Kraške skupnosti ob jadranski obali v franciscejskem katastru
Karst communities at the Adriatic coast in the Franciscan cadastre

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the paper is to present the economy and the economic characteristics of the communities living in the area where the Karst meets the Adriatic Sea, using the Franciscan cadastre (early 19th century) as the point of departure and the primary source. The main purpose of the cadastre was to record the status of agriculture, but because the assessors wanted to gather as much information as possible, it also contains data about other economic aspects and activities. And although it was established in the early 19th century, it reflects the overall situation in the area prior to the beginning of industrialization. The selected communities in the Karst area are divided into nine cadastral municipalities belonging to two cadastral districts (Trieste and Duino) and are located in the coastal belt from Trieste to Duino respectively. For the analysis of their economies, we made use of the cadastral survey’s evaluation report, which presents the main features of each cadastral municipality, such as topography, municipal boundaries, population, livestock, rivers and other water bodies, roads, markets, types of arable land, harvests, field crops and tillage, crop quality and its value, types of landed property, houses and branches of industry. The evaluation report was the most suitable source for this research because it covers all economic characteristics that the assessors deemed important to record and, unlike other similar evaluation reports in the cadastre, it was preserved for all municipalities, thus enabling a methodological comparison of data between the municipalities. The analysis of these economies has shown that the agrarian activities of the inhabitants were rather well adapted to the difficult karst terrain and the harsh climate. The central complementary activity was fishing, including tuna hunting, in which the inhabitants of all municipalities immediately adjacent to the sea participated. Even in non-agrarian activities, the inhabitants strived to exploit the available resources and means, such as stone and fishing boats in the activity of “šavorantstvo” (gathering and transporting stone by sea) and stone deposits for quarrying.

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