Raša

It took only 397 days to build Raša, the youngest town in Istria, as one of the newly built-up towns (città di fondazione) during the Italian reign, i.e. the fascist era. The construction works begun on the 10th March 1936 and ended on the 10th April 1937, with the majority of buildings completed within a year so the first inhabitants started to move in their new homes, and the new town of Raša was officially inaugurated on the 4th November 1937 before the government emissary Giovanni Host-Venturi and the king’s envoy Duke of Spoleto and other highly ranked state officials. By a special royal decree of Victor Emmanuel III, the statute of the municipality of Raša was created on the 28th October 1937 as a symbolic date which marked the fifteenth anniversary of the march on Rome.

Initially, the newly constructed mining town was called Liburnia, but due to political circumstances immediately before the adoption of the statute, the name was changed to Raša, i.e. Arsia after the river of the same name, which with its tributaries geographically and morphologically determines this area. The river Raša (Arsia flumen), although of a small river flow, has from prehistoric periods until recent times often been a significant border boundary between different tribes, peoples, empires and states.