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Veneto or the Venetia is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of about five million. Venice is the region's capital and 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. Besides Italian, most inhabitants also speak Venetian. Since 1971, the Statute of Veneto has referred to the region's citizens as "the Venetian people". Wikipedia