Venetian Lagoon in the context of "Lagoon"

The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and maritime republic with its capital in Venice. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 by Paolo Lucio Anafesto, over the course of its 1,100 years of history it established itself as one of the major European commercial and naval powers. Initially extended in the Dogado area (a territory currently comparable to the Metropolitan City of Venice), during its history it annexed a large part of Northeast Italy, Istria, Dalmatia, the coasts of present-day Montenegro and Albania as well as numerous islands in the Adriatic and eastern Ionian seas. At the height of its expansion, between the 13th and 16th centuries, it also governed Crete, Cyprus, the Peloponnese, a number of Greek islands, as well as several cities and ports in the eastern Mediterranean.

The islands of the Venetian Lagoon in the 7th century, after having experienced a period of substantial increase in population, were organized into Maritime Venice, a Byzantine duchy dependent on the Exarchate of Ravenna. With the fall of the Exarchate and the weakening of Byzantine power, the Duchy of Venice arose, led by a doge and established on the island of Rialto; it prospered from maritime trade with the Byzantine Empire and other eastern states. To safeguard the trade routes, between the 9th and 11th centuries the Duchy waged several wars, which ensured its complete dominion over the Adriatic. Owing to its participation in the Crusades, Venice increasingly penetrated into eastern markets and, between the 12th and 13th centuries, managed to extend its power into numerous eastern emporiums and commercial ports. The supremacy over the Mediterranean Sea led the Republic to the clash with Genoa, which lasted until the 14th century, when, after having risked complete collapse during the War of Chioggia (with the Genoese army and fleet in the lagoon for a long period), Venice quickly managed to recover from the territorial losses suffered with the Treaty of Turin of 1381 and begin expansion on the mainland.

Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the region of Veneto. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are linked by 438 bridges.

The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile). As of 2025, the city proper (comune of Venice) has 249,466 inhabitants, nearly 50,000 of whom live in the historical island city of Venice (centro storico), while most of the population resides on the mainland (terraferma), and about 25,000 live on other islands in the lagoon (estuario).

Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the north-east of the country. It is the 4th most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is the region's capital while Verona is the largest city.

Veneto was part of the Roman Empire until the 5th century AD. Later, after a feudal period, it was part of the Republic of Venice until 1797. Venice ruled for centuries over one of the largest and richest maritime republics and trade empires in the world. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the former Republic was combined with Lombardy and re-annexed to the Austrian Empire as the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, until that was merged with the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence and of a plebiscite.

An acqua alta (/ˌækwə ˈæltə/, Italian: [ˈakkwa ˈalta] ; lit. 'high water') is an exceptional tide peak that occurs periodically in the northern Adriatic Sea. The term is applied to such tides in the Italian region of Veneto. The peaks reach their maximum in the Venetian Lagoon, where they cause partial flooding of Venice and Chioggia; flooding also occurs elsewhere around the northern Adriatic, for instance at Grado and Trieste, but much less often and to a lesser degree.

The phenomenon occurs mainly between autumn and spring, when the astronomical tides are reinforced by the prevailing seasonal winds that hamper the usual reflux. The main winds involved are the sirocco, which blows northbound along the Adriatic Sea, and the bora, which has a specific local effect due to the shape and location of the Venetian Lagoon.

The War of Chioggia (Italian: Guerra di Chioggia) was a conflict fought by the Republic of Genoa against the Republic of Venice between 1378 and 1381, the conclusion of an open confrontation that had lasted for years and which had already included some occasional and limited military clashes.

Initially the Genoese managed to conquer Chioggia and vast areas of the Venetian Lagoon, but in the end the Venetians managed to recover Chioggia and the Lagoon and Istrian cities that had fallen into the hands of the Genoese. The war then ended diplomatically with the Treaty of Turin on 8 August 1381, which sanctioned the exit of the Genoese and Venetians from a conflict in which both maritime republics had suffered enormous economic damage.

Byzantine Venetia (Greek: Bενετικὰ, romanized: Venetikà), also known as the Byzantine Maritime Venetia (Latin: Venetia maritima), or Maritime Venice (Italian: Venezia marittima), was a territory of the Byzantine Empire, within the Exarchate of Ravenna, that existed from the middle of the 6th century, up to the second half of the 7th century. Its territory was corresponding to the coastal belt of ancient Venetia and Istria, encompassing coastal regions of present-day Veneto, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, including the Venetian Lagoon. Its territory did not include hinterland of the old Venetian province, which was conquered by the Lombards. Within Byzantine domains in Italy, Maritime Venetia had a peripheral position, characterized by a patchwork of settlements without major urban centers, besides Oderzo (Latin: Opitergium), the capital city of the province.

The Grand Canal (Italian: Canal Grande [kaˌnal ˈɡrande], locally and informally Canalazzo; Venetian: Canal Grando, locally usually Canałaso [kanaˈɰaso]) is the largest channel in Venice, Italy, forming one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city.

One end of the canal leads into the lagoon near the Santa Lucia railway station and the other end leads into the basin at San Marco; in between, it makes a large reverse-S shape through the central districts (sestieri) of Venice. It is 3.8 kilometres (2.4 miles) long, and 30 to 90 metres (98 to 295 ft) wide, with an average depth of 5 metres (16 feet).