The name comes from the Latin curtis, a courtyard, and is recorded as early as 1276 in the form Cortinegum. The coat of arms tells two things: in the lower half a silver crenellated wall above a blue band, which is the wall the village built to defend itself from the floods of the Adige; in the upper half a half eight-pointed star and a crescent moon, taken from the arms of the counts of Appiano, to whom the village belonged.
Under Fascism Cortina was detached from Bolzano and annexed to the province of Trento, to make easier the Italianisation the government wanted to impose on the area. It came back in 1948, after protest demonstrations across the Bassa Atesina and with the first statute of autonomy, which put into practice part of the De Gasperi-Gruber agreement. Today more than two thirds of the inhabitants declare German as their first language. The rest of the name is given by the road: the village stands on the South Tyrolean Wine Road, among the vineyards and the cellars.
The Cortina sulla strada del vino guide
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Cortina sulla strada del vino
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
