
Veneto, also known as Venetia, is one of the twenty regions of Italy, located in the northeast of the country along the Adriatic Sea. The region was enriched under the Republic of Venice from the Middle Ages until the French Revolutionary Wars, when Venice fell to the French First Republic. In 1815, Veneto was granted to the Austrian Empire as a result of the Congress of Vienna, and it was conquered by Italy during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Veneto switched from becoming a land of mass emigration to a large immigrant-receiving area, with 454,453 Romanians and Moroccan Berbers settling in the area in 2008. Since the 19th century, the people of Veneto have advocated autonomy for the state, and the Venetian language is the largest language in the region. In 2012, Veneto had a population of 4,865,380 people.