The article describes why the Trieste issue is the only one of the territorial disputes Italy had with neighbouring countries at the end of the Second World War that still influences Italian public opinion and policy. The first part of the work briefly describes the problem that Italy had with its former colonies, and with France, Austria and Yugoslavia. While the topic is not discussed in detail for the sake of brevity, emphasis has been placed to the mutual impact each of these territorial issues had on the others during the period when the looming Cold War influenced all of them. The second half of the article explains what made the Trieste issue unique and why it still plays an important role in the Italian national consciousness. The a...