| Pazin Grad Pazin |
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| — City — | |||
| City of Pazin | |||
| Panorama over Pazin, to the left the Montecuccoli Castle | |||
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Pazin
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | Croatia | ||
| County | Istria | ||
| Government | |||
| • Mayor | Renato Krulčić (IDS) | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 137 km2 (52.9 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2001) | |||
| • Total | 9,227 | ||
| • Density | 67.4/km2 (174.4/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| Postal code | 52 000 | ||
| Area code(s) | 052 | ||
| Website | pazin.hr | ||
Pazin (German: Mitterburg, Italian: Pisino) is the administrative seat of Istria County in Croatia. The town has a population of 4,986 (2001), the total Pazin municipality population is 9,227 (2001). In 1991 it was made the capital of the županija for its location in the geographical center of the Istria peninsula and in order to boost the development of its interior territories.
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Pazin was first mentioned as Castrum Pisinium in a 983 deed regarding a donation by Emperor Otto II to the Diocese of Poreč.[1] It then belonged to the Imperial March of Istria, which had originally had been under the suzerainty of the newly established Duchy of Carinthia in 976, but separated together with the March of Carniola in 1040.
In the 12th century Mitterburg Castle was in possession of the Lower Carniolan count Meinhard of Schwarzenburg, who held the office of a Vogt of the Poreč bishops (in Latin documents he is known as Cernogradus), and established the Pazin County (earldom). Upon his death, Pazin was inherited by his son-in-law Count Engelbert III of Gorizia (Görz) in 1186.
While most of Istria had gradually been annexed by Venice, Engelbert's descendant Count Albert III of Gorizia in 1374 bequested his Mitterburg estates to the Austrian House of Habsburg, who attached them to their Duchy of Carniola and gave it out in fief to various families, the last of which was the comital House of Montecuccoli[1] from 1766.
The current town was mostly built beneath the medieval fortress. The present-day Castle Montecuccoli was rebuilt in the 15th and 16th century and disassembled in the 18th and 19th. It has been a museum since the end of World War II.
The Pazin ponor (Pazinska jama/Foiba) located under the castle was partially explored by Édouard-Alfred Martel in 1896 and is the best example of karst hydrography and morphology in Istria. Castle and a gorge inspired Jules Verne for the novel Mathias Sandorf of 1885.
The following settlements comprise the city's administrative region:[2]
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