Southern Italy
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Country | Italy |
Regions | |
Area | |
• Total | 123,024 km2 (47,500 sq mi) |
Population | |
• Estimate (2019) | 20,637,360 |
Languages | |
– Official language | Italian |
– 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 that would eventually annex the Bourbon-led and 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.
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