historically between the renaissance and the 19th century, the whole area, originally populated by neolatins from the time of the roman empire, experienced a lot of germanisation. in the centuries before napoleon, only the dolomite's area of the western part of the present area of south tyrol (especially the val venosta near merano) remained neolatin. after the italian victory in wwi the italian government promoted a huge immigration of italians in the city, that was fully modernized with new areas and with the creation of an industrial section: since then the italians are the majority and in the 2011 census they were nearly 77% of the total population.