Italy - Traditional Regions | Britannica

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• Introduction & Quick Facts
• Land
  • Relief
    • Mountain ranges
    • The plains
    • Coastal areas
  • Drainage
    • Rivers
    • Lakes
  • Soils
  • Climate
  • Plant life
  • Animal life
• The people
  • Ethnic groups
  • Languages
  • Religion
  • Traditional regions
  • Settlement patterns
    • Rural areas
    • Urban centers
  • Demographic trends
    • Internal migration patterns
    • Emigration and immigration
• Economy
  • An overview
    • Public and private sectors
    • Postwar economic development
    • Later economic trends
  • Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
    • Field crops
    • Tree crops
    • Pasture
    • Forestry
    • Fishing
  • Resources and power
    • Iron and coal
    • Mineral production
    • Energy
  • Manufacturing
    • Mining and quarrying
    • Development of heavy industry
    • Light manufacturing
    • Construction
  • Finance
  • Trade
  • Services and tourism
    • Business services
    • Tourism
  • Labour and taxation
  • Transportation and telecommunications
    • Water transport
    • Rail transport
    • Road transport
    • Air transport
    • Telecommunications
• Government and society
  • Constitutional framework
    • Constitution of 1948
    • The legislature
    • The presidential office
    • The government
  • Regional and local government
  • Justice
  • Political process
    • Electoral system
    • Political parties
    • The participation of the citizen
  • Security
  • Health and welfare
  • Housing
  • Education
• Cultural life
  • Cultural milieu
  • Daily life and social customs
  • The arts
    • Visual arts
    • Architecture
    • Literature
    • Music
    • Theater
    • Film
  • Cultural institutions
    • Museums and galleries
    • Libraries
    • Cultural institutes
  • Sports and recreation
  • Media and publishing
• History
  • Italy in the early Middle Ages
    • The late Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths
      • Fifth-century political trends
      • The Ostrogothic kingdom
      • The end of the Roman world
    • Lombards and Byzantines
      • The Lombard kingdom, 584–774
      • Popes and exarchs, 590–800
      • Ethnic identity and government
        • Lombard Italy
        • Byzantine Italy
        • Similarities between Lombard and Byzantine states
    • Carolingian and post-Carolingian Italy, 774–962
      • The kingdom of Italy
        • The role of Rome
        • The reign of Berengar I
      • The south, 774–1000
    • Literature and art
    • Economy and society
      • Socioeconomic developments in the countryside
        • Subsistence cultivation
        • The growing power of the aristocracy
      • Socioeconomic developments in the city
  • Italy, 962–1300
    • Italy under the Saxon emperors
      • The Ottonian system
      • Social and economic developments
    • The reform movement and the Salian emperors
      • The papacy and the Normans
      • The Investiture Controversy
      • The rise of communes
    • The age of the Hohenstaufen
      • Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa)
        • Papal-imperial relations
        • Institutional reforms
        • Northern Italy
      • Economic and cultural developments
      • Henry VI
      • Otto IV
      • Frederick II
        • Relations to the papacy
        • The kingdom of Jerusalem
        • The Sicilian kingdom
        • The war in northern Italy
      • The factors shaping political factions
      • The end of Hohenstaufen rule
      • Economic developments
      • Cultural developments
  • Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries
    • Characteristics of the period
    • Italy to c. 1380
      • The southern kingdoms and the Papal States
      • The popolo and the formation of the signorie in central and northern Italy
      • Venice in the 14th century
      • Florence in the 14th century
      • Economic change
      • Famine, war, and plague (1340–80)
    • Italy from c. 1380 to c. 1500
      • Political development, 1380–1454
      • The states of Italy in the 15th century
        • The southern monarchies and the Papal States
        • Venice
        • Florence
        • Milan
      • The first French invasion
      • Savonarola
    • The early Italian Renaissance
      • Humanism
      • The arts and intellectual life
  • Early modern Italy (16th to 18th century)
    • From the 1490s through the 17th-century crisis
      • French and Spanish rivalries after 1494
        • French loss of Naples, gain of Milan
        • Spanish acquisition of Naples
        • Tuscany and the papacy
        • French victories in Lombardy
      • The age of Charles V
        • New warfare
        • Spanish victory in Italy
      • Spanish Italy
        • The Kingdom of Naples
        • The kingdom of Sicily
        • Sardinia
        • The duchy of Milan
        • Principates and oligarchic republics
        • The duchy of Savoy
        • The duchy of Tuscany
        • The republic of Genoa
        • The Republic of Venice
        • The Papal States
      • Culture and society
      • Society and economy
      • The 17th-century crisis
    • Reform and Enlightenment in the 18th century
      • Society and economy
      • Political thought and early attempts at reform
      • The era of Enlightenment reform
        • Milan
        • Tuscany
        • Naples and Sicily
        • The other Italian states
      • The crisis of the old regime
  • Revolution, restoration, and unification
    • The French Revolutionary period
      • The early years
        • French invasion of Italy
        • Roots of the Risorgimento
        • The Italian republics of 1796–99
        • Collapse of the republics
      • The French Consulate, 1799–1804
      • The Napoleonic empire, 1804–14
        • Northern and central Italy
        • The Kingdom of Naples
        • Sardinia and Sicily
        • The end of French rule
    • The restoration period
      • The Vienna settlement
      • Economic slump and revival
      • The rebellions of 1831 and their aftermath
      • The Revolutions of 1848
    • Unification
      • The role of Piedmont
      • The war of 1859
      • Garibaldi and the Thousand
      • Condition of the Italian kingdom
      • The acquisition of Venetia and Rome
  • Italy from 1870 to 1945
    • Developments from 1870 to 1914
      • Politics and the political system, 1870–87
        • Forces of opposition
        • Land reform
        • Protectionism
        • Social changes
      • The Crispi era, 1887–1900
        • Domestic policies
        • Colonialism
        • Years of crisis
      • The Giolitti era, 1900–14
        • Domestic policies
        • Economic developments
        • Health and education
    • World War I and fascism
      • War and its aftermath
        • Conduct of the war
        • The cost of victory
        • Economic and political crisis: the “two red years”
      • The Fascist era
        • The rise of Mussolini
        • The end of constitutional rule
        • Anti-Fascist movements
        • Economic policy
        • Foreign policy
      • World War II
        • Military disaster
        • End of the regime
        • The republic of Salò (the Italian Social Republic) and the German occupation
        • The partisans and the Resistance
  • Italy since 1945
    • The first decades after World War II
      • Birth of the Italian republic
      • The Cold War political order
        • Parties and party factions
        • Foreign policy
      • The economic miracle
        • Industrial growth
        • Land reform
        • The south
    • Italy from the 1960s
      • Demographic and social change
      • Economic stagnation and labor militancy in the 1960s and ’70s
      • Student protest and social movements, 1960s to ’80s
      • Terrorism
      • Politics in the 1970s and ’80s
      • Regional government
      • The economy in the 1980s
      • The fight against organized crime
      • Italy at the turn of the 21st century
        • Emergence of the “second republic”
        • Economic strength
        • A new political landscape
          • The rise of Berlusconi
          • Shifting power
          • Scandal and the struggling economy
        • The migrant crisis and the growth of populist movements
          • The Renzi and Gentiloni governments
          • The victory of populist parties
        • Immigration and foreign policy

References & Edit History Facts & Stats Images, Videos & Interactives At a Glance Italy summary Quizzes The Country Quiz Which Country Is Larger By Area? Quiz Which Country Is Larger By Population? Quiz Which Country Is Larger? Quiz Guess the Country by Its Neighbors Quiz Related Questions

• Why is Dante significant?
• What was Dante’s early life like?
• Why was Dante exiled?
• Who was Dante’s muse?
• What was the cause of World War II?

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Traditional regions

in Italy in The people Ask Anything Homework Help Also known as: Italia, Italian Republic, Repubblica Italiana Written by Giuseppe Di Palma Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. Author of Surviving Without Governing: The Italian Parties in Parliament and others. Giuseppe Di PalmaAll Fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors Last updated Feb. 23, 2026 •History Britannica AI Ask Anything Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything

Italy is divided into 20 administrative regions, which correspond generally with historical traditional regions, though not always with exactly the same boundaries. A better-known and more general way of dividing Italy is into four parts: the north, the center, the south, and the islands. The north includes such traditional regions as Piedmont, which is characterized by some French influence and was the seat of united Italy’s former royal dynasty; Liguria, extending southward around the Gulf of Genoa; Lombardy, which has long been noted for its productive agriculture and vigorously independent city communes and now for its industrial output; and Veneto, once the territory of the far-flung Venetian empire, reaching from Brescia to Trieste at its greatest extent. The center includes Emilia-Romagna, with its prosperous farms; the Marche, on the Adriatic side; Tuscany and Umbria, celebrated for their vestiges of Etruscan civilization and Renaissance traditions of art and culture; Latium (Lazio), which contains the Campagna, whose beautiful hills encircle the “Eternal City” of Rome; and the Abruzzo and Molise, regions of the highest central Apennines, which used to support a wild and remote people. The south, or Mezzogiorno, includes Naples and its surrounding fertile Campania; the region of Puglia, with its great plain crossed by oleander-bordered roads leading to the low Murge Salentine hills and the heel of Italy; and the poorer regions of Basilicata and Calabria. On the islands of Sicily and Sardinia are people who take pride in holding themselves apart from the inhabitants of mainland Italy. However, the south and the islands have changed a great deal since about 1960 and have become more modernized. Within these four main divisions, the variety of the much smaller traditional districts is very great and depends on history as well as on topography and economic conditions.

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