Metropolitan Area (Italy)

The città metropolitana (Italian for "metropolitan city") is an Italian administrative institution created by the reform of local authorities (Law 142/1990), later amended by 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2009 provisions, but not yet operative. The città metropolitana, as defined by law, includes a large core city and the smaller surrounding towns that are closely related to it with regard to economic activities and essential public services, as well as to cultural relations and to territorial features, that form its metropolitan area. A città metropolitana (legal name) is therefore, by all means, a metropolitan area. The main aim of the reform was to give metropolitan areas the administrative powers of a province.

History

The original 1990 law individuated as metropolitan areas the communes of: Turin, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Bari, Naples and their respective hinterlands, reserving the autonomous regions the right to individuate metropolitan areas in their territory. The metropolitan areas individuated by the autonomous regions were: Cagliari, Catania, Messina, Palermo and Trieste. A 2009 amendment eventually added Reggio Calabria to the list. As of 2011, none of these administrative authorities has been activated, as many of the core administrations even failed to define the legal extent of their metropolitan areas. In 2005, the Italian Ministry of the Environment has produced a study on the state of metropolitan areas regulation in Italy, that contains an analysis of the local authorities already defined and suggestions on the delimitation of the remaining.

Administrative boundaries

Rank	Core city	Area	Institutive Law	Population
1	Rome	Not defined		4,282,000
2	Milan	Not defined		3,707,000
3	Naples	Not defined		3,059,000
4	Turin	Not defined		2,215,000
5	Bari	Not defined		1,541,000
6	Florence	73 communes	DCR 130/29.03.2000	1,403,000
7	Palermo	27 communes	LR 9/1986 e Decreto Presidente Regione 10.08.1995	1,234,000
8	Catania	27 communes	LR 9/1986 e Decreto Presidente Regione 10.08.1995	1,054,000
9	Bologna	60 communes	LR 33/12.04.1995 e LR 20/24.03.2000	915,000
10	Genoa	41 communes	LR 12/22.07.1991 e LR 7/24.02.1997	878,000
11	Venice	5 communes	L.R.36/12.08.1993	809,000
12	Cagliari	Not defined		760,000
13	Messina	51 communes	LR 9/1986 e Decreto Presidente Regione 10.08.1995	662,000
14	Trieste	Not defined		242,000

Alternative studies

Given the situation of persisting administrative and statistical uncertainty, during the last decades a few authoritative alternative studies has been produced regarding Italian metropolitan areas. According to OECD, the largest conurbations are:

• Milan – 7.4 million
• Rome – 6.3 million
• Naples – 3.1 million
• Turin – 2.2 million

See also

• List of cities in Italy by population