Umbria
Template:Infobox RegionIT Umbria is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. The capital is Perugia. It has an area of 8,456 km² and about 900,000 inhabitants.
Geography
Umbria is a region of Central Italy, bordered by Tuscany to the west, the Marche to the east and Lazio to the south. This region is mostly hilly or mountainous. Its relief is dominated by the Apennines to the east — accounting for the highest point in the region at the summit of Mt. Vettore on the border of the Marche (2476 m = 8123 ft) — and the Tiber valley basin, accounting for the lowest point at Attigliano (96 m = 315 ft).
Umbria is divided in two provinces:
The Tiber forms the approximate border with the Lazio; although the remainder of its course northwards from its source just over the Tuscan border does lie in Umbria, the river is mercurial and thus over the centuries very few towns have been situated on it: the Tiber itself thus is not a major factor in the history and human geography of Umbria. The same cannot be said of the Tiber's three principal tributaries, each flowing in a generally southward course: they are responsible for much of the landscape of Umbria. Most of the course of the Chiascio takes it through relatively uninhabited areas until Bastia Umbra, and about 10 km later it flows into the Tiber at Torgiano. The Topino, cleaving the Apennines with passes that in Antiquity made the Via Flaminia possible and the main successor roads even today, makes a sharp turn at Foligno to flow NW for a few miles before joining the Chiascio below Bettona. The third river system is that of the Nera, flowing into the Tiber much further south, at Terni: its valley, called the Valnerina, is widely considered by Umbrians the most scenic area of Umbria. While the Nera flows more or less in isolation between rather high mountains, the lower course of the Chiascio-Topino basin widens out into a fairly large floodplain, which in Antiquity was actually a pair of shallow, interlocking, swamp-like lakes, the Lacus Clitorius and the Lacus Umber. They were drained a first time by the Romans over a span of several hundred years, but an earthquake in the 4th century and the political collapse of the Roman Empire resulted in the reflooding of the basin, which was drained a second time over a span of five hundred years: Benedictine monks from various abbeys in the region started the process in the 13th century, and it was completed on the private initiative of an engineer from Foligno in the 18th century. In tourist literature one sometimes sees Umbria called il cuor verde d'Italia (the green heart of Italy). The phrase, taken from a poem by Giosuè Carducci — the subject of which is not Umbria but rather a specific small place in it, the source of the Clitunno river, treasured since Antiquity as a beauty spot — is to a certain extent appropriate since the modern administrative region is the only one to have neither a coast nor a border with a foreign country, and, except for August and September, is notoriously green.
History
The region is named for the Umbri tribe, who settled in the region in the 6th century BC. Their language was Umbrian, a relative of Latin. The modern region of Umbria, however, is essentially a different region of Italy than that bearing the same name in Roman times (see Roman Umbria), which extended through most of what is now the northern Marche, to Ravenna, but excluded the west bank of the Tiber — and thus for example Perugia — which was in Etruria, and the area around Norcia, which was in the Sabine territory.
In protohistoric times, Umbria was inhabited by Umbri and Etruscans; 672 BC is the legendary date of foundation of the town of Terni (Interamna). In 295 BC, the roman victory at the battle of Sentinum initiated the period of integration under the roman rulers, which established some colonies (e.g., Spoletium) and built the via Flaminia (220 BC), passing through the region. During the second Punic war and the invasion of Hannibal, the battle of lake Trasimene was fought there, but Umbrians withheld all assistance from him. During the roman civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian (40 BC), the city of Perugia was almost completely destroyed.
After the decay of the roman empire, Ostrogoths and Byzantines struggled for the supremacy in the region; the Lombards founded the duchy of Spoleto, covering a large portion of the actual umbrian territory, and ruled from 571 to the 13th century. When Charlemagne conquered the greatest part of lombard kingdoms in Italy, some umbrian territories were donated to the Pope, which established his temporal power over them. Some cities acquired a form of autonomy (the comuni) and they were often in war, one against the other, in the framework of the more general conflict between papacy and empire and between Guelphs and Ghibellines.
The 14th century began with the rise of lordships, the signorie, all of them ending up to be submitted by the Pontifical State, which ruled on the region up to the end of the 18th century. After the French Revolution and conquest of Italy, Umbria was part of the Roman Republic (1789-1799) and of the Napoleonic Empire (1809-1814). In 1860, after the Risorgimento and the Piedmontese expansion, Umbria was incorporated in the Kingdom of Italy.
The actual borders of Umbria were fixed in 1927, with the creation of the province of Terni and the separation of the province of Rieti, which was incorporated in Lazio.
Economy
The agriculture of the region produces olives, grapes, wheat and tobacco. Industry is based on the steel factories of Terni that harness the hydroelectric power of the Marmore falls created by the Romans, the food industry of Perugia (e.g. Perugina-Nestlè), the production of olive oil (Spoleto and Trevi) and wine (Lake Trasimeno, Montefalco).
Politics
Umbria is a stronghold of the center-left coalition The Union, forming with Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Marche the famous italian political "Red Qadrilateral". At the April 2006 elections, Umbria gave more than 57% of its votes to Romano Prodi.
Demographics
As of 2006, the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated that 53,470 foreign-born immigrants live in Umbria, equal to 6.2% of the total regional population.
Towns of Umbria with a population of 50,000 or more:
| Comune | Population (2006 est.) |
|---|---|
| Perugia | 161,390 |
| Terni | 109,569 |
| Foligno | 54,381 |