 So, in the peninsula of Istria before World War I, ethnic Italians accounted for about a third (36.5%) of the local inhabitants.A new wave of Italians, who were not part of the indigenous Venetian-speaking Istrians, arrived between 1918 and 1943.At the time, Primorska and Istria, Rijeka, part of Dalmatia, and the islands of Cres, Lastovo, and Palagruža (and, from 1941 to 1943, Krk) were considered part of Italy.