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00 Corleone
Stemma di Corleone

Sicily · Palermo

Corleone

A town of 10,364 in the Palermo hinterland that gave its name to Mario Puzo's Don Vito and now runs Italy's national antimafia documentation centre.

Best time
Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov
By car
1 h 10 min from Palermo
By train
Station in the comune
Population
10,364

Known for

  • DON VITO

    Mario Puzo took the name for Vito Andolini Corleone in his 1969 novel; the films followed in 1972, 1974 and 1990.

  • CIDMA

    Italy's primary antimafia documentation centre, opened in 2000 in the historic centre to archive Cosa Nostra cases and victim testimony.

  • DUE ROCCHE

    Year-round waterfall on the San Leonardo river behind the town, with a medieval aqueduct and two ancient mills in the canyon.

When to visit

Best · Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov

  • J11°
  • F13°
  • M14°
  • A17°
  • M22°
  • J29°
  • J33°
  • A31°
  • S27°
  • O22°
  • N17°
  • D13°
  • Best
  • Hot or crowded
  • Quiet
  • Mostly closed

Daytime averages, 2020–2024. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com.

The festa: Leoluca di Corleone, 1 March

Why come

Corleone sits at 542 meters on the inner hills of Palermo province, thirty-five kilometers south of the capital, between the Castello Soprano and Castello Sottano that the Arabs and then the Normans held above the town. The name Qurliyūn appears in ninth-century Arab sources; the Hohenstaufen made it a military centre, and a settlement at nearby Contrada Stretto has been dated to the sixth millennium BC. The town carries two reputations.

The first is Mario Puzo's, who borrowed the name in 1969 for Don Vito of The Godfather. The second is the one that grew out of the 1980s Corleonesi war: Corleone became the operating base of Cosa Nostra's most violent faction. The CIDMA, the Centro Internazionale di Documentazione sulla Mafia e del Movimento Antimafia, opened in 2000 in the historic centre and is now Italy's primary antimafia archive. The Cascate delle Due Rocche run year-round through a canyon behind the town.

The Sunday letter

Corleone 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 every Sunday: the photo, the food, the festa. That is our mission. Sign up and you will be there when Corleone comes up. By Peter & Sophia, from Turin.

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Corleone in our articles

How to get there

From Catania (CTA), about 3h 16m by car.

By car from the centre of Palermo 1h 10m.

There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive without a car.

Coming from Palermo?

Coming by train into Palermo Centrale? Corleone is about 1 hour away by road.

Corleone, photo 1
Corleone, photo 2

What to see

  • CIDMA - Centro Internazionale di Documentazione sulla Mafia e del Movimento Antimafia

    Italy's primary antimafia archive and museum, opened 12 December 2000, holding case files, photographs and the testimony of victims.

  • Cascate delle Due Rocche

    Year-round waterfall on the San Leonardo river in a canyon behind the town, with a medieval aqueduct, two old mills and the small Chiesa Madonna delle Due Rocche.

  • Castello Soprano e Castello Sottano

    Two Arab-Norman fortifications from the tenth to thirteenth centuries on rock outcrops above the town, the visual frame of Corleone.

  • Chiesa Madre di San Martino

    Mother church of the town, with canvases by Fra Felice da Sambuca and a marble Madonna del Soccorso of the Gagini school.

  • Centro storico

    Sicilian inland-town layout of stone houses and a hundred churches, with the corso running between the two castle rocks.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Corleone fits in a slow Italy circuit.

Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.

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Living here

  • Population 10,364, down 9.1% since 2015
  • Remotei
  • Pharmacy in town
  • High school within a 30-minute drive
  • Train station in the comune
  • A public hospital in the comune
  • Full fibre reaches 81% of homes
  • Primary school in the comune
  • Earthquake zone 2, medium hazard
  • Nearest airport Catania, 3 h 16 min drive
  • Regional capital Palermo, 1 h 10 min drive

Could you live here?

Corleone meets 3 of our 3 rules for a small town.

  • 10,364 people, inside our sweet spot of 5,000 to 20,000: a real town, still one community.
  • Bagheria, a city of 52,928, is 58 minutes by car. Inside our 30 to 60 minutes: close for the services, far enough to keep its own life.
  • A station of its own. Trains are the overlooked way to get around Italy: no parking, straight into the centre.

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. The rest of the series, and the best towns to move to, arrive in the Sunday letter.

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Common questions

What is Corleone known for?
Corleone is a town of 10,364 in the Palermo hinterland that gave its name to Mario Puzo's Don Vito and now runs Italy's national antimafia documentation centre.
Where is Corleone?
Corleone is a comune in the province of Palermo, in Sicily, at 542 meters above sea level.
What is the nearest airport to Corleone?
Catania (CTA), about 3h 16m by car.
Can you get to Corleone without a car?
Yes. There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive by train.
How long is the drive from Palermo to Corleone?
About 1h 10m by car.
When is the best time to visit Corleone?
Best in Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov. July is the warmest month, averaging 33 degrees, and November the wettest, with about 14 rain days.
Is there a sagra or a festival in Corleone?
The town keeps its patron saint's day: Leoluca di Corleone, 1 March.
Which other towns are like Corleone?
Monreale, Ragusa and Modica.
How many people live in Corleone?
10,364 at the 2023 count.
Is Corleone a good place to live?
By the rules in our Where to Move in Italy series, Corleone is a small town that meets 3 of our 3 rules. The nearest city, Bagheria, is 58 minutes away by car. There is a public hospital in the comune. Full fibre reaches 81% of homes.
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

The numbers

  • Elevation: 542 m
  • Population: 10,364
  • Surface area: 229.46 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.

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