Yugoslavia – Trieste zona B year 1953 stamps MNH

Yugoslavia – Trieste zona B year 1953 stamps ☀ MNH**

The Free Territory of Trieste was an independent territory in Southern Europe established on 10 February 1947, by a protocol of the Treaty of Peace with Italy. It was situated between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, facing the north part of the Adriatic Sea, and was under the direct responsibility of the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of World War II. The purpose of creating this territory was to accommodate an ethnically and culturally mixed population in a neutral, independent country and to ease territorial disputes between Italy and Yugoslavia, given its strategic importance for trade with Central Europe.

The Free Territory of Trieste officially came into existence on 15 September 1947, with its administration divided into two areas: Zone A, which included the port city of Trieste and a narrow coastal strip to the northwest, and Zone B, formed by a small portion of the northwestern part of the Istrian peninsula.

However, the territory was de facto dissolved in 1954, and its areas were given to Italy (Zone A) and Yugoslavia (Zone B). This dissolution led to a border dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia, which was only settled twenty years later with the signing of the bilateral Treaty of Osimo in 1975, ratified in 1977.

Today, the city of Trieste and the territory that formed Zone A are part of Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the area of the former Zone B is now part of Slovenia and Croatia.