Pirano

Pirano, a seaport of Austria, in Istria, 22 m. S.W. of Trieste by rail. Pop. (1900), 13,339, mostly Italians. In addition to viticulture and the cultivation of the olive, its principal resources are ship-building and fishing. In the neighbourhood are the most extensive works in Istria for the extraction of salt from the sea-water, which produce about 50,000 tons of salt annually. Pirano is celebrated for the victory of the Venetians over the fleet of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1177. It passed under the domination of Venice in 1283 and became definitely incorporated with Austria, together with the other possessions of Venice in the Istrian Peninsula, in 1813.