Sardinia · Medio Campidano
Barumini
A Marmilla village whose nuraghe became Sardegna's first UNESCO site.
Picked by Peter Benei
Letter to come
Why Barumini is on our list
It holds UNESCO.
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Visiting
- Best time
- Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov
- By car
- 1 h 8 min from Cagliari
- Population
- 1,117
- J13°
- F15°
- M16°
- A19°
- M24°
- J30°
- J35°
- A33°
- S28°
- O24°
- N18°
- D15°
- Best
- Hot or crowded
- Quiet
- Mostly closed
Daytime air temperature, averages for 2020–2024. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com.
Why come
Barumini sits in the Marmilla, 55 kilometers north of Cagliari, on the plain at the foot of the Giara di Gesturi. About 1,120 people live here. The village would be a small inland farming town except for what sits half a kilometer outside it: a complex of huts grew around a citadel between roughly 1500 and 100 BC, and the surrounding well and towers are the most complete and most studied of their kind on the island, with no parallel elsewhere.
UNESCO inscribed the site in 1997, the first Sardinian entry on the World Heritage list. The plateau rises above the plain on the other side of the village, basalt ground where wild horses live free and seasonal ponds form after rain. The town itself sits between the two, the excavated citadel on one side and the plateau on the other, with the historic center and its parish church holding the space in between. What the visitor finds at Barumini, then, is a small farming village whose ordinary footprint is bracketed by two much older and wilder things, one built up over centuries of the Bronze Age and long buried, the other still grazing above it.
How to get there
From Cagliari (CAG), about 1 h 22 min by car.
Coming by train into Cagliari? Barumini is about 1 h 6 min away by road.
Every town within reach of Cagliari airport.
First time driving in Italy? Read our complete manual.
What to see
Su Nuraxi di Barumini
18-meter central tower with four bastions and a surrounding village of huts, set half a kilometer outside the town on the open plain.
Casa Zapata
Spanish-era noble residence built over a second nuraghe, the underlying tower visible under glass floors of the museum.
Giara di Gesturi
Basalt plateau above the village at 500-600 meters, home to wild horses and seasonal paulis ponds.
Centro Giovanni Lilliu
Visitor and research center at the entrance to the archaeological park, named for the archaeologist who led the 1950s excavations.
Chiesa dell'Immacolata Concezione
Parish church of the village, the main religious building in the historic center at the foot of the plateau.
Living here
Could you live here?
Barumini is at the end of the road.
- A village of 1,117. The nearest town of 5,000 people, Sanluri, is 33 min away: past our 15-minute rule, which makes this the end of the road.
- Sanluri, a city of 8,044, is 25 min by car. Closer than our 30 to 60 minutes: handy for everything, so check the town still keeps a life of its own.
The rules come from our series Where to Move in Italy, written from the places we have lived: Part 1, The End of the Road · Part 2, The Small Town · Part 3, The City · Part 4, The Postcard · Part 5, The Other Half. The towns we would pick are in Part 6, The Best Towns.
- Population 1,117, down 13.6% since 2015 (Italy's emptying towns)
- Nearest city Sanluri, 25 min drive
- Nearest national health service hospital Isili, 13 km as the crow flies · how healthcare works in Italy
- Homes in the center: €450 to €650 per m² to buy, €1.80 to €2.50 per m² a month to rent
All the numbers Common questions, designations, lists and sources.
More about living here
- In-between
- Pharmacy in town
- High school within a 30-minute drive
- Full fibre reaches 100% of homes
- Primary school in the comune
- Earthquake zone 4, very low hazard
- Cagliari airport (CAG), 1 h 22 min drive, the nearest with scheduled flights
- Regional capital Cagliari, 1 h 8 min drive
If you are moving here
Who lives here
Under 1% of residents are foreign citizens, against 9% across Italy. There are 371 people over 65 for every 100 children under 15, against 216 across Italy. 31% of homes have no resident, holiday homes and empty ones counted together, against 27% across Italy. The old province of Sud Sardegna ranks 94th of 107 in Il Sole 24 Ore's quality of life ranking for 2025.
Health and schools
The nearest emergency room is in Isili, 13 km as the crow flies. The nearest major one is in Cagliari, 54 km away. The nearest children's emergency room is in Oristano, 40 km away. The nearest IB school is Ambrit International School, 377 km as the crow flies. The nearest school listed as international is Chatterbox Schools and College, 54 km away.
Information, not medical advice. Confirm with a professional.
Taxes
A home that is not your main one pays 0.8% a year in property tax at the 2025 rate, charged on the cadastral value rather than the price. A main home pays none unless it is in a luxury category. The town adds 0.65% to your income tax, with nothing due on income under €10,000. 7% pensioner tax: this town qualifies, for someone with a foreign pension who has lived abroad for five years: 7% on foreign income, for ten years.
Information, not tax advice. Confirm with a professional.
What it costs
The average household in Sardinia spends about €1,790 a month, €530 of it on food, against about €2,170 across Italy. A family of three pays about €539 a year for water, on the Sardinia average.
Climate and risk
6% of residents live in a zone the national maps rate high for floods. They show no residents in a high landslide zone.
These shares cover the whole comune, not any one street. Check an address on IdroGEO.
Moving from abroad? Which visa you need. Sources: ISTAT, the Ministry of Health, ISPRA, the Finance Ministry, the Ministry of Enterprise, Poste Italiane, the comuni, the IB, International Schools Database, Il Sole 24 Ore, Cittadinanzattiva.
Known for
SU NURAXI
Sardegna's first UNESCO inscription, type example of Bronze Age nuragic architecture excavated by Giovanni Lilliu in the 1950s.
CAVALLINI DELLA GIARA
Wild horse population on the basalt plateau above the village, roughly 600 animals living free across the Giara di Gesturi.
CASA ZAPATA
Aragonese-Spanish noble house built on a second nuraghe, the Bronze Age stones still visible under the museum's glass floors.
Common questions
- What is Barumini known for?
- Barumini is a Marmilla village whose nuraghe became Sardegna's first UNESCO site.
- Where is Barumini?
- Barumini is a comune in the province of Medio Campidano, in Sardinia, at 202 meters above sea level.
- What is the nearest airport to Barumini?
- The nearest airport with scheduled flights is Cagliari (CAG), about 1 h 22 min by car.
- When is the best time to visit Barumini?
- Best in Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov. July is the warmest month, averaging 35 degrees, and November the wettest, with about 11 rain days.
- Which other towns are like Barumini?
- Santu Lussurgiu, Seneghe and Aggius.
- How many people live in Barumini?
- 1,117 residents, by ISTAT's count on 1 January 2025.
- Is Barumini a good place to live?
- By the rules in our Where to Move in Italy series, Barumini is at the end of the road: the nearest town of 5,000 people, Sanluri, is 33 min away. The nearest city, Sanluri, is 25 min away by car. The nearest national health service hospital is in Isili, 13 km as the crow flies. Full fibre reaches 100% of homes.
Tags & data designations · numbers · sources
Recognized as
Landscape
The numbers
- Elevation: 202 m
- Population: 1,117
- Surface area: 26.4 km²
These figures were compiled from public directories: ISTAT, OpenStreetMap and Wikidata, and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.
The ranked lists
Lists Barumini appears in
Similar
Towns like Barumini
What all six share with Barumini: under 3,000 people · hill towns
The letter
Barumini is on our list. Its letter is still to come.
We are writing about all 1,000 of these towns, one at a time, in a free letter: the photo, what is worth eating, and when to turn up. That is our mission. Sign up and you will be there when Barumini comes up. By Peter & Sophia, from Turin.
The nearest town we have written up is Monte Argentario, 352 km away. Read its letter →
Paid plans, the moving year and the books are on the membership page.