[11] Ladin is recognized as a minority language in 54 Italian municipalities[12] belonging to the provinces of South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno.

It is not possible to assess the exact number of Ladin speakers, because only in the provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino are the inhabitants asked to identify their native language in the general census of the population, which takes place every 10 years.

[2] Ladin is an officially recognised language, taught in schools and used in public offices (in written as well as spoken forms).

[19] All Ladin dialects spoken in the province of Belluno, including those in the former Tyrolean territories, enjoy a varying degree of influence from Venetian.

[citation needed] Whether a proto-Rhaeto-Romance language ever existed is controversially discussed amongst linguists and historians, a debate known as Questione Ladina.

[citation needed] Starting in the very early Middle Ages, the area was mostly ruled by the County of Tyrol or the Bishopric of Brixen, both belonging to the realms of the Austrian Habsburg rulers.

[citation needed] After the end of World War I in 1918, Italy annexed the southern part of Tyrol, including the Ladin areas.

This included changing Ladin place names into the Italian pronunciation according to Tolomei's Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige.

Following the end of World War II, the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement of 1946 between Austria and Italy introduced a level of autonomy for Trentino and South Tyrol but did not include any provisions for the Ladin language.

[citation needed] Ladin is officially recognised in Trentino and South Tyrol by provincial and national law.

Starting in the 1990s, the Italian parliament and provincial assembly have passed laws and regulations protecting the Ladin language and culture.

School curricula were adapted in order to teach in Ladin, and street signs are being changed to bilingual.

In a popular referendum in October 2007, the inhabitants of Cortina d'Ampezzo overwhelmingly voted to leave Veneto and return to South Tyrol.

Ladins are also guaranteed political representations in the assemblies of Trentino and South Tyrol due to a reserved seats system.

In South Tyrol, in order to reach a fair allocation of jobs in public service, a system called "ethnic proportion" was established in the 1970s.

This has theoretically enabled Ladins to receive guaranteed representation in the South Tyrolean civil service according to their numbers.