Southern Italy

For the EU constituency, see Southern Italy (European Parliament constituency). For the statistical regions of the EU, see South Italy.
"Mezzogiorno" redirects here. For the Italian actress, see Giovanna Mezzogiorno. For her father, see Vittorio Mezzogiorno.

Southern Italy
Italia meridionale (Italian)
Sud Italia (Italian)
Meridione (Italian)
Mezzogiorno (Italian)
Map of Italy, highlighting southern Italy, highlighting central Italy
CountryItaly
Regions
Area
 • Total123,024 km2 (47,500 sq mi)
Population
[1]
 • Estimate 
(2019)
20,637,360
Languages 
 – Official languageItalian
 – Official linguistic minorities[2]
 – Regional languages

Southern Italy (Italian: Sud Italia, Italian: [ˈsud iˈtaːlja], or Italia meridionale, Italian: [iˈtaːlja meridjoˈnaːle]; Neapolitan: 'o Sudde; Sicilian: Italia dû Suddi), also known as Meridione (Italian: [meriˈdjoːne]) or Mezzogiorno (Italian: [ˌmɛddzoˈdʒorno]; Neapolitan: Miezojuorno; Sicilian: Menzujornu; lit. 'Midday'), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern regions.

The term "Mezzogiorno" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or culture of the historical and cultural region that was once politically under the administration of the former Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily (officially denominated as one entity Regnum Siciliae citra Pharum and ultra Pharum, i.e. "Kingdom of Sicily on the other side of the Strait" and "across the Strait") and which later shared a common organization into Italy's largest pre-unitarian state, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

The island of Sardinia, which was not part of the aforementioned polity and had been under the rule of the Alpine House of Savoy, which would eventually annex the Bourbons' southern Italian kingdom altogether, is nonetheless often subsumed into the Mezzogiorno.[9][10] The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) employs the term "south Italy" (Italia meridionale, or just Sud, i.e. "south") to statistically identify in its reportings the six mainland regions of southern Italy without Sicily and Sardinia, which form a distinct statistical region under the ISTAT denominated "Insular Italy" (Italia insulare, or simply Isole "Islands").[11] These same subdivisions are at the bottom of the Italian First level NUTS of the European Union and the Italian constituencies for the European Parliament. Nonetheless, Sardinia and especially Sicily are included as "southern Italy" in most definitions of the southern Italy macroregion.

  1. ^ "Statistiche demografiche ISTAT". www.demo.istat.it. Archived from the original on 17 December 2020. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  2. ^ "Legge 482". Webcitation.org. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  3. ^ «Con questa denominazione si indica lo Stato costituito nel dic. 1816 con l’unificazione dei regni di Napoli e di Sicilia, che restaurava l’autorità borbonica su tutta l’Italia meridionale; fu mantenuta fino all’ott. 1860, quando, tramite plebiscito, fu votata l’annessione al regno di Sardegna.» "Regno delle Due Sicilie in Dizionario di Storia". www.treccani.it.
  4. ^ «Mezzogiorno, region in Italy roughly coextensive with the former Kingdom of Naples.» "Mezzogiorno". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  5. ^ «Meridionale: in part.: che fa parte delle regioni continentali e insulari del Mezzogiorno d'Italia (delimitate convenzionalmente dai fiumi Garigliano e Sangro), le quali, in età prerisorgimentale, costituivano il Regno delle due Sicilie.» Battaglia, Salvatore (1961). Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, UTET, Torino, V. X, p.160.
  6. ^ «Il regno meridionale, Napoli e Sicilia con 6 milioni e 200 mila abitanti,... pare in principio per certa foga di riforme e per valori d'ingegni filosofici e riformisti gareggiare con la Lombardia austriaca.» Carducci, III-18-21, citato in Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, UTET, Torino, V. X, p.160.
  7. ^ Luigi Mendola. "Kingdom and House of the Two Sicilies".
  8. ^ «Tra le maggiori novità del secolo ci fu proprio il ritorno all'indipendenza del regno meridionale, che riunì in un unico stato indipendente e sovrano il Mezzogiorno insulare e continentale.» Francesca Canale Cama; Daniele Casanova; Rosa Maria Delli Quadri (2017). Storia del Mediterraneo moderno e contemporaneo. Napoli: Guida Editori. p. 173.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ "Il rapporto annuale Svimez sull'economia del Mezzogiorno". 2007.
  10. ^ "Classificazione economica ISTAT" (PDF) (in Italian). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 January 2015. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
  11. ^ "Classificazione demografica ISTAT" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 15 April 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2009.