In 1647 Emperor Ferdinand III elevated the Görz town of Gradisca to an immediate county for the descendants of privy councillor Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg.

By the Treaty of Pressburg (1805), French dominance was established in the region, resulting in Austrian loss of the most western parts of the County.

[2] The remaining territory of the county was left under Austrian rule until 1809, when it was incorporated into the Illyrian Provinces under direct domination of the French Empire.

In 1849, the Kingdom of Illyria was dissolved, and the Austrian Littoral was then formed, comprising the County of Gorizia and Gradisca, Trieste and Istria.

The county had its own provincial parliament and enjoyed a large degree of self-government, although it was formally subjected to an Imperial Governor (Landeshauptmann) with the seat in Trieste, who carried out the government supervision for the whole territory of the Austrian Littoral.

Large numbers of the population were interned in civil camps around Austria-Hungary and Italy, while almost half of the province's territory laid in ruins.

In Spring 1918, two mass political movements emerged in the county, demanding larger autonomy within a federalized Habsburg Monarchy.

In November 1918, the whole territory of the county was occupied by the Italian military which suppressed all political movements challenging her claims on the region.

The new province included some areas of the former Austrian Duchy of Carniola that were assigned to Italy by the Peace Treaty (the districts of Idrija, Vipava, and Šturje).

Most Slovene intellectuals and small business owners were forced to leave the region, many of them settled in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia or emigrated to Argentina.

The organization, founded by local Slovenes (mostly young people of liberal, nationalist and social-democratic orientation) carried out several attacks on Italian military and administrative personnel, which further exacerbated the situations in the region.

After the Italian armistice in September 1943, Nazi Germany occupied the region, incorporating it into the Operational Zone Adriatic Coast, led by the Gauleiter Friedrich Rainer.

Already in September 1943, large portions of the region were taken over by the Communist-led Liberation Front of the Slovenian People, which established several important bases in the area, including the famous Franja Partisan Hospital.

The anti-Communist collaborationist militia called Slovene Home Guard was also allowed to establish some units in the area, although they had little success in recruiting the locals.

After the end of World War II in 1945, almost the entire region was liberated by the Yugoslav People's Army, but was forced to withdraw from its western part.

During the forty days of Yugoslav occupation, thousands of Italians were arrested by Communist authorities; most of them were released, but several hundred of them perished in the Foibe massacres.

For two years, Gorizia and Gradisca was a contested region between Italy and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, divided by the so-called Morgan Line.

In September 1947, the region was finally divided between the two countries: Yugoslavia got most of the rural territory of the eastern part, while all of the western lowlands and the urban center of Gorizia were left to Italy.

Among the prominent figures of Slovene culture from the County of Gorizia and Gradisca were: the poets Simon Gregorčič, Alojz Gradnik, and Joža Lovrenčič, writer Julius Kugy, theologian Anton Mahnič, composer Stanko Premrl, historian Simon Rutar, painters Jožef Tominc and Saša Šantel, architect Max Fabiani, philologist Karel Štrekelj, and literary historian Avgust Žigon.

Others, such as the conservative leader and political author Luigi Faidutti, favoured an autonomous development of Friulian culture within a multicultural framework of the Habsburg Empire.

The emergence of the Slovene National Awakening in the second half of the 19th century meant a significant setback for the Italian culture in the region.

Nevertheless, important figures emerged from the Italian-speaking milieu of Gorizia, such as the prominent philologist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli and philosopher Carlo Michelstaedter, both of whom were of Jewish descent.

Among the most prominent members of the German-speaking community of Gorizia and Gradisca were the chemist Johannes Christian Brunnich and explorer and natural scientist Karl von Scherzer.

Towns such as Gorizia, Grado, Aquileia, Duino, Aurisina, and Most na Soči became important tourist centers in the Austrian Riviera.

These include the ethnographer and linguist Karl von Czoernig, poet Rainer Maria Rilke who wrote his famous Duino Elegies while visiting the region, and the renowned physicist Ludwig Boltzmann.

Several important religious figures lived and worked in Gorizia, including cardinal Jakob Missia, bishop Frančišek Borgia Sedej, theologians Anton Mahnič and Josip Srebrnič, and Franciscan friar and philologian Stanislav Škrabec.

There were many important Roman Catholic sacral buildings in the area, among them the sanctuaries of Sveta Gora ("Holy Mountain") and Barbana, and the monastery of Kostanjevica.