Metropolitan cities of Italy
The 14 metropolitan cities of Italy (Italian: città metropolitane d'Italia) are administrative divisions of Italy, operative since 2015, which are a special type of province. The metropolitan city, as defined by law, includes a large core city and the surrounding suburbs and countryside closely related to it by economic activities and essential public services, as well as to cultural relations and to territorial features.
History[edit]
The original 1990 law defined as metropolitan cities the comuni 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.[1] In 2009, amendments added Reggio Calabria to the list.[2] The metropolitan areas defined by the autonomous regions were: Cagliari and Sassari in Sardinia; Catania, Messina and Palermo in Sicily.
On 3 April 2014 the Italian Parliament approved a law that established ten metropolitan cities in Italy,[3] excluding the autonomous regions. Five more were added later. The new metropolitan cities (except Sassari, which ceased to exist in 2016 after being merged with the province of Olbia-Tempio to form the province of Sassari) have been operative since 1 January 2015.
