Calabria

Starting in the third century BC, the name Calabria was originally given to the Adriatic coast of the Salento peninsula in modern Apulia.^[7] In the late first century BC this name came to extend to the entirety of the Salento, when the Roman emperor Augustus divided Italy into regions. The whole region of Apulia received the name Regio II Apulia et Calabria. By this time modern Calabria was still known as Bruttium, after the Bruttians who inhabited the region. Later in the seventh century AD, the Byzantine Empire created the Duchy of Calabria from the Salento and the Ionian part of Bruttium. Even though the Calabrian part of the duchy was conquered by the Longobards during the eighth and ninth centuries AD, the Byzantines continued to use the name Calabria for their remaining territory in Bruttium.^[8]

The modern name Italy derives from Italia, which was first used as a name for the southern part of modern Calabria.^[9][10] Over time the Greeks started to use it for the rest of the southern Italian peninsula as well. After the Roman conquest of the region, the name was used for the entire Italian peninsula and eventually the Alpine region too.^[11]

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Salento

Salento

Salento is a cultural, historical and geographic region at the southern end of the administrative region of Apulia in Southern Italy. It is a sub-peninsula of the Italian Peninsula, sometimes described as the "heel" of the Italian "boot". It encompasses the entire administrative area of the province of Lecce, a large part of the province of Brindisi and part of that of Taranto.

Apulia

Apulia

Apulia, also known by its Italian name Puglia, is a region of Italy, located in the southern peninsular section of the country, bordering the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast and the Strait of Otranto and Gulf of Taranto to the south. The region comprises 19,345 square kilometers (7,469 sq mi), and its population is about four million people.

Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic kings conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Because of these events, along with the gradual Hellenization of the Eastern Roman Empire, historians distinguish the medieval Roman Empire that remained in the Eastern provinces as the Byzantine Empire.

Augustus

Augustus

Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Principate, which is the first phase of the Roman Empire, and is considered one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.

Bruttians

Bruttians

The Bruttians were an ancient Italic people. They inhabited the southern extremity of Italy, from the frontiers of Lucania to the Sicilian Straits and the promontory of Leucopetra. This roughly corresponds to the modern region of Calabria.

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome as it was centred on Constantinople instead of Rome, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Ionian Sea

Ionian Sea

The Ionian Sea is an elongated bay of the Mediterranean Sea. It is connected to the Adriatic Sea to the north, and is bounded by Southern Italy, including Calabria, Sicily, and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and the west coast of Greece, including the Peloponnese.

Cliff at Tropea

Pollino National Park

La Sila National Park

Calabria in a photo from the ISS^[12]

The region is generally known as the "toe" of the "boot" of Italy and is a long and narrow peninsula which stretches from north to south for 248 km (154 mi), with a maximum width of 110 km (68 mi). Some 42% of Calabria's area, corresponding to 15,080 km², is mountainous, 49% is hilly, while plains occupy only 9% of the region's territory. It is surrounded by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas. It is separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina, where the narrowest point between Capo Peloro in Sicily and Punta Pezzo in Calabria is only 3.2 km (2 mi).

Three mountain ranges are present: Pollino, La Sila and Aspromonte, each with its own flora and fauna. The Pollino Mountains in the north of the region are rugged and form a natural barrier separating Calabria from the rest of Italy. Parts of the area are heavily wooded, while others are vast, wind-swept plateaus with little vegetation. These mountains are home to a rare Bosnian Pine variety and are included in the Pollino National Park, which is the largest national park in Italy, covering 1,925.65 square kilometres.

La Sila, which has been referred to as the "Great Wood of Italy",^[13][14][15] is a vast mountainous plateau about 1,200 m (3,900 ft) above sea level and stretches for nearly 2,000 km² (770 sq mi) along the central part of Calabria. The highest point is Botte Donato, which reaches 1,928 m (6,325 ft). The area boasts numerous lakes and dense coniferous forests. La Sila also has some of the tallest trees in Italy which are called the "Giants of the Sila" and can reach up to 40 m (130 ft) in height.^[16][17][18] The Sila National Park is also known to have the purest air in Europe.^[19]

The Aspromonte massif forms the southernmost tip of the Italian peninsula bordered by the sea on three sides. This unique mountainous structure reaches its highest point at Montalto, at 1,995 m (6,545 ft), and is full of wide, man-made terraces that slope down towards the sea.

Most of the lower terrain in Calabria has been agricultural for centuries, and exhibits indigenous scrubland as well as introduced plants such as the prickly pear cactus. The lowest slopes are rich in vineyards and orchards of citrus fruit, including the Diamante citron. Further up, olives and chestnut trees appear while in the higher regions there are often dense forests of oak, pine, beech and fir trees.

Climate

Calabria's climate is influenced by the sea and mountains. The Mediterranean climate is typical of the coastal areas with considerable differences in temperature and rainfall between the seasons, with an average low of 8 °C (46 °F) during the winter months and an average high of 30 °C (86 °F) during the summer months. Mountain areas have a typical mountainous climate with frequent snow during winter. The erratic behavior of the Tyrrhenian Sea can bring heavy rainfall on the western slopes of the region, while hot air from Africa makes the east coast of Calabria dry and warm. The mountains that run along the region also influence the climate and temperature of the region. The east coast is much warmer and has wider temperature ranges than the west coast. The geography of the region causes more rain to fall along the west coast than that of the east coast, which occurs mainly during winter and autumn and less during the summer months.^[20]

Below are the two extremes of climate in Calabria, the warm mediterranean subtype on the coastline and the highland climate of Monte Scuro.

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Tropea

Tropea

Tropea is a municipality in the province of Vibo Valentia, in Calabria, Italy.

Pollino National Park

Pollino National Park

Pollino National Park is an Italian national park in the southern peninsula, in the provinces of Cosenza, Matera and Potenza. Its named from the homonymous mountain massif Pollino. The park is home of the oldest European tree, a Heldreich's pine estimated 1,230 years old and the symbol of the park is the rare Bosnian pine tree. Since November 2015, with the inclusion in the global list of geoparks by UNESCO, the Pollino Park is considered a World Heritage Site. Encompassing a total of 88,650 ha in the Lucanian side and 103,915 in the Calabrian one is the largest park in the country covering 1,925.65 square kilometers and among the 50 largest in the world. The common beech is the park's most prevalent tree and the park is also home to a variety of important medicinal herbs.

La Sila

La Sila

La Sila, also simply Sila, is the name of the mountainous plateau and historic region located in Calabria, southern Italy. The Sila National Park is known to have the purest air in Europe.

Italian Peninsula

Italian Peninsula

The Italian Peninsula, also known as the Italic Peninsula or the Apennine Peninsula, is a peninsula extending from the southern Alps in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. It is nicknamed lo Stivale. Three smaller peninsulas contribute to this characteristic shape, namely Calabria, Salento and Gargano. The backbone of the Italian Peninsula consists of the Apennine Mountains, from which it takes one of its names. The peninsula comprises much of Italy, and also includes the microstates of San Marino and Vatican City.

Ionian Sea

Ionian Sea

The Ionian Sea is an elongated bay of the Mediterranean Sea. It is connected to the Adriatic Sea to the north, and is bounded by Southern Italy, including Calabria, Sicily, and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and the west coast of Greece, including the Peloponnese.

Tyrrhenian Sea

Tyrrhenian Sea

The Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenian people identified with the Etruscans of Italy.

Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. The Strait of Messina divides it from the region of Calabria in Southern Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions and is officially referred to as Regione Siciliana. The region has 5 million inhabitants. Its capital city is Palermo.

Strait of Messina

Strait of Messina

The Strait of Messina is a narrow strait between the eastern tip of Sicily and the western tip of Calabria in Southern Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north with the Ionian Sea to the south, within the central Mediterranean. At its narrowest point, between Torre Faro and Villa San Giovanni, it is 3.1 km (1.9 mi) wide. At the city of Messina, it is 5.1 km (3.2 mi) wide. The strait's maximum depth is about 250 m (820 ft).

Punta Pezzo

Punta Pezzo

Punta Pezzo is a point in Reggio Calabria, southern Italy. It is the closest point of Calabria to Sicily and is the northernmost point of the Calabrian side of the Strait of Messina, lying on the northern channel.

Pollino

Pollino

The Pollino is a massif in the southern Apennines, on the border between Basilicata and Calabria, southern Italy. It became part of the Pollino National Park in 1992. The main peaks include Monte Pollino (2,248 m) and the massif's high point, Serra Dolcedorme (2,267 m), which overlooks the plain of Sibari.

Aspromonte

Aspromonte

The Aspromonte is a mountain massif in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria. The literal translation of the name means "rough mountain". But for others the name more likely is related to the Greek word Aspros, meaning "white". It overlooks the Strait of Messina, being limited by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas and by the Pietrace river. The highest peak is Montalto. The constituting rocks are mostly gneiss, and mica schists, which form characteristic overlapping terraces. The massif is part of the Aspromonte National Park.

Botte Donato

Botte Donato

Botte Donato is a mountain in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It is part of the La Sila mountainous plateau and is the highest peak in the range at 1,928 meters in height. The mountain is within Sila National Park and the province of Cosenza. To the north of the mountain are the lakes Lago di Cecita and Lago di Ariamacina and to the south is the lake Lago Arvo.

Geotectonic map of the Central Mediterranean Area and the Calabrian Arc. The blue area is the geotectonic cross section depicted below. From van Dijk (1992)^[23]

Geotectonic Cross Section of the Calabrian Arc. Left: NW; Right: SE. From van Dijk (1992)^[23]

Calabria is commonly considered part of the "Calabrian Arc", an arc-shaped geographic domain extending from the southern part of the Basilicata Region to the northeast of Sicily, and including the Peloritano Mountains (although some authors extend this domain from Naples in the north to Palermo in the southwest). The Calabrian area shows basement (crystalline and metamorphic rocks) of Paleozoic and younger ages, covered by (mostly Upper) Neogene sediments. Studies have revealed that these rocks comprise the upper part of a pile of thrust sheets which dominate the Apennines and the Sicilian Maghrebides.^[23]

The Neogene evolution of the Central Mediterranean system is dominated by the migration of the Calabrian Arc to the southeast, overriding the African Plate and its promontories.^[24][25]) The main tectonic elements of the Calabrian Arc are the Southern Apennines fold-and-thrust belt, the "Calabria-Peloritani", or simply Calabrian block and the Sicilian Maghrebides fold-and-thrust belt. The foreland area is formed by the Apulia Platform, which is part of the Adriatic Plate, and the Ragusa or Iblean Platform, which is an extension of the African Plate. These platforms are separated by the Ionian Basin. The Tyrrhenian oceanized basin is regarded as the back-arc basin. This subduction system therefore shows the southern plates of African affinity subducting below the northern plates of European affinity.^[23]

The geology of Calabria has been studied for more than a century.^[26][27][28] The earlier works were mainly dedicated to the evolution of the basement rocks of the area. The Neogene sedimentary successions were merely regarded as "post-orogenic" infill of "neo-tectonic" tensional features. In the course of time, however, a shift can be observed in the temporal significance of these terms, from post-Eocene to post-Early Miocene to post-middle Pleistocene.^[23]

The region is seismically active and is generally ascribed to the re-establishment of an equilibrium after the latest (mid-Pleistocene) deformation phase. Some authors believe that the subduction process is still ongoing, which is a matter of debate.^[29]

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Basilicata

Basilicata

Basilicata, also known by its ancient name Lucania, is an administrative region in Southern Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south. It has two coastlines: a 30-km stretch on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania and Calabria, and a longer coastline along the Gulf of Taranto between Calabria and Apulia. The region can be thought of as the "instep" of Italy, with Calabria functioning as the "toe" and Apulia the "heel".

Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. The Strait of Messina divides it from the region of Calabria in Southern Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions and is officially referred to as Regione Siciliana. The region has 5 million inhabitants. Its capital city is Palermo.

Peloritani

Peloritani

The Peloritani are a mountain range of north-eastern Sicily, in southern Italy, extending for some 65 km (40 mi) from Capo Peloro to the Nebrodi Mountains. On the north and east they are bordered by the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas respectively, and on the south by the Alcantara River.

Naples

Naples

Naples is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's administrative limits as of 2022. Its province-level municipality is the third-most populous metropolitan city in Italy with a population of 3,115,320 residents, and its metropolitan area stretches beyond the boundaries of the city wall for approximately 20 miles.

Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is in the northwest of the island of Sicily, by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Paleozoic

Paleozoic

The Paleozoic Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name Paleozoic was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words palaiós and zōḗ, "life", meaning "ancient life").

Neogene

Neogene

The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene. Some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. The term "Neogene" was coined in 1853 by the Austrian palaeontologist Moritz Hörnes (1815–1868).

Apulia

Apulia

Apulia, also known by its Italian name Puglia, is a region of Italy, located in the southern peninsular section of the country, bordering the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast and the Strait of Otranto and Gulf of Taranto to the south. The region comprises 19,345 square kilometers (7,469 sq mi), and its population is about four million people.

Back-arc basin

Back-arc basin

A back-arc basin is a type of geologic basin, found at some convergent plate boundaries. Presently all back-arc basins are submarine features associated with island arcs and subduction zones, with many found in the western Pacific Ocean. Most of them result from tensional forces, caused by a process known as oceanic trench rollback, where a subduction zone moves towards the subducting plate. Back-arc basins were initially an unexpected phenomenon in plate tectonics, as convergent boundaries were expected to universally be zones of compression. However, in 1970, Dan Karig published a model of back-arc basins consistent with plate tectonics.

Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name Eocene comes from the Ancient Greek ἠώς and καινός and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch.

Miocene

Miocene

The Miocene is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words μείων and καινός and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene.

Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek πλεῖστος, pleīstos, 'most' and καινός, kainós, 'new'.

Magna Grecia around 280 BC

Calabria has one of the oldest records of human presence in Italy, which date back to around 700,000 BC when a type of Homo erectus evolved leaving traces around coastal areas.^[30][31][32] During the Paleolithic period Stone Age humans created the "Bos Primigenius", a figure of a bull on a cliff which dates back around 12,000 years in the Romito Cave in the town of Papasidero.^[33][34] When the Neolithic period came the first villages were founded around 3,500 BC.^[35][36]

Antiquity

Around 1500 BC a tribe called the Oenotri ("vine-cultivators"), settled in the region. According to Greek mythology, they were Greeks who were led to the region by their king, Oenotrus. The Greeks used the term 'italoi', which according to some ancient Greek writers was derived from a legendary king of the Oenotri, Italus and according to others from the bull. Originally the Greeks used 'italoi' to indicate Calabrians and later it became synonymous with the rest of the peninsula. Calabria therefore was the first region to be called Italia (Italy).^{[37][38][39][40][41]}

During the eighth and seventh centuries BC, Greek settlers founded many colonies (settlements) on the coast of southern Italy (Magna Grecia). In Calabria they founded Chone (Pallagorio), Cosentia (Cosenza), Clampetia (Amantea), Scyllaeum (Scilla), Sybaris (Sibari), Hipponion (Vibo Valentia), Locri Epizefiri (Locri), Kaulon (Monasterace), Krimisa (Cirò Marina), Kroton (Crotone), Laüs (comune of Santa Maria del Cedro), Medma (Rosarno), Metauros (Gioia Tauro), Petelia (Strongoli), Rhégion (Reggio Calabria), Scylletium (Borgia), Temesa (Campora San Giovanni), Terina (Nocera Terinese), Pandosia (Acri) and Thurii, (Thurio, comune of Corigliano Calabro).

Rhegion was the birthplace of one of the famed nine lyric poets, Ibycus. Metauros was the birthplace of another of the nine lyric poets, Stesichorus, who was the first lyric poet of the western world. Kroton spawned many victors during the ancient Olympics and other Panhellenic Games. Amongst the most famous were Milo of Croton, who won six wrestling events in six Olympics in a row, along with seven events in the Pythian Games, nine events in the Nemean Games and ten events in the Isthmian Games and also Astylos of Croton, who won six running events in three Olympics in a row.^[42] Through Alcmaeon of Croton (a philosopher and medical theorist) and Pythagoras (a mathematician and philosopher), who moved to Kroton in 530 BC, the city became a renowned center of philosophy, science and medicine. The Greeks of Sybaris created "Intellectual Property."^[43] Sybaris benefited from "vinoducts" which were a series of pipes that carried wine to the homes of its citizens.^[44][45] The Sybarite founded at least 20 other colonies, including Poseidonia (Paestum in Latin, on the Tyrrhenian coast of Lucania), Laüs (on the border with Lucania) and Scidrus (on the Lucanian coast in the Gulf of Taranto).^[46] Locri was renowned for being the town where Zaleucus created the first Western Greek law, the "Locrian Code"^[47][48] and the birthplace of ancient epigrammist and poet Nossis.

The Itali were the first established people of Calabria. Later came the Bruttii from Lucania. These occupied Calabria and called it Bruttium. The Bruttii were very advanced culturally. The Greek cities of Calabria came under the pressure from these Lucanians, an Oscan people who lived in the present day region of Basilicata. They conquered the north of Calabria and pushed further south, taking over part of the interior, probably after they defeated the Thurians near Laus in 390 BC. A few decades later Calabria came under pressure from the Bruttii. They were Lucanian slaves and other fugitives who were seeking refuge on the steep mountains of Calabria. Their name was Lucanian and meant rebels. They took advantage of the weakening of the Greek cites caused by wars between them. They took over Hipponium, Terina and Thurii. They helped the Lucanians to fight Alexander of Epirus (334–32 BC), who had come to the aid of Tarentum (in Apulia), which was also pressured by the Lucanians. After this, Agathocles of Syracuse ravaged the coast of Calabria with his fleet, took Hipponium and forced the Bruttii into unfavourable peace terms. However, they soon seized Hipponium again. After Agathloces' death in 289 BC the Lucanians and Bruttii pushed into the territory of Thurii and ravaged it. The city sent envoys to Rome to ask for help in 285 BC and 282 BC. On the second occasion, the Romans sent forces to garrison the city. This was part of the episode which sparked the Pyrrhic war.

During the Pyrrhic War (280–275 BC) the Lucanians and Bruttii sided with Pyrrhus and provided contingents which fought with his army. When Pyrrhus landed in Italy the people of Rhegion were worried about their safety and asked Rome for protection. The Romans sent soldiers from Campania to garrison the city. Coveting the wealth of the city, the soldiers killed its prominent men, sent away the rest and seized their property. The Romans could not do much about it because they were engaged in the war. A few years after the end of the war, in 271 BC, the Romans retook the city, arrested the soldiers and took them to Rome, where they were executed.^[49] After Pyrrhus was defeated, to avoid Roman revenge, the Bruttii submitted willingly and gave up half of the Sila, a mountainous plateau which was valuable for its pitch and timber. The timber here was sold all over Italy and the resin of the area was of the highest quality.^[50]

During the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) the Bruttii allied with Hannibal, who sent Hanno, one of his commanders, to Calabria. Hanno marched towards Capua (in Campania) with Bruttian soldiers to take them to Hannibal's headquarters there twice, but he was defeated on both occasions. When his campaign in Italy came to a dead end, Hannibal took refuge in Calabria, whose steep mountains provided protection against the Roman legions. He set up his headquarters in Kroton and stayed there for four years until he was recalled to Carthage. The Romans fought a battle with him near Kroton, but its details are unknown. Many Calabrian cities surrendered.^[51] Calabria was put under a military commander. Nearly a decade after the war, the Romans set up colonies in Calabria: at Tempsa and Kroton (Croto in Latin) in 194 BC, Copiae in the territory of Thurii (Thurium in Latin) in 193 BC, and Vibo Valentia in the territory of Hipponion in 192 BC.^[52] The Romans called Calabria Bruttium. Later, during the reign of Augustus it became part of the third region of Italy, the 'Regio III Lucania et Brettium.^[53]

Middle Ages

After sacking Rome in 410, Alaric I (King of the Visigoths) went to Calabria with the intention of sailing to Africa. He contracted malaria and died in Cosentia (Cosenza), probably of fever. Legend has it that he along with the treasure of Rome were buried under the bed of the River Busento.^[54] With the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire in 476, Italy was taken over by the Germanic chieftain Odoacer and later became part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 489. The Ostrogothic kings ruled officially as Magistri Militum of the Byzantine Emperors and all government and administrative positions were held by the Romans while all primary laws were legislated by the Byzantine Emperor. Therefore, during the sixth century, under the Ostrogoths' rule, Romans could still be at the center of government and cultural life, such as the Roman Cassiodorus who, like Boethius and Symmachus, emerged as one of the most prominent men of his time. He was an administrator, politician, scholar and historian who was born in Scylletium (near Catanzaro). He spent most of his career trying to bridge the divides of East and West, Greek and Latin cultures, Romans and Goths, and official Christianity and Arian Christianity, which was the form of Christianity of the Ostrogoths and which had earlier been banned. He set up his Vivarium (monastery) in Scylletium. He oversaw the collation of three editions of the Bible in Latin. Seeing the practicality of uniting all the books of the Bible in one volume, he was the first who produced Latin Bibles in single volumes.^[55] The most well-known of them was the Codex Grandior which was the ancestor of all modern western Bibles.^[56][57]

Cassiodorus was at the heart of the administration of the Ostrogothic kingdom. Theodoric made him quaestor sacri palatii (quaestor of the sacred palace, the senior legal authority) in 507, governor of Lucania and Bruttium, consul in 514 and magister officiorum (master of offices, one of the most senior administrative officials) in 523. He was praetorian prefect (chief minister) under the successors of Theodoric: under Athalaric (Theodoric's grandson, reigned 526–34) in 533 and, between 535 and 537, under Theodahad (Theodoric's nephew, reigned 534–36) and Witiges (Theodoric's grandson-in-law, reigned, 536–40).^[58] The major works of Cassiodorus, besides the mentioned bibles, were the Historia Gothorum, a history of the Goths, the Variae and account of his administrative career and the Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum, an introduction to the study of the sacred scriptures and the liberal arts which was very influential in the Middle Ages.

Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Emperor Justinian I, retook Italy from the Ostrogoths between 535 and 556. They soon lost much of Italy to the Lombards between 568 and 590, but retained the south for around 500 years until 1059–1071, where they thrived and where the Greek language was the official and vernacular language. In Calabria and towns such as Stilo and Rossano and San Demetrio Corone achieved great religious status. From the 7th Century many monasteries were built in the Amendolea and Stilaro Valleys and Stilo was the destination of hermits and Basilian monks. Many Byzantine churches are still seen in the region. The 10th-century church in Rossano, together with the "twin" church of Sant'Adriano in San Demetrio Corone (foundation 955, rebuilt by the Normans on the, still, visible foundations of the previous Byzantine church), are considered between the best preserved Byzantine churches in Italy. They were both built by St. Nilus the Younger as a retreat for the monks who lived in the tufa grottos underneath. The present name of Calabria comes from the duchy of Calabria.

Around the year 800, Saracens began invading the shores of Calabria, attempting to wrest control of the area from the Byzantines. This group of Arabs had already been successful in Sicily and knew that Calabria was another key spot. The people of Calabria retreated into the mountains for safety. Although the Arabs never really got a stronghold on the whole of Calabria, they did control some villages while enhancing trade relations with the eastern world.^[59] In 918, Saracens captured Reggio (which was renamed Rivà), holding many of its inhabitants to ransom or keeping them prisoners as slaves.^[60] It is during this time of Arab invasions that many staples of today's Calabrian cuisine came into fashion: Citrus fruits and eggplants for example. Exotic spices such as cloves and nutmeg were also introduced.^[36]

Under the Byzantine dominion, between the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century, Calabria was one of the first regions of Italy to introduce silk production to Europe. According to André Guillou,^[61] mulberry trees for the production of raw silk were introduced to southern Italy by the Byzantines at the end of the ninth century. Around 1050 the theme of Calabria had 24,000, mulberry trees cultivated for their foliage, and their number tended to expand.^[62]

At the beginning of the tenth century (circa 903),^[63] the city of Catanzaro was occupied by the Muslim Saracens, who founded an emirate and took the Arab name of قطنصار – QaTanSáar. An Arab presence is evidenced by findings at an eighth-century necropolis which had items with Arabic inscriptions. Around the year 1050, Catanzaro rebelled against Saracen dominance and returned to a brief period of Byzantine control.^[64]

In the 1060s the Normans, under the leadership of Robert Guiscard's brother, Roger I of Sicily, established a presence in this borderland, and organized a government modeled on the Eastern Roman Empire and was run by the local magnates of Calabria. Of note is that the Normans established their presence here, in southern Italy (namely Calabria), 6 years prior to their conquest of England, (see The Battle of Hastings). The purpose of this strategic presence in Calabria was to lay the foundations for the Crusades 30 years later, and for the creation of two Kingdoms: the Kingship of Jerusalem, and the Kingdom of Sicily. Ships would sail from Calabria to the Holy Land. This made Calabria one of the richest regions in Europe as princes from the noble families of England, France and other regions, constructed secondary residences and palaces here, on their way to the Holy Land. Guiscard's son Bohemond, who was born in San Marco Argentano, would be one of the leaders in the first crusade. Of particular note is the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrim route that goes from Canterbury to Rome and southern Italy, reaching Calabria, Basilicata and Apulia, where the crusaders lived, prayed and trained, respectively.

In 1098, Roger I of Sicily was named the equivalent of an apostolic legate by Pope Urban II and later his son Roger II of Sicily became the first King of Sicily and formed what would become the Kingdom of Sicily which lasted nearly 700 years. Under the Normans Southern Italy was united as one region and started a feudal system of land ownership in which the Normans were made lords of the land while peasants performed all the work on the land.

In 1147, Roger II of Sicily attacked Corinth and Thebes, two important centres of Byzantine silk production, capturing the weavers and their equipment and establishing his own silkworks in Calabria,^[65] thereby causing the Norman silk industry to flourish.

In 1194, Frederick II, took control of the region, after inheriting the Kingdom from his mother Constance, Queen of Sicily. He created a kingdom that blended cultures, philosophy and customs and would build several castles while fortifying existing ones which the Normans previously constructed. After the death of Frederick II in 1250, Calabria was controlled by the Capetian House of Anjou, under the rule of Charles d’Anjou after being granted the crown of the Sicilian Kingdom by Pope Clement IV. In 1282, under Charles d’Anjou, Calabria became a domain of the newly created Kingdom of Naples, and no longer of the Kingdom of Sicily, after he lost Sicily due to the rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers.^[36] During the 14th century, would emerge Barlaam of Seminara who would be Petrarch's Greek teacher and his disciple Leonzio Pilato, who would translate Homer's works for Giovanni Boccaccio.

While the cultivation of mulberry was moving first steps in Northern Italy, silk made in Calabria reached the peak of 50% of the whole Italian/European production. As the cultivation of mulberry was difficult in Northern and Continental Europe, merchants and operators used to purchase in Calabria raw materials to finish the products and resell them for a better price. The Genoese silk artisans used fine Calabrian silk for the production of velvets.^[66] In particular, the silk of Catanzaro supplied almost all of Europe and was sold in a large market fair to Spanish, Venetian, Genoese, Florentine and Dutch merchants. Catanzaro became the lace capital of Europe with a large silkworm breeding facility that produced all the laces and linens used in the Vatican. The city was known for its fabrication of silks, velvets, damasks and brocades.^[67][68]

Early modern period

In the XV century, Catanzaro was exporting both its silk cloth and its technical skills to neighbouring Sicily. By the middle of the century, silk spinning was taking place in Catanzaro, on a large scale.^[69]

In 1442 the Aragonese took control under Alfonso V of Aragon who became ruler under the Crown of Aragon. In 1501 Calabria came under the control of Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose wife Queen Isabella of Castille is famed for sponsoring the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Calabria suffered greatly under Aragonese rule with heavy taxes, feuding landlords, starvation and sickness. After a brief period in the early 1700s under the Austrian Habsburgs, Calabria came into the control of the Spanish Bourbons in 1735.^[36] It was during the 16th century that Calabria would contribute to modern world history with the creation of the Gregorian calendar by the Calabrian doctor and astronomer Luigi Lilio.^[70][71][72]

In 1466, King Louis XI decided to develop a national silk industry in Lyon and called a large number of Italian workers, mainly from Calabria. The fame of the master weavers of Catanzaro spread throughout France and they were invited to Lyon to teach the techniques of weaving.^[73] In 1470, one of these weavers, known in France as Jean Le Calabrais, invented the first prototype of a Jacquard-type loom.^[74] He introduced a new kind of machine which was able to work the yarns faster and more precisely. Over the years, improvements to the loom were ongoing.^[75]

Charles V of Spain formally recognized the growth of the silk industry of Catanzaro in 1519 by allowing the city to establish a consulate of the silk craft, charged with regulating and check in the various stages of a production that flourished throughout the sixteenth century. At the moment of the creation of its guild, the city declared that it had over 500 looms. By 1660, when the town had about 16,000 inhabitants, its silk industry kept 1,000 looms, and at least 5,000 people, busy. The silk textiles of Catanzaro were not only sold at the kingdom's markets, they were also exported to Venice, France, Spain and England.^[76]

In the 16th century, Calabria was characterized by a strong demographic and economic development, mainly due to the increasing demand of silk products and the simultaneous growth of prices, and became one of the most important Mediterranean markets for silk.^[77]

In 1563 philosopher and natural scientist Bernardino Telesio wrote "On the Nature of Things according to their Own Principles" and pioneered early modern empiricism. He would also influence the works of Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella and Thomas Hobbes.^[78][79][80] In 1602 philosopher and poet Tommaso Campanella wrote his most famous work, "The City of the Sun" and would later defend Galileo Galilei during his first trial with his work "A Defense of Galileo", which was written in 1616 and published in 1622.^[81] In 1613 philosopher and economist Antonio Serra wrote "A Short Treatise on the Wealth and Poverty of Nations" and was a pioneer in the Mercantilist tradition.^[82]

During the 17th century silk production in Calabria begin to suffer by the strong competition of new-raising competitors in Italian Peninsula and Europe (France), but also the increasing import from Ottoman Empire and Persia.

Foundation of the historical Italo-Albanian College and Library in 1732^[83] by Pope Clement XII transferred from San Benedetto Ullano to San Demetrio Corone in 1794.

In 1783 a series of earthquakes across Calabria caused around 50,000 deaths and much damage to property, so that many of the buildings in the region were rebuilt after this date.

Arbëreshë costumes in Calabria about 1800

At the end of the 18th century the French took control and in 1808 Napoleon Bonaparte gave the Kingdom of Naples to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat. Murat controlled the kingdom until the return of the Bourbons in 1815. The population of Calabria in 1844 was 1,074,558.^[84]

Calabria experienced a series of peasant revolts as part of the European Revolutions of 1848. This set the stage for the eventual unification with the rest of Italy in 1861, when the Kingdom of Naples was brought into the union by Giuseppe Garibaldi. The unification was orchestrated by Great Britain in an attempt to nationalize the production of sulfur from the two volcanoes located in Naples and Sicily respectively. The Aspromonte was the scene of a famous battle of the unification of Italy. During the late 19th or early 20th century, pianist and composer Alfonso Rendano invented the "Third Pedal",^[85] which augmented the interpretative resources of the piano.

The ancient Greek colonies from Naples and to the south, had been completely Latinized, but from the fifth century AD onward Greeks had once again emigrated there when pressed out of their homeland by invasions. This Greek Diaspora allowed the ancient Greek dialects to continue in Southern Italy, much in the same way that the Italian Diaspora allowed long-lost dialects from Italy to thrive in countries where Italians emigrated to. Greek texts were also valued in monasteries and places of learning. However it was Charlemagne in the 8th century, who made Latin the 'official' language of study and communication for Europe. For the sake of uniformity, he supplanted much of the Greek spoken, read or taught in Europe. It was through language (Latin) and education (Latin texts) that Charlemagne united Europe.

During the 13th century a French chronicler who traveled through Calabria stated that "the peasants of Calabria spoke nothing but Greek" given he had traveled to areas where Greek was still available. But the educated classes spoke Italian. Indeed, formal Italian has been taught in schools throughout Italy for nearly two centuries, causing the ancient languages and dialects to continually disappear, much to the chagrin of the cultural community. These lost dialects continue to thrive to this day in North America and Australia, places where Italians emigrated to, on account of the Diaspora.

Modern era

On 19 August 1860, Calabria was invaded from Sicily by Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Redshirts as part of the Expedition of the Thousand.^[86] Through King Francesco II of Naples had dispatched 16,000 soldiers to stop the Redshirts, who numbered about 3,500, after a token battle at Reggio Calabria won by the Redshirts, all resistance ceased and Garibaldi was welcomed as a liberator from the oppressive rule of the Bourbons wherever he went in Calabria.^[86] Calabria together with the rest of the Kingdom of Naples was incorporated in 1861 into the Kingdom of Italy. Garibaldi planned to complete the Risorgimento by invading Rome, still ruled by the Pope protected by a French garrison, and began with semi-official encouragement to raise an army.^[87] Subsequently, King Victor Emmanuel II decided the possibility of war with France was too dangerous, and on 29 August 1862 Garibaldi's base in the Calabrian town of Aspromonte was attacked by the Regio Esercito.^[88] The Battle of Aspromonte ended with the Redshirts defeated with several being executed after surrendering while Garibaldi was badly wounded.^[88]  

In the newly unified Kingdom of Italy, there were significant differences in level of economic development between the Nord (north) of Italy and the Mezzogiorno (the south of Italy). Calabria together with the rest of the Mezzogiorno was neglected under the Kingdom of Italy with the general feeling in Rome being that the region was hopelessly backward and poor. In the late 19th century about 70% of the population of the Mezzogiorno were illiterate as the government never invested in education for the south.^[89] Owing to the Roman Question, until 1903 the Roman Catholic Church had prohibited on the pain of excommunication Catholic men from voting in Italian elections (Italian women were not granted the right to vote until 1946).^[90] As the devoutly Catholic population of Calabria tended to boycott elections, the deputies who were elected from the region were the products of the clientistic system, representing the interests of the land-owning aristocracy. In common with the deputies from other regions of the Mezzogiorno, they voted against more money for education under the grounds that an educated population would demand changes that would threaten the power of the traditional elite.^[89] Owing to a weak state, society in Calabria came to be dominated in the late 19th century by an organised crime group known as 'Ndrangheta which like the Mafia in Sicily and the Camorra in Campania formed a "parallel state" that co-existed alongside the Italian state.^[91] Between 1901 and 1914 Calabrians began emigrating in large numbers, mostly for North America and South America, with the peak year being 1905 with 62,690.^[92] 

On 28 December 1908, Calabria together with Sicily was devastated by an earthquake and then by a tsunami caused by the earthquake, causing about 80, 000 deaths.^[93] Within hours of the disaster, ships of the British and Russian navies had arrived on the coast to assist the survivors, but it took the Regia Marina two days to send a relief expedition from Naples.^[93] The bumbling and ineffectual response of the Italian authorities to the disaster caused by feuding officials who did not wish to co-operate with each other contributed to the high death toll as it took weeks for aid to reach some villages and caused much resentment in Calabria.^[93] To offset widespread criticism that the northern-dominated government in Rome did not care about the people of Calabria, King Victor Emmanuel III personally took over the relief operation and toured the destroyed villages of Calabria, which won the House of Savoy a measure of popularity in the region.^[94] Most notably, after the king took charge of the relief efforts, the feuding between officials ceased and relief aid was delivered with considerably more efficiency, winning Victor Emmanuel the gratitude of the Calabrians.^[94]  

Fascism was not popular in Calabria. In December 1924 when a false rumor spread in Reggio Calabria that Benito Mussolini had resigned as Prime Minister because of the Matteotti affair, joyous celebrations took place in the city that lasted all night.^[95] In the morning, the people of Reggio Calabria learned that Mussolini was still prime minister, but several Fascist officials were dismissed for not suppressing the celebrations. The landed aristocracy and gentry of Calabria, through generally not ideologically committed to Fascism, saw the Fascist regime as a force for order and social stability, and supported the dictatorship.^[96] Likewise, the prefects and the policemen of Calabria were conservatives who saw themselves as serving King Victor Emmanuel III first and Mussolini second, but supported Fascism as preferable to Socialism and Communism and persecuted anti-Fascists.^[97] Traditional elites in Calabria joined the Fascist Party to pursue their own interests, and local branches of Fascist Party were characterized by much jostling for power and influence between elite families.^[98] Under the Fascist regime, several concentration camps were built in Calabria and used to imprison foreigners whose presence in Italy was considered undesirable, such as Chinese immigrants and foreign Jews (though not Italian Jews) together with members of the Roma (Gypsy) minority, whose nomadic lifestyle was viewed as anti-social.^[99] The camps which operated from 1938 to 1943 were not death camps, and the majority of those imprisoned survived, but conditions were harsh for the imprisoned.^[100]

On 3 September 1943, British and Canadian troops of the British 8th Army landed in Calabria in Operation Baytown, marking the first time that the Allies landed on the mainland of Italy.^[101] However, the landings in Calabria were a feint and the main Allied blow came on 8 September 1943 with the landing of the American 5th Army at Salerno in Campania that was intended to cut off Axis forces in the Mezzogiorno.^[102] The Germans anticipated that the Allies would land at Salerno, and as a consequence, there was relatively little fighting in Calabria.^[102] The Italian troops in Calabria mostly surrendered to the advancing 5th British Division and the 1st Canadian Division while there were relatively few German forces in the region to oppose their advance.^[102] The main obstacle to the advancing Anglo-Canadian troops turned out to be the trail of destruction left by German combat engineers who systematically blew up bridges and destroyed roads and railroads as the Wehrmacht retreated north.^[103] On the same day the Americans landed at Salerno, General Dwight Eisenhower announced on the radio the Armistice of Cassibile that had been signed on 3 September, and with the announcement of the armistice all Italian resistance ceased.^[102] The Germans committed most of their forces in the Mezzogiorno to the Battle of Salerno with the aim of driving the Allies back into the sea and pulled their remaining forces out of Calabria to send them to Salerno.^[102] Under the Allied occupation, some Fascists in Calabria waged a terrorist struggle on behalf of the Salo republic, though significantly many of the Fascists tended to be from well-off families concerned about the possibility of social reforms that might weaken their power and only a minority such as Prince Valerio Pignatelli were ideological Fascists.^[104] In June 1944, celebrations in Reggio Calabria over the news of the liberation of Rome were disturbed by local Fascists.^[104]  

The British historian Jonathan Dunnage wrote that there was an "institutional continuity" between the civil servants of the Liberal, Fascist and post-Fascist eras in Calabria as each change of regime saw the bureaucrats of the region adjust to whatever regime was in power in Rome and there was no purge of civil servants either after 1922 or 1943.^[105] The "institutional continuity" of the bureaucracy of Calabria were committed to preserving the social structure.^[105] On 2 June 1946 referendum, Calabria like the rest of the Mezzogiorno voted solidly to retain the monarchy. The clientistic political system in Calabria under which elite families handed out patronage to their supporters and used violence against their opponents, which was the prevailing norm in the Liberal and Fascist eras continued after 1945.^[106] During the Second World War, the already low living standards of Calabria declined further and the region was notorious as one of the most violent and lawless areas of Italy.^[107] Attempts by the peasants of Calabria to take over the land owned by the elite were usually resisted by the authorities. On 28 October 1949 in Melissa the police opened fire on peasants who had seized the land of a local baron, killing three men who were shot in the back as they attempted to flee.^[108] Between 1949 and 1966 another wave of migration took place with the peak year of migration being 1957 with some 38, 090 Calabrians leaving that year.^[92]    

Under the First Republic, starting in the 1960s, investment plans were launched under which Italian state sponsored industrialisation and attempted to improve the infrastructure of Calabria by building modern roads, railroads, ports, etc.^[109] The plan was a notable failure with the infrastructure projects going wildly over-budget and taking far longer to complete then scheduled; for an example, construction started on the A3 highway in 1964 intended to link Reggio Calabria to Salerno, which was as of 2016 still unfinished.^[109] The failure to complete the A3 highway after 52 years of effort is regarded as a scandal in Italy, and many parts of Calabria were described as an "industrial graveyard" full of the closed down steel mills and chemical plants that all went bankrupt.^[109] From July 1970 to February 1971 the Reggio revolt took place as the decision to make Catanzaro instead of Reggio the regional capital prompted massive protests.^[110] The compromise decision to make Catanzaro the executive capital and Reggio the administrative capital has led to a bloated and inefficient administration.^[109] The high unemployment rate in Calabria has led to extensive migration and Calabria's biggest export has been its own people as Calabrians have moved to either other parts of Italy and abroad, especially to the United States, Canada and Argentina, to seek a better life.^[111] In 2016, it was estimated that 18% of the people born in Calabria were living abroad.^[92]  

Early on Sunday, February 26th, 2023, a wooden sailing boat carrying migrants to Europe crashed against the rocks and "sank in rough seas before dawn near Steccato di Cutro, a seaside resort on the eastern coast of Calabria."^[112] At least 59 people died, including 12 children. The vessel sailed from Turkey, carrying people from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Somalia. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, elected in 2022 partly on a pledge to stem the flow of migrants into Italy, expressed "deep sorrow" for the incident, blaming the deaths on traffickers.^[113]

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Amantea is a town, former bishopric, comune (municipality) and Latin Catholic titular see in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Calabria is subdivided as follows: service industry (28.94%), financial activities and real estate (21.09%), trade, tourism, transportation and communication (19.39%), taxation (11.49%), manufacturing (8.77%), construction (6.19%) and agriculture (4.13%). GDP per capita is 2.34 times less and unemployment is 4 times higher than in Lombardy.^[114] Calabria's economy is still based mainly on agriculture.

The economy of the region is strongly affected by the presence of the 'Ndrangheta (the local Mafia syndicate).^[115]

Agriculture

Calabrian olive tree plantations

Calabria is agriculturally rich, with the Italy's second highest number of organic farmers after Sicily.^[116]

The red onion of Tropea is cultivated during summer period on the Tyrrhenian coast of central Calabria.^[117] It has been awarded with the protected geographical indication (PGI).^[118]

The olive tree represents 29.6% of utilised agricultural area (UAA) and approximately 70% of tree crops.^[119] Olive tree cultivation extends from coastal lowland areas to hilly and lower mountainous areas. The region is the second-highest for olive oil production^[120] with Carolea, Ogliarola, and Saracena olives as the main regional varieties.^[121]

In Calabria, there are 3 PDO oils: "Bruzio" in the province of Cosenza, "Lametia" in the area of Lamezia Terme and the more recent "Alto Crotonese".^[122] In addition to DOP oils there are also PGI oils. The production area of "Olio di Calabria" PGI includes the entire territory of the Calabria region. The production is made exclusively from indigenous olives.

Calabria produces about a quarter of Italy's citrus fruit.^{[123][124][125]} The contribution of this region to growing citrus fruit in Italy can be attributed mainly to clementines, oranges, mandarins and lemons. Calabria is by far the country's most important clementine-growing region, which account for about 62% (16,164 ha) of the Italian surface dedicated to its cultivation and 69% (437,800 tons) of the total production.^[126] Clementina di Calabria is the PGI variety grown in the Calabria region.^[127] Also chinotto is cultivated and used to produce carbonated soft drink with the same name.

Citron

Minor fruits such as bergamot and citron and lemon-citron hybrids are found exclusively in Calabria. The south coast of the region produces 90% of the world's bergamots, with a huge industry built around the extraction of bergamot oil.^[128] According to Harvard Atlas of Economic Complexity, last year with Italian net export of bergamot oil was 2009 in value of $253,000, after that between 2010 and 2018 was no export of it.^[129][130] The Bergamot orange has been intensively cultivated since the 18th century,^[131] but only in the coastal area nearby to Reggio, where geological and weather conditions are optimal. The Chabad Hasidic dynasty have a preference to take citrons ("Etrog") from this region for the Sukkot festival.^[132]

There is special research Experimental Station for the Industry of the Essential oils and Citrus products in Reggio di Calabria.

The province of Cosenza represents an important area for figs growing belonging to cultivar "Dottato" that is used to produce the quality-branded dried figs "Fichi di Cosenza" PDO (Protected Designation of Origin).^[134] The anona cherimoya, a plant of tropical origin cultivated in Europe only in Reggio di Calabria and Spain.

In the province of Catanzaro, between San Floro^[135] and Cortale,^[136] the ancient tradition of sericulture is still kept alive, thanks to young generations.

Calabria is the largest producer of porcini mushrooms in Italy, thanks to the heavily wooded forests of the mountains ranges of Pollino, Sila, Serre and Aspromonte.^[137][138] Chestnut production is also widespread in the Calabrian mountains.^[139] But not only porcini mushrooms, there is other popular red pine mushroom or rosito.

Percoca (Variety of peach)

Peaches and nectarines from Calabria have greatly improved in terms of flavour, quality, safety and service. A part of the production is sold on the domestic market, mainly to retailers. The remaining is exported to Northern Europe, mainly Scandinavia and Germany.^[140]

The region boasts a very ancient tradition in the cultivation and production of liquorice. The eighty percent of the national production is concentrated in this region.^[141]

Calabria has long coast and produce some distinctive fish products:

• 

  Bottarga di tonno rosso

• 

  Sardella calabrese

• 

  Swordfish

Manufacturing

Food and textile industries are the most developed and vibrant. Within the industrial sector, manufacturing contributes to a gross value added of 7.2%. In the manufacturing sector the main branches are foodstuff, beverage and tobacco with a contribution to the sector very close to the national average.^[119] Over the recent decades some petrochemical, engineering and chemical industries have emerged, within the areas of Crotone, Vibo Valentia and Reggio Calabria.

The province of Catanzaro boasts a great tradition in the textile manufacturing, especially silk. Recently, several young people have given new life to this activity, developing green and sustainable economy projects. In fact, among the municipalities of Girifalco, San Floro and Cortale,^[142][143] sericulture is still practiced, the breeding of silkworms combined with the cultivation of mulberry trees.

Tiriolo and Badolato are known above all for the manufacturing of the "vancale", the typical Calabrian shawl, made of wool or silk, worn by women in ancient times on traditional costumes during the dance of tarantella, or as an ornamental decoration of the houses. Typical in Tiriolo is also the manufacturing of carpets, linen and broom fibers, bobbin lace making, embroidery, precious ceramics, furnishing objects and artistic sculptures. The artistic production of weaving is also active in other centers such as in Platania and Petrizzi where once hemp fibers were also produced.

In Soveria Mannelli, Lanificio Leo,^[144] the oldest textile factory in Calabria founded in 1873, is still active. The factory still retains majestic and evocative tools dating back to the late nineteenth century.

The traditional production of artistic ceramics dating back to the Magna Graecia period is handed down in the ancient towns of Squillace^[145] and Seminara.^[146]

The small town of Serrastretta, a green village in the woods of Presila, is known for its wood production, in particular for its chairs characterized by a very original straw.

There is a plant of Hitachi Rail Italy in Reggio di Calabria, which manufactures railcars of regional trains like Vivalto.^[147]

Tourism

Ski trails near Gambarie overlooking the Strait of Messina

The Riace bronzes, Greek bronzes, about 460–430 BC

The Byzantine church known as the Cattolica

Tourism in Calabria has increased over the years. The main tourist attractions are the coastline and the mountains. The coastline alternates between rugged cliffs and sandy beaches, and is sparsely interrupted by development when compared to other European seaside destinations. The sea around Calabria is clear, and there is a good level of tourist accommodation. The poet Gabriele D'Annunzio called the coast facing Sicily near Reggio Calabria "... the most beautiful kilometer in Italy" (il più bel chilometro d'Italia).^[148][149] The primary mountain tourist draws are Aspromonte and La Sila, with its national park and lakes. Some other prominent destinations include:

• Reggio Calabria is on the strait between the mainland and Sicily, the largest and oldest city in Calabria dating from the 8th century BC, known for its panoramic seaside with botanical gardens between the art nouveau buildings and the beaches, and its 3,000 years of history with its Aragonese Castle and the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia where the Riace bronzes (Bronzi di Riace) are located.
• Cosenza, birthplace of scientist and philosopher Bernardino Telesio and seat of the Cosentian Academy, known for its cultural institutions, the old quarter, a Hohenstaufen Castle, an open-air museum and an 11th-century Romanesque-Gothic Cathedral. On 12 October 2011, the Cathedral of Cosenza received UNESCO World Heritage status for being "Heritage Witness to a Culture of Peace".^[150][151] This is the first award given by UNESCO to the region of Calabria.
• Scilla, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, "pearl" of the "Violet Coast", has a delightful panorama and is the site of some of Homer's tales.
• Tropea, on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast, is home to a dramatic seaside beach, and the Santa Maria dell'Isola sanctuary. It is also renowned for its sweet red onions (mainly produced in Ricadi).
• Capo Vaticano, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, is a wide bathing place near Tropea.
• Gerace, near Locri, is a medieval city with a Norman Castle and Norman Cathedral.
• Squillace, a seaside resort and important archaeological site. Nearby is the birthplace of Cassiodorus.
• Stilo, the birthplace of philosopher Tommaso Campanella, with its Norman Castle and Byzantine church, the Cattolica.
• Pizzo Calabro, on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast, known for its ice cream called "Tartufo". Interesting places in Pizzo are Piazza Repubblica and the Aragonese castle where Murat was shot.
• Paola, a town situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast, renowned for being the birthplace of St. Francis of Paola, patron saint of Calabria and Italian sailors, and for the old Franciscan sanctuary built during the last hundred years of the Middle Ages by the will of St. Francis.
• Sibari, on the Ionian coast, a village situated near the archaeological site of the ancient city of Sybaris, a Greek colony of the 8th century BC.
• Lamezia Terme, the main transportation hub of the region with its international airport which links it to many destinations in Europe plus Canada and Israel and the train station. Several are the historical sights of the city, like the Norman-Swabian castle, the Jewish historical quarter and the Casa del Libro Antico (House of the Ancient Book) where books from the 16th to the 19th centuries, as well as old globes and ancient maps reproduction are well preserved and available to be seen by the public.
• Catanzaro, an important silk center since the time of the Byzantines, is located at the centre of the narrowest point of Italy, from where the Ionian Sea and Tyrrhenian Sea are both visible, but not from Catanzaro. Of note are the well-known one-arch bridge (Viaduct Morandi-Bisantis, one of the tallest in Europe), the cathedral (rebuilt after World War II bombing), the castle, the promenade on the Ionian sea, the park of biodiversity and the archaeological park.
• Soverato on the Ionian Sea, also known as the "Pearl" of the Ionian Sea. Especially renowned for its beaches, boardwalk and nightlife.
• Badolato near Soverato is a well-preserved medieval hilltop village with 13 churches. It was selected as one of the 1000 marvels of Italy to mark the anniversary of the unification of Italy.
• Nicotera on the Tyrrhenian Sea, is a small medieval town with an ancient Ruffo's castle.
• Ancient temples of the Roman gods on the sun-kissed hills of Catanzaro still stand as others are swept beneath the earth. Many excavations are going on along the east coast, digging up what seems to be an ancient burial ground.
• Samo, a village on the foot of the Aspromonte, is well known for its spring water and ruins of the old village destroyed in the 1908 Messina earthquake.
• Mammola, art center, tourist and gastronomic, has an ancient history. The old town, with its small houses attached to each other, the ancient churches and noble palaces. Of particular interest is the Museum Park Santa Barbara, a place of art and cultural events of many international artists and the Shrine of St. Nicodemo of the 10th century, in the highlands of Limina. Its gastronomy with the "Stocco" typical of Mammola, cooked in various ways, other typical products are smoked ricotta and goat cheese, salami pepper and wild fennel, bread "pizza" (corn bread) and wheat bread baked in a wood oven.
• Praia a Mare on the Tyrrhenian Sea, is a well-known tourist city, thanks to the Isola di Dino and the seaside beach.
• Spilinga is known for its spicy pork pâté, 'Nduja.

Calabria attracts year-round tourism, offering both summer and winter activities, in addition to its cultural, historical, artistic heritage, it has an abundance of protected natural habitats and 'green' zones. The 485 mi (781 km) of its coast make Calabria a tourist destination during the summer. The low industrial development and the lack of major cities in much of its territory have allowed the maintenance of indigenous marine life.

The most sought-after seaside destinations are: Tropea, Pizzo Calabro, Capo Vaticano, Reggio Calabria, Soverato, Scilla, Scalea, Sellia Marina, Montepaone, Montauro, Copanello (comune of Staletti), Tonnara di Palmi, Diamante, Paola, Fiumefreddo Bruzio, Amantea, Praia a Mare, Belvedere Marittimo, Roseto Capo Spulico, Corigliano Calabro, Cirò Marina, Amendolara, Roccella Ionica, Bagnara Calabra, Nicotera, Cariati, Zambrone, Isola di Capo Rizzuto, Caminia (comune of Staletti), Siderno, Parghelia, Ricadi and San Nicola Arcella.

In addition to the coastal tourist destinations, the interior of Calabria is rich in history, traditions, art and culture. Cosenza is among the most important cultural cities of Calabria, with a rich historical and artistic patrimony. Medieval castles, towers, churches, monasteries and other French castles and structures from the Norman to the Aragonese periods are common elements in both the interior and coastline of Calabria.

The mountains offer skiing and other winter activities: Sila, Pollino and Aspromonte are three national parks that offer facilities for winter sports, especially in the towns of Camigliatello (comune of Spezzano della Sila), Lorica (comune of San Giovanni in Fiore), Gambarie and Monte Sant'Elia (comune of Palmi).

Unemployment rate

The unemployment rate stood at 20.1% in 2020 and was the highest in Italy and one of the highest inside the European Union.^[114]

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Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is an administrative region of Italy that covers 23,844 km2 (9,206 sq mi); it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Over a fifth of the Italian gross domestic product (GDP) is produced in the region.

'Ndrangheta

'Ndrangheta

The 'Ndrangheta is a prominent Italian Mafia-type organized crime syndicate based in the peninsular and mountainous region of Calabria and dating back to the late 18th century. It is considered one of the most powerful organized crime groups in the world. Since the 1950s, following wide-scale emigration from Calabria, the organization has established itself worldwide. It is characterized by a horizontal structure made up of autonomous clans known as 'ndrine, based almost exclusively on blood ties. Its main activity is drug trafficking, on which it has a near monopoly in Europe, but it also deals with arms trafficking, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, loan sharking, and prostitution.

Mafia

Mafia

"Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original "Mafia", the Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of disputes between criminals as well as the organization and enforcement of illicit agreements between criminals through the use of or threat of violence. Mafias often engage in secondary activities such as gambling, loan sharking, drug-trafficking, prostitution, and fraud.

Olive oil

Olive oil

Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained by pressing whole olives, the fruit of Olea europaea, a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, and extracting the oil.

Protected designation of origin

Protected designation of origin

The protected designation of origin (PDO) is a type of geographical indication of the European Union and the United Kingdom aimed at preserving the designations of origin of food-related products. The designation was created in 1992 and its main purpose is to designate products that have been produced, processed and developed in a specific geographical area, using the recognized know-how of local producers and ingredients from the region concerned.

Cosenza

Cosenza

Cosenza is a city in Calabria, Italy. The city centre has a population of approximately 70,000, while the urban area counts more than 200,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Province of Cosenza, which has a population of more than 700,000. The demonym of Cosenza in English is Cosentian.

Lamezia Terme

Lamezia Terme

Lamezia Terme, commonly called Lamezia, is an Italian city and comune of 70,452 inhabitants (2013), in the province of Catanzaro in the Calabria region.

Clementine

Clementine

A clementine is a tangor, a citrus fruit hybrid between a willowleaf mandarin orange and a sweet orange, named in honor of Clément Rodier, a French missionary who first discovered and propagated the cultivar in Algeria. The exterior is a deep orange colour with a smooth, glossy appearance. Clementines can be separated into 7 to 14 segments. Similar to tangerines, they tend to be easy to peel. They are typically juicy and sweet, with less acid than oranges. Their oils, like other citrus fruits, contain mostly limonene as well as myrcene, linalool, α-pinene and many complex aromatics.

Orange (fruit)

Orange (fruit)

An orange is a fruit of various citrus species in the family Rutaceae ; it primarily refers to Citrus × sinensis, which is also called sweet orange, to distinguish it from the related Citrus × aurantium, referred to as bitter orange. The sweet orange reproduces asexually ; varieties of sweet orange arise through mutations.

Mandarin orange

Mandarin orange

The mandarin orange, also known as mandarin or mandarine, is a small citrus tree fruit. Treated as a distinct species of orange, it is usually eaten plain or in fruit salads. Tangerines are a group of orange-coloured citrus fruit consisting of hybrids of mandarin orange with some pomelo contribution.

Lemon

Lemon

The lemon is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China.

Citrus myrtifolia

Citrus myrtifolia

Citrus myrtifolia, the myrtle-leaved orange tree, is a species of Citrus with foliage similar to that of the common myrtle. It is a compact tree with small leaves and no thorns which grows to a height of three metres (10 ft) and can be found in Malta, Libya, the south of France and Italy.

Shipping and ports

The seaport of Gioia Tauro

The main Calabrian ports are in Reggio Calabria and in Gioia Tauro. The port of Reggio is equipped with five loading docks of a length of 1,530 m (5,020 ft).

The port of Gioia Tauro has seven loading docks with an extension of 4,646 m (15,243 ft); it is the largest in Italy and the eighth largest container port in Europe, with a 2018 throughput of 4.0 million TEUs^[152][153] from more than 3,000 ships. In a 2006 report, Italian investigators estimated that 80% of Europe's cocaine arrived from Colombia via Gioia Tauro's docks. The port is also involved in the illegal arms trafficking. These activities are controlled by the 'Ndrangheta criminal syndicate.^[154]

Motorways and rail

The region is served by three heavily used roads: two national highways along the coasts (the SS18 between Naples and Reggio Calabria and the SS106 between Reggio Calabria and Taranto) and the A2 motorway,^[155] which links Salerno to Reggio Calabria, passing by Cosenza along the old inland route. Building this motorway took 55 years and was extremely over budget due to organized crime infiltration.^[156]

There is high-speed rail on Calabria's Tyrrhenian Coast with the Frecciargento (Silver Arrow) offering a route from Rome to Reggio Calabria. There are also many ferries connecting Calabria with Sicily through the Strait of Sicily with the main one being from Villa San Giovanni to Messina.

Air travel

In Calabria there are two main airports: the Reggio Calabria Airport, a few kilometres from Reggio Calabria's city centre, built in 1939 was Calabria's first airport; the Lamezia Terme Airport is currently the first airport in Calabria for number of passengers per year.

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Gioia Tauro

Gioia Tauro

Gioia Tauro is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria (Italy), on the Tyrrhenian coast. It has an important port, situated along the route connecting Suez to Gibraltar, one of the busiest maritime corridors in the world.

Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria

Reggio di Calabria, usually referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the largest city in Calabria as well as the seat of the Regional Council of Calabria. It has an estimated population of nearly 200,000 and is the twenty-first most populous city in Italy, after Modena, and the 100th most populated city in Europe. Reggio Calabria is located in the exact center of the Mediterranean and is known for its climate, ethnic and cultural diversity. It is the third economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. About 560,000 people live in the metropolitan area, recognised in 2015 by Italy as a metropolitan city.

Port of Reggio

Port of Reggio

The Port of Reggio is a seaport in the Mediterranean Sea serving the Italian city of Reggio Calabria.

Port of Gioia Tauro

Port of Gioia Tauro

The Port of Gioia Tauro is a large seaport in southern Italy. It is the largest port in Italy for container throughput, the 9th in Europe and the 6th in Mediterranean sea. Located north of the city of Reggio Calabria, between the municipalities of Gioia Tauro and San Ferdinando, Calabria, it is close to the East–West route which stretches from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Suez Canal and serves mainly as a transshipment hub, connecting the global and regional networks that cross the Mediterranean.

Container port

Container port

A container port or container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land vehicles, for example trains or trucks, in which case the terminal is described as a maritime container port. Alternatively, the transshipment may be between land vehicles, typically between train and truck, in which case the terminal is described as an inland container port.

Cocaine

Cocaine

Cocaine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant. As an extract it is mainly used recreationally and often illegally for its euphoric effects. It is also used in medicine by Indigenous South Americans for various purposes and rarely as a local anaesthetic elsewhere. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South America: Erythroxylum coca and E. novogranatense. After extraction from the plant, and further processing into cocaine hydrochloride, the drug is administered by being either snorted, applied topically to the mouth, or dissolved and injected into a vein. It can also then be turned into free base form, in which it can be heated until sublimated and then the vapours can be inhaled.

Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east and northeast, Brazil to the southeast, Ecuador and Peru to the south and southwest, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Panama to the northwest. Colombia is divided into 32 departments. The Capital District of Bogotá is also the country's largest city. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers, and has a population of around 52 million. Colombia's cultural heritage—including language, religion, cuisine, and art—reflects its history as a Spanish colony, fusing cultural elements brought by immigration from Europe and the Middle East, with those brought by enslaved Africans, as well as with those of the various Indigenous civilizations that predate colonization. Spanish is the official state language, although English and 64 other languages are recognized regional languages.

Naples

Naples

Naples is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's administrative limits as of 2022. Its province-level municipality is the third-most populous metropolitan city in Italy with a population of 3,115,320 residents, and its metropolitan area stretches beyond the boundaries of the city wall for approximately 20 miles.

Autostrada A2 (Italy)

Autostrada A2 (Italy)

Autostrada A2, otherwise known as the Autostrada del Mediterraneo or Salerno–Reggio Calabria, is a 432-km-long, Italian motorway in the south of Italy. Running between the towns of Fisciano, in the Province of Salerno, and Villa San Giovanni, in the Province of Reggio Calabria, the motorway forms part of European roads E45 and E841.

Cosenza

Cosenza

Cosenza is a city in Calabria, Italy. The city centre has a population of approximately 70,000, while the urban area counts more than 200,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Province of Cosenza, which has a population of more than 700,000. The demonym of Cosenza in English is Cosentian.

Frecciargento

Frecciargento

Frecciargento is a high-speed train of the Italian national train operator, Trenitalia, as one of its Le Frecce brands. The name, which means "Silver Arrow", was introduced in 2012; these trains were previously branded as Eurostar Italia. Frecciargento trains operate at speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour (155 mph).

Reggio Calabria Airport

Reggio Calabria Airport

Reggio di Calabria "Tito Minniti" Airport, also known as Aeroporto dello Stretto is an airport located in Reggio Calabria, in southern Italy. It serves mainly the Metropolitan City of Reggio and the Province of Messina, and partially the Province of Vibo Valentia; more than 1,350,000 people. Daily flights depart and arrive for and from several Italian cities, and are seasonally augmented by flights to various other countries.

The following is a list of Calabrian municipalities with a population of over 20,000:^[157]

1. Reggio Calabria – 186,013
2. Catanzaro – 93,265
3. Corigliano-Rossano – 77,220
4. Lamezia Terme – 71,123
5. Cosenza – 69,827
6. Crotone – 61,529
7. Rende – 35,352
8. Vibo Valentia – 33,857
9. Castrovillari – 22,518
10. Acri – 21,263
11. Montalto Uffugo – 20,553

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Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria

Reggio di Calabria, usually referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the largest city in Calabria as well as the seat of the Regional Council of Calabria. It has an estimated population of nearly 200,000 and is the twenty-first most populous city in Italy, after Modena, and the 100th most populated city in Europe. Reggio Calabria is located in the exact center of the Mediterranean and is known for its climate, ethnic and cultural diversity. It is the third economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. About 560,000 people live in the metropolitan area, recognised in 2015 by Italy as a metropolitan city.

Catanzaro

Catanzaro

Catanzaro, also known as the "City of the two Seas", is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its province and the second most populated comune of the region, behind Reggio Calabria.

Corigliano-Rossano

Corigliano-Rossano

Corigliano-Rossano is a comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It was established on 31 March 2018 by the merger of Corigliano Calabro and Rossano.

Lamezia Terme

Lamezia Terme

Lamezia Terme, commonly called Lamezia, is an Italian city and comune of 70,452 inhabitants (2013), in the province of Catanzaro in the Calabria region.

Cosenza

Cosenza

Cosenza is a city in Calabria, Italy. The city centre has a population of approximately 70,000, while the urban area counts more than 200,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Province of Cosenza, which has a population of more than 700,000. The demonym of Cosenza in English is Cosentian.

Crotone

Crotone

Crotone is a city and comune in Calabria, Italy. Founded c. 710 BCE as the Achaean colony of Kroton in Magna Graecia, it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until 1928, when its name was changed to the current one. In 1992, it became the capital of the newly established Province of Crotone. As of August 2018, its population was about 65,000.

Rende

Rende

Rende is a city and comune in the province of Cosenza, Calabria, southern Italy, home to the headquarters of the University of Calabria. It has a population of about 35,000, or more than 60,000 if the university students living there are taken into account. It is divided in two parts: the old town, which is stands on a high hill, and the modern area, on level ground, which is connected to the city of Cosenza and with it is the centre of the economy of the province of Cosenza.

Vibo Valentia

Vibo Valentia

Vibo Valentia is a city and comune (municipality) in the Calabria region of southern Italy, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital of the province of Vibo Valentia, and is an agricultural, commercial and tourist center. There are also several large manufacturing industries, including the tuna district of Maierato. Very important for the local economy is Vibo Marina's harbour.

Castrovillari

Castrovillari

Castrovillari is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy.

Acri

Acri

Acri is a town of 19.949 inhabitants in the northern part of Calabria region in southern Italy. Since 17 September 2001 Acri has had the "status" of city.

Montalto Uffugo

Montalto Uffugo

Montalto Uffugo is a city and comune of the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. The original name of the town was Montalto. Uffugo was added to the town's name after the unification period in the 1860s. It was the childhood home of composer Ruggero Leoncavallo. His opera Pagliacci takes place in Montalto.

Sister jurisdictions

• Burwood, Australia.^[158]
• State of West Virginia, United States.^[159]

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Politics of Calabria

Politics of Calabria

The Politics of Calabria, Italy takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democracy, whereby the President of Regional Government is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the Regional Government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Regional Council.

Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

Burwood, New South Wales

Burwood, New South Wales

Burwood is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of Municipality of Burwood. People from Burwood are colloquially known as Burwoodiens or Burwooders.

United States

United States

The United States of America, commonly known as the United States or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

West Virginia

West Virginia

West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered by Pennsylvania to the north and east, Maryland to the east and northeast, Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. West Virginia is the 10th-smallest state by area and ranks as the 12th-least populous state, with a population of 1,793,716 residents. The capital and largest city is Charleston.

Provinces of Calabria

Calabria is divided into five provinces:

Healthcare system

Because of their debts, since 2009 they were administered by an extraordinary commissioner appointed by the central Italian government. In 2012, the Calabria Region unified 11 Azienda Sanitaria Locale into 5 provincial units, when came into force a regional law approved on 11 May 2007.^[160] In July 2021, the Constitutional Court of Italy censored the decree of law with the appointing of a new commissioner, because it didn't provide a new administrative structure to solve the long-time crisis of the Calabria's regional healthcare system. It has been seen as an unavoidable step to return to an ordinary and cost-effective administration at a regional level, as it is provided by the Italian Constitution.^[161][162]

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Province of Cosenza

Province of Cosenza

The province of Cosenza is a province in the Calabria region of southern Italy. Its capital is the city of Cosenza. It contains 150 comuni, listed at list of communes of the Province of Cosenza.

Province of Reggio Calabria

Province of Reggio Calabria

The Province of Reggio Calabria was a province in the Calabria region of Italy. It was the southernmost province in mainland Italy and is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina. The capital was the city of Reggio.

Province of Catanzaro

Province of Catanzaro

The province of Catanzaro is a province of the Calabria region of Italy. The city Catanzaro is both capital of the province and capital of the region of Calabria. The province contains a total of 80 municipalities (comuni). Its provincial president is Sergio Abramo.

Province of Crotone

Province of Crotone

The province of Crotone is a province in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It was formed in 1992 out of a section of the province of Catanzaro. The provincial capital is the city of Crotone. It borders the provinces of Cosenza, Catanzaro, and also the Ionian Sea. It contains the mountain Pizzuta, the National Park of the Sila, Montagnella Park, and the Giglietto Valley. Crotone was founded in 710 BCE. It participated in the Second Punic War against the Roman Republic.

Province of Vibo Valentia

Province of Vibo Valentia

The province of Vibo Valentia is a province in the Calabria region of southern Italy, set up by a national law of 6 March 1992 which came into effect on 1 January 1996, and formerly part of the Province of Catanzaro. Its capital is the city of Vibo Valentia and its vehicle licence plate code is VV. The province has an area of 1,139 square kilometres (440 sq mi), and a total population of 168,894 ; the city Vibo Valentia has a population of 35,405. There are 50 comuni in the province, see list of communes of the Province of Vibo Valentia.

Constitutional Court of Italy

Constitutional Court of Italy

The Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic is the highest court of Italy in matters of constitutional law. Sometimes, the name Consulta is used as a metonym for it, because its sessions are held in Palazzo della Consulta in Rome.

La Gàrdia (Guardia Piemontese) and the other main cities of Occitania, in the Occitan language.

Although the official national language of Calabria has been Standard Italian since before unification in 1861, Calabria has dialects that have been spoken in the region for centuries. The Calabrian language is a direct derivative of Latin. Most linguists divide the various dialects into two different language groups. In the northern area of the region,^[163] the Calabrian dialects are considered part of the Neapolitan language and are grouped as Northern Calabrian. In the rest of the region, the Calabrian dialects are often grouped as Central and Southern Calabrian, and are considered part of the Sicilian language. However, in Guardia Piemontese, as well as some quarters of Reggio Calabria, a variety of Occitan called Gardiol can also be found. In addition, since Calabria was once ruled by the French and Spanish, some Calabrian dialects exhibit Spanish and French influences. Another important linguistic minority, in the nine towns of Bovesìa in the province of Reggio Calabria, speaks a derivative of ancient Greek called Griko, a remnant of Byzantine rule and ancient Magna Graecia.^[164]

Religion

The majority of Calabrians are Roman Catholic. Historically, Calabrians were Greek Orthodox, and in 732 the dioceses of Southern Italy were even moved to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. There are also communities of Evangelicals in the region.^[165] Calabria has also been called "The Land of Saints" as the region was the birthplace of many saints spanning nearly 2,000 years.^{[166][167][168][169]} The most famous saint in Calabria and also the patron saint of the region is St. Francis of Paola. Calabria also has another patron saint called Saint Bruno of Cologne who was the founder of the Carthusian Order. Saint Bruno would build the charterhouse of Serra San Bruno, a town which bears his name, in 1095 and later die there in 1101.

Even though it is currently a very small community, there has been a long history of the presence of Jews in Calabria. The Jews have had a presence in the region for at least 1600 years and possibly as much as 2300 years. Calabrian Jews have had notably influence on many areas of Jewish life and culture. Although virtually identical to the Jews of Sicily, the Jews of Calabria are considered a distinct Jewish population due to historical and geographic considerations. There is a small community of Italian Anusim who have resumed the Jewish faith.^[170]

It is important to highlight the presence of Calabrians in Renaissance humanism and in the Renaissance. Indeed, the Hellenistics in this period frequently came from Calabria maybe because of the Greek influence. The rediscovery of Ancient Greek was very difficult because this language had been almost forgotten. In this period the presence of Calabrian humanists or refugees from Constantinople was fundamental. The study of Ancient Greek, in this period, was mainly a work of two monks of the monastery of Seminara: Barlaam, bishop of Gerace, and his disciple, Leonzio Pilato. Leonzio Pilato, in particular, was a Calabrian born near Reggio Calabria. He was an important teacher of Ancient Greek and translator, and he helped Giovanni Boccaccio in the translations of Homer's works.

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Languages of Calabria

Languages of Calabria

The primary languages of Calabria are the Italian language as well as regional varieties of the Neapolitan and Extreme Southern Italian, all collectively known as Calabrian. In addition, there are 100,000 speakers of the Arbëresh variety of Albanian, as well as small numbers of Calabrian Greek speakers and pockets of Occitan.

Occitan language

Occitan language

Occitan, also known as lenga d'òc by its native speakers, and sometimes also referred to as Provençal, is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitània. It is also spoken in Calabria in a linguistic enclave of Cosenza area. Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative.

Neapolitan language

Neapolitan language

Neapolitan is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian group spoken across much of mainland Southern Italy, and spoken in a small part of Central Italy. It is named after the Kingdom of Naples, which once covered most of the area, since the city of Naples was its capital. On 14 October 2008, a law by the Region of Campania stated that Neapolitan was to be protected.

Guardia Piemontese

Guardia Piemontese

Guardia Piemontese is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza and the region of Calabria in southern Italy.

Bovesia

Bovesia

Bovesia, otherwise known as Grecìa Calabra, is one of the two remaining Griko-speaking areas in southern Italy, the other being Grecìa Salentina. It is located at the tip of Calabria, near Reggio, and consists of nine villages. Its population is significantly smaller than the one of Grecìa Salentina.

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek, Dark Ages, the Archaic period, and the Classical period.

Griko language

Griko language

Griko, sometimes spelled Grico, is the dialect of Italiot Greek spoken by Griko people in Salento and in Calabria. Some Greek linguists consider it to be a Modern Greek dialect and often call it Katoitaliótika or Grekanika (Γραικάνικα), whereas its own speakers call it Greko or Griko. Griko is spoken in Salento while Greko is spoken in Calabria. Griko and Standard Modern Greek are partially mutually intelligible.

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome as it was centred on Constantinople instead of Rome, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these regions were extensively populated by Greek settlers. These settlers, who began arriving in the 8th century BC, brought with them their Hellenic civilization, which left a lasting imprint on Italy. They also influenced the native peoples, such as the Sicels and the Oenotrians, who became hellenized after they adopted the Greek culture as their own.

Greek Orthodox Church

Greek Orthodox Church

The term Greek Orthodox Church has three meanings. The broader meaning designates "the entire body of Orthodox (Chalcedonian) Christianity, sometimes also called 'Eastern Orthodox,' 'Greek Catholic,' or generally 'the Greek Church'". The narrower meaning designates "any of several independent churches within the worldwide communion of [Eastern] Orthodox Christianity that retain the use of the Greek language in formal ecclesiastical settings". The third is the Church of Greece, the Eastern Orthodox church operating within the modern borders of Greece.

Francis of Paola

Francis of Paola

Francis of Paola, O.M., was an Italian mendicant friar and the founder of the Roman Catholic Order of Minims. Unlike the majority of founders of men's religious orders, and like his patron saint, Francis was never ordained a priest.

Bruno of Cologne

Bruno of Cologne

Bruno of Cologne, O.Cart., venerated as Saint Bruno, was the founder of the Carthusian Order. He personally founded the order's first two communities. He was a celebrated teacher at Reims, and a close advisor of his former pupil, Pope Urban II. His feast day is October 6.

'Nduja

The cuisine is a typical southern Italian Mediterranean cuisine with a balance between meat-based dishes (pork, lamb, goat), vegetables (especially eggplant), and fish. Pasta (as in Central Italy and the rest of Southern Italy) is also very important in Calabria. In contrast to most other Italian regions, Calabrians have traditionally placed an emphasis on the preservation of their food and packing vegetables and meats in olive oil, and on making sausages and cold cuts (soppressata, 'nduja, capocollo). Along the coast fish is cured, especially swordfish, sardines (sardelle rosamarina) and cod (baccalà). Local desserts are typically fried, honey-sweetened pastries such as cudduraci, nacatole, scalille or scalidde, or baked biscotti-type treats such as nzudda.

Some local specialties include Caciocavallo cheese, cipolla rossa di Tropea (red onion), frìttuli and curcùci (fried pork), liquorice (liquirizia), lagane e cicciari (a pasta dish with chickpeas), pecorino crotonese (sheep cheese), and pignolata.

In ancient times Calabria was referred to as Enotria (from Ancient Greek Οἰνωτρία, Oenotria, "land of wine"). According to ancient Greek tradition, Οἴνωτρος (Oenotrus), the youngest of the sons of Lycaon, was the eponym of Oenotria.^[171] Some vineyards have origins dating back to the ancient Greek colonists. The best known DOC wines are Cirò (Province of Crotone) and Donnici (Province of Cosenza). 3% of the total annual production qualifies as DOC. Important grape varieties are the red Gaglioppo and white Greco. Many producers are resurrecting local, ancient grape varieties which have been around for as long as 3000 years.^[172]

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Calabrian wine

Calabrian wine

Calabrian wine is Italian wine from the Calabria region of southern Italy. Over 90% of the region's wine production is red wine, with a large portion made from the Gaglioppo grape. Calabria has 12 Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) regions, but only 4% of the yearly production is classified as DOC wine. The region is one of Italy's most rural and least industrialized with per capita income less than half of the national average. Following World War II, many of Calabria's inhabitants emigrated to Northern Italy, the United States, Australia and Argentina. Those left behind have been slow to develop a vibrant wine industry with only the red wines of Cirò garnering much international attention. Today Calabrian wines are mostly produced to high alcohol levels and sold to co-operatives who transfer the wines to the northern Italian wine regions to use as blending component. There are no Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) regions, but Calabria does have 12 Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) designations.

'Nduja

'Nduja

'Nduja is a spicy, spreadable pork sausage from the region of Calabria in Southern Italy. It is similar to sobrassada from the Balearic Islands in Spain, to the Piedmontese salam d'la duja and to the French andouille. It is Calabria's contribution to the many types of Italian salumi, and originates from the area around the small Calabrian town of Spilinga.

Mediterranean cuisine

Mediterranean cuisine

Mediterranean cuisine is the food and methods of preparation used by the people of the Mediterranean Basin. The idea of a Mediterranean cuisine originates with the cookery writer Elizabeth David's book, A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950) and was amplified by other writers working in English.

Eggplant

Eggplant

Eggplant, aubergine or brinjal is a plant species in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Solanum melongena is grown worldwide for its edible fruit.

Olive oil

Olive oil

Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained by pressing whole olives, the fruit of Olea europaea, a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, and extracting the oil.

Cod

Cod

Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus Gadus, belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus Gadus is commonly not called cod.

Biscotti

Biscotti

Biscotti, known also as cantucci, are Italian almond biscuits that originated in the Tuscan city of Prato. They are twice-baked, oblong-shaped, dry, crunchy, and may be dipped in a drink, traditionally Vin Santo.

Caciocavallo

Caciocavallo

Caciocavallo [ˌkatʃokaˈvallo] is a type of stretched-curd cheese made out of sheep's or cow's milk. It is produced throughout Southern Italy, particularly in the Apennine Mountains and in the Gargano peninsula. Shaped like a teardrop, it is similar in taste to the aged Southern Italian Provolone cheese, with a hard edible rind.

Frìttuli

Frìttuli

Frittole, is a traditional dish made of pork parts in the city of Reggio Calabria and the surrounding province. Curcùci is also made in the preparation process. Frittola ("frittula") is a similar dish eaten in Palermo, Sicily made from calf instead of pork.

Liquorice

Liquorice

Liquorice or licorice is the common name of Glycyrrhiza glabra, a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted.

Lagane e cicciari

Lagane e cicciari

Lagane e cicciari is a dish from the Calabria region of southeastern mainland Italy. It consists of lagane, a wide pasta with chickpeas, garlic, and oil.

Chickpea

Chickpea

The chickpea or chick pea is an annual legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. Its different types are variously known as gram or Bengal gram, chhana, chana, or channa, garbanzo or garbanzo bean, or Egyptian pea. Chickpea seeds are high in protein. It is one of the earliest cultivated legumes, and 9500-year-old remains have been found in the Middle East.

Airports

• Lamezia Terme International Airport
• Reggio Calabria Airport
• Crotone Airport (summer only)

Seaports

• Port of Gioia Tauro (the busiest container port in Italy and 9th-busiest in Europe)^[173]
• Port of Reggio Calabria
• Port of Vibo Valentia
• Port of Villa San Giovanni
• Port of Corigliano Calabro
• Port of Crotone

Bridges

Calabria has the two highest bridges in Italy:

• Italia Viaduct
• Sfalassa Viaduct (also the highest and longest span frame bridge in the world)^[174]

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Lamezia Terme International Airport

Lamezia Terme International Airport

Lamezia Terme International Airport is an airport in the Sant'Eufemia district of Lamezia Terme, Calabria, Italy. It is the principal airport of Calabria. Additionally, a military helicopter unit, the 2° Reggimento dell'Aria "Sirio", is based near the airport.

Reggio Calabria Airport

Reggio Calabria Airport

Reggio di Calabria "Tito Minniti" Airport, also known as Aeroporto dello Stretto is an airport located in Reggio Calabria, in southern Italy. It serves mainly the Metropolitan City of Reggio and the Province of Messina, and partially the Province of Vibo Valentia; more than 1,350,000 people. Daily flights depart and arrive for and from several Italian cities, and are seasonally augmented by flights to various other countries.

Crotone Airport

Crotone Airport

Crotone-Sant'Anna Airport is a minor Italian domestic airport serving Crotone in Calabria.

Port of Gioia Tauro

Port of Gioia Tauro

The Port of Gioia Tauro is a large seaport in southern Italy. It is the largest port in Italy for container throughput, the 9th in Europe and the 6th in Mediterranean sea. Located north of the city of Reggio Calabria, between the municipalities of Gioia Tauro and San Ferdinando, Calabria, it is close to the East–West route which stretches from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Suez Canal and serves mainly as a transshipment hub, connecting the global and regional networks that cross the Mediterranean.

Port of Reggio

Port of Reggio

The Port of Reggio is a seaport in the Mediterranean Sea serving the Italian city of Reggio Calabria.

Italia Viaduct

Italia Viaduct

Italia Viaduct is a 260-metre-high (850 ft) viaduct near Laino Borgo, Calabria, Italy. It is the highest bridge in Italy, and was the second highest bridge in the world when it opened in 1974. As of 2019, it is among the forty highest bridges in the world. The bridge is located on Autostrada A2 Salerno-Reggio Calabria Motorway between Laino Borgo and Mormanno and crosses the Lao River Gorge.

There are 3 public universities in the region of Calabria

• University of Calabria (Cosenza)
• Magna Graecia University (Catanzaro)
• Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria

There is also the private University for Foreigners "Dante Alighieri" in Reggio Calabria.

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University of Calabria

University of Calabria

The University of Calabria is a state-run university in Italy. Located in Arcavacata, a hamlet of Rende and a suburb of Cosenza, the university was founded in 1972. Among its founders there were Beniamino Andreatta, Giorgio Gagliani, Pietro Bucci and Paolo Sylos Labini. It currently has about 35,000 students, 800 teaching and research staff and about 700 administrative staff.

Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria

Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria

Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, also referred to as Mediterranea University or University of Reggio Calabria, or simply UNIRC, is an Italian public research university, located in Reggio Calabria, Italy. In 2021, it is the third best university in the state.

Università per stranieri "Dante Alighieri" di Reggio Calabria

Università per stranieri "Dante Alighieri" di Reggio Calabria

The Università per stranieri Dante Alighieri di Reggio Calabria, often simply abbreviated as "Unistrad" is a private university founded in 2007 in Reggio Calabria, Italy.