy of 1972. Since then, the provincial administration has used the long form Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol or the short form Land Südtirol as its own designation. The Italian equivalent is Provincia autonoma di Bolzano - Alto Adige, the Ladin Provincia Autonoma de Balsan - South Tyrol (in Val Badia) or Provincia Autonoma de Bulsan - South Tyrol (in Val Gardena).

"South Tyrol" as a topographical designation: the name "Südtirol" or its equivalents in other languages (South Tyrol or Tirol in English, Tyrol du Sud in French) already found widespread use in the 19th century, but could refer to various southern areas of the County of Tyrol, which also included the modern South Tyrol only partially or not at all. In the broadest sense, "South Tyrol" was used to refer to all Tyrolean territories south of the main ridge of the Alps, which were further subdivided into "German South Tyrol" and "Welsh South Tyrol" (or "Welschtirol") on the basis of linguistic majorities. After the annexation of the southern part of Tyrol by Italy, a change in meaning took place in the 1920s, whereby "South Tyrol" became a synonym for the "Province of Bolzano", which was mainly populated by German speakers.

Origin and use of the Italian terms "Alto Adige" and "Sudtirolo": The Italian designation Alto Adige (in German "Oberetsch" or "Hochetsch") for the German-speaking parts of Tyrol south of the watershed was coined and spread at the beginning of the 20th century in the course of irredentism. The name was taken from the Département Haut-Adige (Dipartimento dell'Alto Adige) in the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, which existed from 1810 to 1813 and largely comprised what is now Trentino as well as some adjacent areas, including the southern part of today's South Tyrol with the city of Bolzano. In the second half of the 20th century, the Italian alternative designation Sudtirolo emerged and is becoming increasingly widespread.