Adriatic Sea

Simeon I the Great (Church Slavonic: цѣсар҄ь Сѷмеѡ́нъ А҃ Вели́къ; Bulgarian: цар Симеон I Велики, romanized: Simeon I Veliki [simɛˈɔn ˈpɤrvi vɛˈliki]; Greek: Συμεών Αʹ ὁ Μέγας, romanized: Sumeṓn prôtos ho Mégas) ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern and Southeast Europe. His reign was also a period of unmatched cultural prosperity and enlightenment later deemed the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.

During Simeon's rule, Bulgaria spread over a territory between the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black seas. The newly independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church became the first new patriarchate besides the Pentarchy, and Bulgarian Glagolitic and Cyrillic translations of Christian texts spread all over the Slavic world of the time. It was at the Preslav Literary School in the 890s that the Cyrillic alphabet was developed. Halfway through his reign, Simeon assumed the title of "emperor" (Tsar), having prior to that been styled "prince" (Knyaz).

The province of Lecce (Italian: provincia di Lecce; Salentino: provincia te Lècce) is a province in the Apulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Lecce. The province is called the "Heel of Italy". Located on the Salento peninsula, it is the second most-populous province in Apulia and the 21st most-populous province in Italy.

The province occupies an area of 2,799.07 square kilometres (1,080.73 sq mi) and has a total population of 802,807 (2016). There are 97 comuni (sg.: comune) in the province. It is surrounded by the provinces Taranto and Brindisi in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the west, and the Adriatic Sea in the east. This location has established it as a popular tourist destination. It has been ruled by the Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Carolingians, Lombards, and Normans. The important towns are Lecce, Gallipoli, Nardò, Maglie, and Otranto. Its important agricultural products are wheat and corn. Lecce stone extracted from the province has been used to decorate several historical monuments and is widely used for interior decoration.

Bari (/ˈbɑːri/ BAR-ee, Italian: [ˈbaːri] ; Barese: Bare [ˈbæːrə]; Latin: Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea in southern Italy. It is one of the most important economic centres of mainland southern Italy. It is a port and university city as well as the city of Saint Nicholas. The city itself has a population of 315,473 inhabitants, and an area of over 116 square kilometres (45 sq mi), while the urban area has 750,000 inhabitants. Its metropolitan province has 1.2 million inhabitants.

Bari is made up of four different urban sections. To the north is the closely built old town on the peninsula between two modern harbours, with the Basilica of Saint Nicholas, the Cathedral of San Sabino (1035–1171) and the Norman-Swabian Castle, which is now also a major nightlife district. To the south is the Murat quarter (erected by Joachim Murat), the modern heart of the city, which is laid out on a rectangular grid-plan with a promenade on the sea and the major shopping district (the via Sparano and via Argiro).

The Ionian Islands were an overseas possession of the Republic of Venice from the mid-14th century until the late 18th century. The conquest of the islands took place gradually. The first to be acquired was Cythera and the neighboring islet of Anticythera, indirectly in 1238 and directly after 1363. In 1386 the Council of Corfu, which was the governing body of the island, voted to make Corfu a vassal of Venice. During the Venetian period the Council remained the most powerful institution on the island. A century later, Venice captured Zante in 1485, Cephalonia in 1500 and Ithaca in 1503. These three islands modelled their administration on Corfu's model and formed their own councils. The conquest was completed in 1718 with the capture of Lefkada. Each of the islands remained part of the Venetian Stato da Màr until Napoleon Bonaparte dissolved the Republic of Venice in 1797. The Ionian Islands are situated in the Ionian Sea, off the west coast of Greece. Cythera, the southernmost, is just off the southern tip of the Peloponnese and Corfu, the northernmost, is located at the entrance of the Adriatic Sea. It is believed that the Venetian period on the Ionian Islands was generally prosperous, especially compared with the coinciding Tourkokratia — Turkish rule over the remainder of present-day Greece.

The governor of the Ionian Islands during the Venetian period was the Provveditore generale da Mar, who resided on Corfu. Additionally, each island's authorities were divided into the Venetian and the domestic authorities. The economy of the islands was based on exporting local goods, primarily raisins, olive oil and wine, whereas Venetian lira, the currency of Venice, was also the currency of the islands. Some features of the culture of Venice were incorporated in the culture of the Ionian Islands, thus influencing to this day local music, cuisine and language.

The Republic of Venice (Venetian: Repùblega Vèneta; Italian: Repubblica di Venezia) was a sovereign state and maritime republic in Northeast Italy, which existed for a millennium between the 8th century and 1797.

It was based in the lagoon communities of the historically prosperous city of Venice, and was a leading European economic and trading power during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the most successful of Italy's maritime republics. By the late Middle Ages, it held significant territories in the mainland of northern Italy, known as the Domini di Terraferma, along with most of the Dalmatian coast on the other side of the Adriatic Sea, and Crete and numerous small colonies around the Mediterranean Sea, together known as the Stato da Màr.

Istria (/ˈɪstriə/ IST-ree-ə; Croatian and Slovene: Istra; Italian and Venetian: Istria; Istriot: Eîstria; Istro-Romanian: Istria; Latin: Histria; Ancient Greek: Ἱστρία) is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea. Located at the top of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Kvarner Gulf, the peninsula is shared by three countries: Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy, 90% of its area being part of Croatia. Most of Croatian Istria is part of Istria County.

Dalmatia (/dælˈmeɪʃə, -tiə/ ; Croatian: Dalmacija [dǎlmatsija]; Italian: Dalmazia [dal'mattsja]) is a historical region located in modern-day Croatia and Montenegro, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. It is a narrow land belt stretching from the island of Rab in the north to the Bay of Kotor in the south. The Dalmatian Hinterland ranges in width from 50 kilometres in the north, to just a few kilometres in the south; it is mostly covered by the rugged Dinaric Alps. Seventy-nine islands (and about 500 islets) run parallel to the coast, the largest (in Dalmatia) being Brač, Pag, and Hvar. The largest city is Split, followed by Zadar, Šibenik, and Dubrovnik.

The name of the region stems from an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae, who lived in the area in classical antiquity. With the expansion of Rome, the province of Illyricum was established, and in the early 1st century it was reorganised into the province of Dalmatia, which stretched over a vast territory. Consequently, a Romance culture emerged, and the indigenous Illyrian population became romanised. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Migration Period, many different peoples passed through Dalmatia. While the local Illyro-Romans organized themselves around their city-states under Byzantine protection, the Croats arrived in the early 7th century and established the Duchy of Croatia, later becoming vassals of the Franks. With the Christianisation of the Croats, Slavic and Illyro-Roman elements began to intermingle in both language and culture. The Kingdom of Croatia was founded in 925, and it later incorporated the Theme of Dalmatia.

The Venetian Lagoon (Italian: Laguna di Venezia; Venetian: Łaguna de Venesia) is an enclosed bay of the Adriatic Sea, in northern Italy, in which the city of Venice is situated. Its name in the Italian and Venetian languages, Laguna Veneta (cognate of Latin lacus 'lake'), has provided the English name for an enclosed, shallow embayment of salt water: a lagoon.

The Domini di Terraferma (lit. 'mainland domains') or Stato da Tera (lit. 'mainland state') was the hinterland territories of the Republic of Venice beyond the Adriatic coast in Northeast Italy. They were one of the three subdivisions of the Republic's possessions, the other two being the original Dogado (Duchy) and the Stato da Màr (maritime territories).

The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain (Italian: Pianura Padana, pronounced [pjaˈnuːra paˈdaːna], or Val Padana) is a major geographical feature of northern Italy. It extends approximately 650 km (400 mi) in an east-west direction, with an area of 46,000 km (18,000 square miles) including its Venetic extension not actually related to the Po basin; it runs from the Western Alps to the Adriatic Sea. The flatlands of Veneto and Friuli are often considered apart since they do not drain into the Po, but they effectively combine into an unbroken plain, making it the largest in Southern Europe. It has a population of 17 million, or a third of Italy's total population.

The plain is the surface of an in-filled system of ancient canyons (the "Apennine Foredeep") extending from the Apennines in the south to the Alps in the north, including the northern Adriatic. In addition to the Po and its affluents, the contemporary surface may be considered to include the Savio, Lamone and Reno to the south, and the Adige, Brenta, Piave and Tagliamento of the Venetian Plain to the north, among the many streams that empty into the north Adriatic from the west and north.