The Bavarian stem duchy was incorporated into the Carolingian Empire when Charlemagne deposed Odilo's son Duke Tassilo III in 788.

From 889 to 976 it was the Carinthian March of the renewed Bavarian duchy, though in 927 the local Count Berthold of the Luitpolding dynasty was vested with ducal rights by the German king Henry the Fowler.

Upon his death in 948 the Luitpoldings, though heirs of the royal Ottonian dynasty, were not able to retain their possessions, as King Otto I bought the loyalty of his younger brother Henry I with the Bavarian lands.

Though Henry once again managed to regain the ducal title in 985, Carinthia upon his death in 989 fell back to the Imperial Ottonian dynasty in Bavaria.

In 1039 Carinthia was inherited by Emperor Henry III himself, who split off the Carniolan march the following year and granted it to Margrave Poppo of Istria.

In spite of being supported by the Habsburg king Rudolf I of Germany, who defeated Ottokar II at the Battle on the Marchfeld in 1278, Philip never gained actual power.

In 1335, after the death of Henry, the last male of this line, Emperor Louis the Bavarian gave Carinthia and the southern part of the Tyrol as an imperial fief to the Habsburg family on 2 May in Linz.

Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Joseph II attempted to create a more unitary Habsburg state, and in 1804 Carinthia was integrated into the newly established Austrian Empire under Francis II/I.

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, however, was not satisfied with these parts of the former duchy and also occupied land north of the Karawanks mountain range, including the capital city of Klagenfurt.

The Entente powers decided on a two-stage referendum, of which the first stage, the Carinthian Plebiscite was held on 10 October 1920 to determine the fate of Carinthia.