REGIONE CALABRIA

The Region, as the other ordinary statute Regions, was established in 1970, with Catanzaro as capital, four provinces (Catanzaro, Cosenza, Crotone and Vibo Valentia) and one metropolitan city Reggio Calabria. Residents 1.836.512 (2023).

The tip of the boot of Italy is a territory which sank in the sea in the tertiary era; hit by floods, its inland seas were covered with sediments till resulting in the plain that we have today: Sibari, Sant’Eufemia, Gioia Tauro, Corace and Crati plains. The current orography is due to the low and gradual process of the coast-line rising, following the withdrawal of the sea.

It is a peninsula approximately 250 km long, covering 15,222 km², with a coastal development of 788.92 km (20% of the Italian coast), 116 out of 404 coastal municipalities. The mountain range (Pollino, Sila, Coastal Chain, Serre and Aspromonte), which crosses it, from the north to the Strait of Messina, are the central backbone of the region (91%, hills and mountains), the remaining 9% of the territory is occupied by plains. The only regional land border is in the North, with Basilicata (Pollino massif), to the South-West it is washed by the waters of the Strait of Messina, which separate it from Sicily, to the East it is washed by the Ionian Sea and to the West by the Tyrrhenian.