History[edit]
The province of Latina was founded on 18 December 1934, encompassing mainly the drained areas of the Agro Pontino previously part of the province of Rome. Apart from the Pontine lands, it includes the Aurunci, Lepini and Ausoni mountain ranges, as well as the Pontine islands archipelago. The port of Gaeta and Formia, in the southernmost part of the province, belonged traditionally and linguistically to Campania.
In Bronze Age, complex permanent settlement systems and functionally differentiated societies developed in the Pontine region. This included preparation of fish and salt at the coast and metallurgy slightly inland.[3] Late Iron Age fortified settlements evolved on the Alban hills and Monti Lepini. Small-scale farming and urbanisation developed only in or right before the Roman Age with transhumant pastoralism still continuing. From 350 BC onwards, the colonies of Cora (Cori), Norba and Setia (Sezze) were built. The small peasant economy was gradually replaced by large specialised latifundia.