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Calabria

Regione Calabria

Zone	South Italy
Capital	Catanzaro
President	Giuseppe Chiaravalloti
Provinces	Catanzaro Cosenza Crotone Reggio di Calabria Vibo Valentia
Municipalities	409
Area	15,080 km²
Population  - Total  - Density	2,000,000 132/km²
Map higlighting the location of Calabria in Italy

A region in southern Italy, Calabria occupies the "toe" of the Italian peninsula south of Naples. It is bounded in the north by the region of Basilicata, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the Ionian Sea. Calabria faces the island of Sicily across the Strait of Messina. The region covers 15,080 km² and has a population of 2.05 million.

The regional capital is Catanzaro, Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio di Calabria and Vibo Valentia.

Calabria was originally inhabited by a variety of Italic tribes, cousins of the Latins who populated Rome. Greek traders encountered one of these tribes, the Itali, and gave their name to the entire peninsula. Thus, in many ways, Calabria was the first "Italy."

As "Magna Graecia" Calabria was an important centre of Greek civilisation before the rise of the Roman Empire. It was home to Pythagoras, the father of geometry, and its most famous Greek sculptures, the 5th century brones of warriors, the "Bronzi di Riace" now in Reggio Calabria. Greek civilation was already on the wane when other Italic tribesmen, the Lucanians and Brutti, began pouring into Calabria. These tribes, close relatives of the Samnites, founded many of the Calabrian cities still extant today.

After several wars with rival Italian tribes, Calabria became thoroughly Romanized, through population by Roman soldier-colonies. Many Romans, including Cicero, had vacation homes in Vibo Valentia. Calabria was for many years part of the Roman Empire and after its fall, was devastated during the Gothic War before it came under the rule of a local dux for the Byzantine Empire. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Calabria, which had been the rich breadbasket of Rome before Egypt was conquered, was the borderland between Byzantine rule and the Arab emirs in Sicily, subject to raids and skirmishes, dopopulated and demoralized, with vibrant Greek monasteries providing fortresses of culture. In the 1060s Normans, under the leadership of Robert Guiscard's brother Roger established a presence in this borderland, organized a governbment along Byzantine lines that was run by the local Greek magnates of Calabria. In 1098, Pope Urban II bestowed on Roger the equivalence of an apostolic legate and the Hauteville clan formed the precursors of the Kingdom of Naples which in one form or other ruled Calabria until the unification of Italy. This kingdom itself came under many rulers: the Hapsburg dynasties of both Spain and Austria; the French Bourbon dynasty, and briefly Napoleon's general Murat.

Throughout all this Calabria remained a very rural and exploited region. The Aspromonte, a mountainous region of central Calabria, was the scene of a famous battle of the Risorgimento (unification of Italy), in which Garibaldi was wounded. Several of the important philosophers of the Risorgimento came from the Cosenza region, and famous Americans of Calabrian descent are almost too numerous to name.

Calabria is also the home of a small Griko-speaking community in Bovesia, the region otherwise known as Grecìa Calabra.

Organized crime used to be quite strong in Calabria for many decades, but seems to be waning.

The seawater around Calabria is very clear, and there is a good level of tourist accommodation. The poet Gabriele d'Annunzio called the seafront at Reggio "The most beautiful kilometer in Italy".

Important tourist sites

• Tropea, on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast, is a beautiful city, with a nice seaside, renowned for its sweet onions.
• Siderno, on the Ionian Sea coast, has good hotels.
• Gerace, near Locri, is a beautiful medieval city, with a norman castle, a ancient Cathedral, etc
• Stilo, the home of Tommaso Campanella, with a Norman castle and a beautiful Greek Orthodox church, the Cattolica

Regions of Italy || |- | align="center" style="font-size: 90%;" colspan="2" | Regular Regions |- | align="center" style="font-size: 90%;" colspan="2" | Abruzzo | Basilicata | Calabria | Campania | Emilia-Romagna | Lazio (Latium) | Liguria | Lombardia (Lombardy) | Marche | Molise | Piemonte (Piedmont) | Puglia (Apulia) | Toscana (Tuscany) | Umbria | Veneto | |- | align="center" style="font-size: 90%;" colspan="2" | Regions with special autonomous status |- | align="center" style="font-size: 90%;" colspan="2" | Friuli-Venezia Giulia | Sardegna (Sardinia) | Sicilia (Sicily) | Trentino-Alto Adige (Trentino-South Tyrol) | Valle d'Aosta (Aosta Valley) |}