Press
Anywhere Italy: the 1,000 hidden towns, for journalists
A catalogue of one thousand small Italian towns, built as a database and written as a magazine. Everything on this page is the current live figure, computed from the same data the site runs on. Town descriptions are in English.
Facts and figures
- Towns in the catalogue
- 1,000
- Regions covered
- 20
- Towns written about
- 92
- Pieces written about them
- 44
- Published articles and lists
- 759
- Verified designations tracked
- 34
- Photographs on the site
- 3,000
- Towns site launched
- May 2026
- Based in
- Turin, Piedmont
- Site language
- English
- Model
- Free site, free letter, paid Substack tiers. No advertising.
Figures as of 2026-11-15.
The mission
Italy has nearly eight thousand comuni. Foreign travelers hear about fifty, visit six, and queue there. A few valleys from every famous piazza there is a town where the school closed a generation ago, the young left for the city, and the bar decides each spring whether to turn the lights back on.
These are the same problem. The famous places carry more visitors than they can hold, and the small ones empty out for lack of anyone. Nearly all of the money lands on one side of that line.
Anywhere Italy is a catalogue of one thousand of the towns that get skipped, each with its own page: population, altitude, how to get there without a car, what it is recognized for, when to go, and what we found when we went. A hundred euros spent in Florence disappears into Florence. The same hundred in a town of four hundred people is visible in the till. We think of it as pointing money at the places that notice it.
It is written by Peter Benei and photographed by Sophia, who moved to Italy from Hungary in 2022 and live in Turin, Piedmont. One town at a time, in their own voice, until the count runs out.
Press kit
Boilerplate, founder biography, logos, photographs and usage terms. Everything here may be used in editorial coverage of Anywhere Italy without asking.
Boilerplate, short
Anywhere Italy is a catalogue of 1,000 small Italian towns most travelers skip, each with its own data-rich page, written by Peter Benei and photographed by Sophia from Turin, Piedmont.
Boilerplate, long
Anywhere Italy is a catalogue of one thousand small Italian towns that most travelers skip. Every town has its own page: population and altitude from ISTAT, whether it can be reached by train, the designations it holds (Borghi più belli d'Italia, Bandiera Arancione, Bandiera Blu, UNESCO, Cittaslow, national parks and others), when to go, what it is known for, and, for the towns the founders have visited, their own dispatch and photographs. The site publishes computed lists across the catalogue (lake towns near Milan, hill towns you can reach by train, the towns under two hundred people) and a free letter about one town at a time. It is written by Peter Benei and photographed by Sophia, Hungarians who moved to Italy in 2022 and live in Turin, Piedmont. The project's stated purpose is to move visitors and their money from the six overcrowded places to the towns that notice.
The founders
Peter Benei writes Anywhere Italy. Sophia takes the photographs. They moved from Hungary to Italy in 2022 and live in Turin, Piedmont. Being immigrants, they write about local life and custom as much as views, because that is what they had to learn. They visit one town at a time and write about a place only once one of them has stood in it.
Logos
PNG, transparent. Use the horizontal mark where width allows and the cube where it does not. Do not recolour; the gold is the brand's own.
Photographs
The founders' portrait may be used in coverage with the credit "Anywhere Italy". Our own town photographs may be used with the same credit. A photograph from Wikimedia Commons carries its author's credit on the town page, and that credit goes with it.
Fact sheet
The Top 100 as a spreadsheet. CSV: town, region, province, residents, altitude, designations, our description, link. Computed from the same data as the page.
The figures above, the mission and the boilerplate, in one file to keep.
Usage
Text on this page, the figures, the boilerplate and the logos may be reproduced in editorial coverage. Please link to anywhereitaly.com. Data in the database is compiled from public sources listed on each town page and on the About the data page; cite the town page when quoting a figure.
The Top 100: a selection, not a ranking
One hundred towns, chosen by hand from the thousand by Peter Benei, who lives in Turin. It is not a league table and the page prints no position: the towns are here because he would send a friend to them.
The famous places are left out: none of the towns this site tells readers to skip is on it.
Method: a hand-picked list, checked against ISTAT's tourism density bands and the designations each town holds. It is not recomputed; it changes only when the author changes it.
Grouped by region, north to south. Each entry carries the current ISTAT resident count, altitude, the designations that earned its place, and our one-line editorial description. Editorial descriptions are in English.
Aosta Valley4
Bard
Aosta Valley · 102 residents · 400 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · 1 guide-listed
A 102-person village under the great Savoy fortress that guards the mouth of the Aosta Valley.
Courmayeur
Aosta Valley · 2,521 residents · 1,224 m
Ski Area · 8 guide-listed
The Italian base of Mont Blanc, the roughly 4,806-meter peak, a medieval mountain village near the Roman road over the Little Saint Bernard that became one of the country's best-known ski addresses.
Fénis
Aosta Valley · 1,789 residents · 537 m
1 guide-listed
The Castello di Fénis, with its double ring of crenellated walls, eight cylindrical towers, and frescoed inner courtyard, sits at the center of a small Aostan commune east of Aosta, with an Alpine reserve climbing south to 3,000m.
Valtournenche
Aosta Valley · 2,189 residents · 1,524 m
Ski Area · 3 guide-listed
The valley under the Cervino, home of the guides who raced Whymper up the mountain in 1865.
Piemonte5
Alba
Cuneo · 30,987 residents · 172 m
Spighe Verdi · Città del Vino · Città della Nocciola · Città del Tartufo · 12 guide-listed
The Langhe capital at 172 meters on the Tanaro, world reference for white truffle and Nebbiolo, headquarters of Ferrero.
Bra
Cuneo · 29,673 residents · 290 m
UNESCO · Cittaslow · Spighe Verdi · 5 guide-listed
A Roero town at 290 meters where the world's first gastronomic university now teaches food systems.
Barolo
Cuneo · 617 residents · 301 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Città del Vino · 3 guide-listed
A Langhe borgo at 301 meters whose Castello Falletti gave its name to the wine the Marchesi turned dry in the 1830s with Cavour's help.
Neive
Cuneo · 3,211 residents · 308 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione
A hilltop borgo at 308 meters in the Barbaresco zone, named for the Roman gens Naevia, with four wines in commercial volume.
Cherasco
Cuneo · 9,630 residents · 288 m
Bandiera Arancione · Spighe Verdi · 4 guide-listed
A walled grid-plan town on the river terrace where the Stura di Demonte meets the Tanaro, on the western edge of the Langhe.
Lombardia5
Dervio
Lecco · 2,537 residents · 220 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia
A peninsula on upper Lake Como's eastern shore at the Varrone delta, with a Romanesque bell tower and one of the lake's best sailing winds.
Monte Isola
Brescia · 1,587 residents · 262 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Città dell'Olio
The largest lake island in southern and central Europe, 4.5 square kilometers in Lake Iseo, with no cars and eleven fishing villages on its shore.
San Benedetto Po
Mantova · 6,729 residents · 19 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia
A former river island whose entire existence traces back to the Benedictine abbey founded on it in 1007.
Soncino
Cremona · 7,540 residents · 88 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Regionale · Riserva Naturale
A walled borgo on the Oglio, held by a brick Sforza fortress and a printing house that once worked in Hebrew.
Sabbioneta
Mantova · 4,080 residents · 25 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · UNESCO · Bandiera Arancione
A Renaissance ideal city on the Po, built in thirty years by Vespasiano I Gonzaga and laid out as a six-pointed star.
Trentino-Alto Adige3
Glurns
Bolzano · 933 residents · 907 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Nazionale · 1 guide-listed
A ringed sixteenth-century circuit of walls encloses a city of 933 inhabitants near the Swiss border.
Sterzing
Bolzano · 7,032 residents · 948 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Ski Area · 1 guide-listed
A bilingual mining town at 948 meters on the Brenner road, where a 46-meter tower built in 1472 still divides the old town from the new.
Kastelruth
Bolzano · 7,053 residents · 1,060 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Ski Area · 3 guide-listed
South Tyrolean village on a shelf below the Sciliar, eighty-two-metre bell tower over the square, home of the Kastelruther Spatzen.
Veneto4
Asolo
Treviso · 8,911 residents · 205 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Cittaslow · Città del Vino · Città dell'Olio · 4 guide-listed
A walled hill town at 205 meters that Caterina Cornaro ran as her court after trading Cyprus to Venice in 1489.
Chioggiawritten about
Venezia · 47,265 residents · 2 m
Bandiera Blu · Città del Pane · Riserva Naturale · 1 guide-listed
Italy's second fishing port, on an island at the south end of the Venetian Lagoon, called Little Venice for its canal.
Follina
Treviso · 3,607 residents · 191 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · UNESCO · Bandiera Arancione · Cittaslow · Città del Vino · 3 guide-listed
A Prosecco-hills borgo at 191 meters around the Cistercian Abbey of Santa Maria, with a cloister finished in 1268.
Valdobbiadene
Treviso · 9,918 residents · 253 m
UNESCO · Città del Vino · 3 guide-listed
The Prosecco Superiore capital at 253 meters in the Treviso Prealps, where Glera grown on Cartizze's 108 hectares produces Prosecco's top cru.
Friuli-Venezia Giulia5
Cividale del Friuli
Udine · 10,755 residents · 138 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · UNESCO · Bandiera Arancione · Città del Vino · 1 guide-listed
The Lombard capital on the Natisone, founded as Forum Iulii by Julius Caesar, where an eighth-century chapel still holds six stucco saints.
Cormons
Gorizia · 7,047 residents · 51 m
Città del Vino · 2 guide-listed
The capital of the Collio wine zone at the foot of the Friulian-Slovenian hills.
Palmanova
Udine · 5,311 residents · 26 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · UNESCO
A nine-pointed Venetian star fortress on the Friuli plain, its geometry closed three centuries after it began.
Venzone
Udine · 1,935 residents · 230 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Borgo dei Borghi · Parco Regionale
A 230-meter walled medieval town in the Tagliamento valley, leveled by the 1976 earthquakes and rebuilt as it had been, winner of Borgo dei Borghi 2017.
Spilimbergo
Pordenone · 11,773 residents · 132 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Borgo dei Borghi · 2 guide-listed
A 132-meter Friulian town on the Tagliamento, home since 1922 to the Scuola Mosaicisti.
Liguria8
Amegliawritten about
La Spezia · 4,262 residents · 89 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Regionale · 2 guide-listed
A hilltop borgo at 89 meters above the mouth of the Magra, the Lunigiana edge of Liguria where the river meets the Gulf of Poets.
Brugnatowritten about
La Spezia · 1,280 residents · 115 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Infioritalia · Parco Regionale
The medieval ecclesiastical capital of an inland Ligurian valley, seat of a diocese from 1133 to 1820, with a co-cathedral built over a Columban monastery.
Castelnuovo Magrawritten about
La Spezia · 8,259 residents · 188 m
Bandiera Arancione · Via Francigena · Comuni Virtuosi
A ridge village on the Liguria-Tuscany border where a marquisate treaty ended decades of conflict with the bishops of Luni.
Chiavariwritten about
Genova · 27,452 residents · 3 m
Bandiera Blu · Città dell'Olio · 5 guide-listed
The Tigullio capital between Portofino and the Cinque Terre, a 27,000-person Genoese trading town built around a thirteenth-century grid of porticoed streets.
Dolceacqua
Imperia · 2,192 residents · 51 m
Bandiera Arancione · Città dell'Olio · 2 guide-listed
A two-banked medieval village split by a single-arch bridge from 1400, the one Monet came to paint in 1884.
Lericiwritten about
La Spezia · 9,245 residents · 10 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Blu · Parco Regionale · 2 guide-listed
A fishing harbor under a Pisan-Genoese castle, with the frazione of Tellaro hanging over the rocks at the commune's southern edge.
Portovenerewritten about
La Spezia · 3,201 residents · 37 m
UNESCO · Parco Regionale · 2 guide-listed
A Genoese fortress guards the western mouth of the Gulf of Poets, above the rock where a Roman temple to Venus once stood.
Sestri Levantewritten about
Genova · 17,240 residents · 10 m
Bandiera Blu · Città del Vino · Città dell'Olio · 7 guide-listed
The Tigullio town of two bays, split by a peninsula where a river once silted an island to the shore.
Emilia-Romagna3
Castell'Arquato
Piacenza · 4,693 residents · 224 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Città del Vino · Parco Regionale · Riserva Naturale · 1 guide-listed
A 224-meter hilltop borgo in the Val d'Arda, kept intact since the tenth century and crowned by Luchino Visconti's 1342 fortress.
Montegridolfo
Rimini · 996 residents · 290 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Città dell'Olio · 1 guide-listed
A walled borgo of fewer than a thousand residents on the Romagna-Marche border, held alternately by the Malatesta and the Montefeltro through the fifteenth century.
Vernasca
Piacenza · 2,017 residents · 457 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Parco Regionale · Riserva Naturale
A Val d'Arda commune in the Piacenza Apennines, holding the walled village of Vigoleno and one of the most compact castled borghi in Emilia.
Tuscany10
Bargawritten about
Lucca · 9,461 residents · 410 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Cittaslow
A medieval hilltop town at 410 meters in the Serchio valley, where Giovanni Pascoli wrote his last poems and the August festival serves fish and chips.
Camaiorewritten about
Lucca · 31,832 residents · 34 m
Bandiera Blu · Via Francigena · 6 guide-listed
The Versilia commune that runs from the mountains to the sea, a Roman Campus Maior on the Via Francigena with a beach at its western end.
Pietrasantawritten about
Lucca · 22,743 residents · 14 m
Bandiera Blu · Via Francigena · 9 guide-listed
The marble-processing town under the Apuan Alps, worked by Michelangelo, Henry Moore, Joan Miró and Fernando Botero.
Castellina in Chiantiwritten about
Siena · 2,605 residents · 578 m
Spighe Verdi · Città del Vino · Città dell'Olio · Riserva Naturale · 3 guide-listed
A Chianti hill town at 578 meters on the watershed between the Arno and the Ombrone, with an Etruscan tumulus, a Brunelleschi-reinforced wall and a covered medieval walkway around its edge.
Castiglione d'Orciawritten about
Siena · 2,081 residents · 540 m
UNESCO · Città del Vino · Città dell'Olio · Via Francigena · Terme
A stone borgo at 540 meters in the UNESCO Val d'Orcia, with two fortresses guarding the road from Amiata to the Via Francigena.
Cortona
Arezzo · 20,834 residents · 494 m
Cittaslow · Città dell'Olio · 10 guide-listed
An Etruscan lucumonia at 494 meters, with two kilometers of walls older than Rome.
Montecatini-Termewritten about
Pistoia · 21,367 residents · 27 m
UNESCO · Comuni Termali · Terme · 3 guide-listed
Eleven thermal springs in a Liberty-style park at the foot of the Apennines.
Monteriggioniwritten about
Siena · 9,950 residents · 274 m
Bandiera Arancione · Città dell'Olio · Via Francigena · 2 guide-listed
A circular Sienese fortress built between 1213 and 1219 on a natural hill, fourteen towers on a 570-meter wall, intact and unbroken.
Peccioliwritten about
Pisa · 4,647 residents · 144 m
Borgo dei Borghi · Bandiera Arancione · Città del Vino · Bandiera Lilla
Borgo dei Borghi 2024 in the Valdera hills, a medieval village that funded a public contemporary-art program with revenue from its landfill plant.
Viareggiowritten about
Lucca · 60,618 residents · 2 m
Bandiera Blu · Comuni Virtuosi · Parco Regionale · 12 guide-listed
The Versilia capital, a Carnival city on the Tuscan coast that turned into a Belle Époque resort when the railway arrived.
Umbria6
Castiglione del Lagowritten about
Perugia · 15,173 residents · 304 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Regionale · 1 guide-listed
Trasimeno's western promontory, once the lake's fourth island, fortified in 1247 and later frescoed for a marquis of Corgna.
Gubbiowritten about
Perugia · 30,308 residents · 522 m
Spighe Verdi · Città del Tartufo · Città della Ceramica · Cammino di San Francesco · Parco Regionale · 4 guide-listed
Pre-Roman Ikuvium of the Umbri, where seven bronze tablets carry the longest text of the Umbrian language.
Norcia
Perugia · 4,457 residents · 604 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Cittaslow · Spighe Verdi · Parco Nazionale · 4 guide-listed
Birthplace of San Benedetto at 604 meters on a Sibillini plateau, leveled by the 2016 earthquake and rebuilt stone by stone.
Todiwritten about
Perugia · 15,481 residents · 398 m
Cittaslow · Spighe Verdi · Città del Vino · Parco Regionale · 2 guide-listed
A walled hill town at 398 meters on the Tiber, with Etruscan, Roman, and medieval rings stacked one above the other.
Torgianowritten about
Perugia · 6,585 residents · 219 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Città del Vino · Città dell'Olio · 2 guide-listed
A walled river town at 219 meters at the confluence of the Tiber and the Chiascio, the first DOC and DOCG zone in Umbria.
Panicalewritten about
Perugia · 5,312 residents · 431 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Parco Regionale · 2 guide-listed
A walled hill town at 431 meters on Monte Petrarvella, where a 1505 Perugino fresco covers the back wall of San Sebastiano.
Marche6
Loreto
Ancona · 13,066 residents · 127 m
2 guide-listed
A hilltop pilgrimage town at 127 meters above the Adriatic where, since 1294, the Marian sanctuary has guarded the Holy House of Nazareth.
Grottammare
Ascoli Piceno · 15,924 residents · 4 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Blu · Spighe Verdi · Bandiera Lilla · 4 guide-listed
A double town on the Riviera delle Palme, with a palm-lined seafront and a medieval upper borgo where Pope Sixtus V was born.
Mondolfo
Pesaro e Urbino · 14,416 residents · 144 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Blu · Spighe Verdi · Bandiera Lilla · 1 guide-listed
A walled hill borgo at 144 meters above the Adriatic, with the frazione of Marotta and its beach below.
Sarnano
Macerata · 3,036 residents · 539 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Ski Area
A 539-meter medieval borgo of baked brick at the foot of the Sibillini, with thermal springs that ran for 84 years until the 2016 earthquake.
Urbino
Pesaro e Urbino · 13,827 residents · 451 m
UNESCO · 1 guide-listed
The Montefeltro capital at 451 meters on twin hills, where Federico II built the Renaissance court that produced Raffaello.
Cingoli
Macerata · 9,433 residents · 631 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Borgo dei Borghi · Città dell'Olio
The Balcone delle Marche at 631 meters, a hilltop borgo where on clear days the view runs from the Sibillini to the Croatian coast.
Lazio9
Bagnoregio
Viterbo · 3,302 residents · 484 m
The Etruscan-founded hill town in Tuscia whose frazione Civita di Bagnoregio sits on an eroding tuff plateau, reachable only by footbridge.
Bomarzowritten about
Viterbo · 1,679 residents · 263 m
Bandiera Arancione · Città della Nocciola · Riserva Naturale
The Tuscia village below a garden built by a condottiero and later dedicated to his dead wife, all stone monsters and no apology for it.
Calcata
Viterbo · 902 residents · 220 m
Bandiera Arancione · Città della Nocciola · Parco Regionale · 1 guide-listed
A tufa-cliff village forty kilometers north of Rome, condemned and abandoned in the 1930s, then occupied by artists and never left.
Caprarolawritten about
Viterbo · 5,157 residents · 510 m
Bandiera Arancione · Città della Nocciola · Città del Castagno · Riserva Naturale · 2 guide-listed
A Cimini hill town above Lago di Vico, dominated by the pentagonal Villa Farnese that Vignola built for the Farnese cardinals between 1559 and 1573.
Ronciglionewritten about
Viterbo · 8,390 residents · 441 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Borgo dei Borghi · Città della Nocciola · Bandiera Lilla · Riserva Naturale · 1 guide-listed
A tufa-brick borgo above Lake Vico, fortified by the Prefects of Vico and crowned Borgo dei Borghi in 2023.
Castel Gandolfo
Roma · 8,543 residents · 426 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Via Francigena · Parco Regionale · 2 guide-listed
A papal town on the rim of Lake Albano's volcanic crater, summer residence of the popes since 1626.
Cerveteriwritten about
Roma · 38,138 residents · 81 m
UNESCO · 1 guide-listed
An Etruscan capital seven kilometers inland from the Tyrrhenian coast, with the Banditaccia necropolis holding 1,000 tombs in the largest ancient cemetery in the Mediterranean.
Sutri
Viterbo · 6,707 residents · 291 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Città della Nocciola · Via Francigena · Parco Regionale · 1 guide-listed
An Etruscan and Roman town on a tuff spur, with a rock-cut amphitheater carved straight from the volcanic stone of the Cimini.
Nemi
Roma · 1,861 residents · 521 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Borgo dei Borghi · Città del Vino · Via Francigena
The smallest comune in the Castelli Romani, perched at 521 meters above a volcanic crater lake the Romans called the mirror of Diana.
Abruzzo6
Barrea
L'Aquila · 688 residents · 1,066 m
Borghi Autentici · Parco Nazionale · Riserva Naturale · Ski Area
A 1,066-meter spur above an artificial lake at the heart of the Abruzzo National Park, with a Samnite necropolis and an 11th-century di Sangro castle.
Castel del Monte
L'Aquila · 383 residents · 1,346 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Nazionale
At 1,346 meters under Monte Bolza facing Rocca Calascio, the capital of shepherds, whose wool reached the Medici and whose witches return each August.
Città Sant'Angelo
Pescara · 14,902 residents · 320 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Cittaslow · Città del Vino · Città dell'Olio · 1 guide-listed
A hilltop borgo at 320 meters between the Vestina hills and the Adriatic, named for the Archangel and home to a Collegiata since 1353.
Pacentro
L'Aquila · 1,058 residents · 650 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Nazionale · Ski Area · 1 guide-listed
A medieval village at 650 meters under the Caldora castle towers, where every September a barefoot race honors a Madonna and a pop singer's grandparents.
Alfedena
L'Aquila · 912 residents · 914 m
Parco Nazionale · Comuni Virtuosi
At 914 meters at the head of the upper Sangro valley, the Samnite Aufidena, with a 15,000-tomb necropolis and a Roman conquest in 298 BC.
Guardiagrele
Chieti · 8,250 residents · 576 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Cittaslow · Parco Nazionale · 2 guide-listed
The 576-meter terrazza d'Abruzzo on the Majella's foothills, hometown of fifteenth-century goldsmith Nicola da Guardiagrele and seat of the Majella park.
Molise3
Agnone
Isernia · 4,571 residents · 840 m
Bandiera Arancione · Riserva Naturale · 1 guide-listed
At 840 meters, town of the pontifical bell foundry and the fire procession that lights its streets every Christmas Eve.
Guardialfiera
Campobasso · 969 residents · 285 m
Borgo dei Borghi · Città dell'Olio
A hilltop village at 285 meters above the largest artificial lake in Molise.
Termoli
Campobasso · 31,836 residents · 15 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Blu · Città dell'Olio · 5 guide-listed
Molise's only port, a walled promontory of fishermen's houses on the Adriatic, with the ferry pier for the Tremiti islands.
Campania3
Padula
Salerno · 4,819 residents · 699 m
UNESCO · Parco Nazionale · Città del Pane
A hill town at 699 meters, holding the Certosa di San Lorenzo and the world's largest cloister.
Pozzuoli
Napoli · 75,375 residents · 28 m
Città del Vino · Parco Regionale · Riserva Naturale · Terme · 4 guide-listed
A Roman port on a volcanic caldera, the Greek Dicearchia and the Roman Puteoli, where a market's columns first proved that the ground itself rises and falls.
Zungoli
Avellino · 904 residents · 657 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Borgo dei Borghi · Città dell'Olio
An Irpinia ridge between the Ufita valley and the Daunian hills, with walls above and tuff caves below the houses.
Puglia4
Gallipoli
Lecce · 18,934 residents · 12 m
Borghi Autentici · Bandiera Blu · Parco Regionale · 1 guide-listed
The Ionian beach city on a limestone island, Greek Kallipolis meaning beautiful city, tied to the mainland by a seventeenth-century bridge.
Isole Tremiti
Foggia · 486 residents · 116 m
Bandiera Blu · Parco Nazionale
An Adriatic archipelago of five islands twenty-two kilometers off the Gargano, the only Italian commune scattered across an open-sea group.
Otranto
Lecce · 5,566 residents · 20 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Via Francigena · Parco Regionale · 4 guide-listed
Italy's easternmost city, eighty kilometers from Albania, with a Norman mosaic floor and the bones of 813 martyrs in the cathedral.
Vieste
Foggia · 13,279 residents · 43 m
Borghi Autentici · Bandiera Blu · Parco Nazionale · Città dell'Olio · Riserva Naturale · 4 guide-listed
The Gargano headland of whitewashed alleys on a white limestone cliff, with the 25-meter Pizzomunno sea stack standing on the beach.
Basilicata2
Castelmezzano
Potenza · 696 residents · 750 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Parco Regionale · 1 guide-listed
A medieval village wedged into sandstone teeth at 750 meters, linked to Pietrapertosa by a zipline of about 1.4 km since 2007.
Viggiano
Potenza · 3,220 residents · 975 m
Parco Nazionale · Ski Area · 1 guide-listed
A 975-meter Val d'Agri ridge town, home of the Black Madonna of Lucania and the Italian folk harp, on Europe's largest onshore oil field.
Calabria5
Scilla
Reggio Calabria · 4,450 residents · 91 m
Parco Nazionale · Ski Area
Homer's sea-monster headland on the Costa Viola, the Castello Ruffo on the cliff above Chianalea and the swordfish boats working the Strait below.
Badolato
Catanzaro · 2,813 residents · 240 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Regionale
A medieval borgo of thirteen churches at 240 meters above the Ionian, which took in 350 Kurdish refugees in 1997 and started its own slow rebirth.
Gerace
Reggio Calabria · 2,309 residents · 470 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Parco Nazionale · Città dell'Olio
A 470-meter conglomerate rock above the Locride, holding Calabria's largest cathedral.
Pizzo
Vibo Valentia · 8,744 residents · 44 m
Parco Regionale · 2 guide-listed
A tuff-cliff town over the Gulf of Sant'Eufemia, where a king was shot in 1815 and the tartufo gelato was invented a century later.
Morano Calabro
Cosenza · 3,778 residents · 694 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Parco Nazionale
A conical hill of stone houses stacked under a Norman-Swabian castle at the southern gate of the Pollino, called Italy's nativity village.
Sicily4
Modica
Ragusa · 53,483 residents · 296 m
UNESCO · Bandiera Blu · Spighe Verdi · Città del Pane · Bandiera Lilla · 4 guide-listed
A vertical Baroque city in the Hyblean Mountains, rebuilt from the 1693 earthquake and home to a chocolate recipe brought from Aztec Mexico.
Castelbuono
Palermo · 7,926 residents · 423 m
Città del Tartufo · Parco Regionale · Geoparco UNESCO · 2 guide-listed
A Madonie town at 423 meters around the Ventimiglia castle, where manna is still tapped from ash trees and Fiasconaro bakes the panettone.
Palazzolo Acreide
Siracusa · 7,980 residents · 670 m
UNESCO · Borghi più belli d'Italia · Città del Tartufo · Riserva Naturale · 4 guide-listed
An 8,000-resident hilltop town on the Iblei plateau at 670m, rebuilt entirely in late Baroque after the 1693 earthquake and founded over the Greek Akrai colony in 664 BC, with a Greek theater and a cluster of rock carvings unlike anything else nearby.
Petralia Soprana
Palermo · 2,866 residents · 1,147 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Borgo dei Borghi · Parco Regionale · Geoparco UNESCO
The highest village in the Madonie at 1,147 meters, RAI Borgo dei Borghi 2018 winner, sitting above 80 kilometers of salt tunnels.
Sardinia5
Bosa
Oristano · 7,346 residents · 10 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Città del Vino · Città dell'Olio
A colour-washed riverside town on Sardinia's only navigable river, with a Malaspina castle on the hill and the tanneries of Sas Conzas along the Temo.
Castelsardo
Sassari · 5,600 residents · 114 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Blu · 2 guide-listed
A Doria sea fortress at 114 meters above the Gulf of Asinara, Genoese from 1100, Aragonese from 1448, Savoyard from the 1700s.
Carloforte
Sulcis Iglesiente · 5,887 residents · 10 m
Borghi più belli d'Italia · 4 guide-listed
A Ligurian-speaking fishing town on the Isola di San Pietro, founded in 1738 by coral fishers returning from Tunisian Tabarka.
Barumini
Medio Campidano · 1,117 residents · 202 m
UNESCO
A Marmilla village whose nuraghe became Sardegna's first UNESCO site.
Santa Teresa Gallura
Gallura Nord-Est Sardegna · 5,078 residents · 44 m
Bandiera Blu · Bandiera Lilla · 2 guide-listed
The northernmost town in Sardinia, founded in 1808 on a Turin-style grid above the Strait of Bonifacio and 11 kilometers from Corsica.
The database: all 1,000 towns, searchable
Every town in the catalogue. Type a name, a province, a region or a designation. Each row opens the town's full page, which carries the sources for every figure.
| Town | Province | Region | Residents | Altitude | Setting | Designations | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abano Terme | Padova | Veneto | 20,464 | 14 m | plain | Comuni Termali · Parco Regionale · Terme | Open → |
| Abetone Cutigliano● | Pistoia | Tuscany | 1,829 | 1,388 m | mountain | Bandiera Arancione · Cittaslow · Ski Area | Open → |
| Accettura | Matera | Basilicata | 1,575 | 770 m | mountain | Borghi Autentici · Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Acerenza | Potenza | Basilicata | 2,045 | 833 m | mountain | Borghi più belli d'Italia | Open → |
| Aci Castello | Catania | Sicily | 17,713 | 15 m | coastal | Open → | |
| Acqualagna | Pesaro e Urbino | Marche | 4,162 | 204 m | hill town | Cittaslow | Open → |
| Acquapendente | Viterbo | Lazio | 5,225 | 420 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Cittaslow | Open → |
| Acquasanta Terme | Ascoli Piceno | Marche | 2,423 | 392 m | hill town | Parco Nazionale · Terme | Open → |
| Acquasparta● | Terni | Umbria | 4,351 | 350 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia | Open → |
| Acquaviva delle Fonti | Bari | Puglia | 19,746 | 300 m | hill town | Borghi Autentici | Open → |
| Acquaviva Picena | Ascoli Piceno | Marche | 3,591 | 359 m | hill town | Bandiera Arancione | Open → |
| Acqui Terme | Alessandria | Piemonte | 19,005 | 156 m | plain | Spighe Verdi · Comuni Termali · Terme | Open → |
| Aggius | Gallura Nord-Est Sardegna | Sardinia | 1,403 | 514 m | hill town | Bandiera Arancione · Borghi Autentici | Open → |
| Agira | Enna | Sicily | 7,567 | 650 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia | Open → |
| Agliè | Torino | Piemonte | 2,585 | 330 m | hill town | UNESCO · Bandiera Arancione | Open → |
| Agnone | Isernia | Molise | 4,571 | 840 m | mountain | Bandiera Arancione | Open → |
| Agropoli | Salerno | Campania | 21,311 | 24 m | coastal | Bandiera Blu · Spighe Verdi · Parco Nazionale | Open → |
| Aiello Calabro | Cosenza | Calabria | 1,338 | 502 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia | Open → |
| Aieta | Cosenza | Calabria | 716 | 524 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Nazionale | Open → |
| Alagna Valsesia | Vercelli | Piemonte | 725 | 1,191 m | mountain | Bandiera Arancione · Parco Regionale · Ski Area | Open → |
| Alba | Cuneo | Piemonte | 30,987 | 172 m | plain | Spighe Verdi | Open → |
| Alba Adriatica | Teramo | Abruzzo | 13,275 | 5 m | coastal | Bandiera Blu · Bandiera Lilla | Open → |
| Alberobello | Bari | Puglia | 10,102 | 402 m | hill town | UNESCO | Open → |
| Albidona | Cosenza | Calabria | 1,076 | 810 m | mountain | Borghi Autentici | Open → |
| Alessandria del Carretto | Cosenza | Calabria | 352 | 1,043 m | mountain | Borghi Autentici · Parco Nazionale | Open → |
| Alfedena | L'Aquila | Abruzzo | 912 | 914 m | mountain | Parco Nazionale | Open → |
| Alghero | Sassari | Sardinia | 41,989 | 7 m | coastal | Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Aliano | Matera | Basilicata | 836 | 555 m | hill town | Bandiera Arancione · Borghi Autentici | Open → |
| Alife | Caserta | Campania | 7,316 | 110 m | plain | Parco Nazionale | Open → |
| Alleghe | Belluno | Veneto | 1,088 | 979 m | mountain | Ski Area | Open → |
| Allerona● | Terni | Umbria | 1,687 | 472 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia | Open → |
| Altomonte | Cosenza | Calabria | 4,037 | 455 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Cittaslow | Open → |
| Amalfi | Salerno | Campania | 4,610 | 6 m | coastal | UNESCO · Cittaslow · Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Amandola | Fermo | Marche | 3,222 | 550 m | hill town | Bandiera Arancione · Parco Nazionale | Open → |
| Ameglia● | La Spezia | Liguria | 4,262 | 89 m | coastal | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Amelia● | Terni | Umbria | 11,474 | 406 m | hill town | Cittaslow | Open → |
| Anacapri | Napoli | Campania | 6,757 | 275 m | island | Bandiera Blu | Open → |
| Anagni | Frosinone | Lazio | 20,616 | 424 m | hill town | Open → | |
| Andalo | Trento | Trentino-Alto Adige | 1,220 | 1,042 m | mountain | Ski Area | Open → |
| Andora | Savona | Liguria | 7,239 | 10 m | coastal | Spighe Verdi | Open → |
| Andria | Barletta-Andria-Trani | Puglia | 96,750 | 151 m | plain | UNESCO · Spighe Verdi · Parco Nazionale · Geoparco UNESCO | Open → |
| Angera | Varese | Lombardia | 5,329 | 205 m | lake | Open → | |
| Anghiari | Arezzo | Tuscany | 5,411 | 430 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Cittaslow | Open → |
| Anguillara Sabazia | Roma | Lazio | 19,038 | 195 m | lake | Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Anversa degli Abruzzi | L'Aquila | Abruzzo | 300 | 604 m | mountain | Borghi più belli d'Italia | Open → |
| Apricale | Imperia | Liguria | 601 | 273 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione | Open → |
| Aquileia | Udine | Friuli-Venezia Giulia | 3,124 | 5 m | plain | UNESCO | Open → |
| Arcevia | Ancona | Marche | 4,270 | 535 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Archi | Chieti | Abruzzo | 1,922 | 492 m | hill town | Borghi Autentici | Open → |
| Arenzano | Genova | Liguria | 11,156 | 12 m | coastal | Borgo dei Borghi · Parco Regionale · Geoparco UNESCO | Open → |
| Arezzo● | Arezzo | Tuscany | 96,479 | 296 m | hill town | Open → | |
| Ariano Irpino | Avellino | Campania | 20,741 | 788 m | mountain | Open → | |
| Ariccia | Roma | Lazio | 17,917 | 412 m | hill town | Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Aritzo | Nuoro | Sardinia | 1,211 | 800 m | mountain | Borghi Autentici · Parco Nazionale | Open → |
| Arona | Novara | Piemonte | 13,655 | 212 m | lake | Bandiera Arancione · Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Arpino | Frosinone | Lazio | 6,572 | 450 m | hill town | Bandiera Arancione | Open → |
| Arquà Petrarca | Padova | Veneto | 1,779 | 56 m | plain | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Bandiera Arancione · Parco Regionale · Terme | Open → |
| Arquata del Tronto | Ascoli Piceno | Marche | 926 | 777 m | mountain | Parco Nazionale · Ski Area | Open → |
| Arrone | Terni | Umbria | 2,493 | 243 m | hill town | Borghi più belli d'Italia · Parco Regionale | Open → |
| Ascea | Salerno | Campania | 5,832 | 230 m | coastal | UNESCO · Bandiera Blu · Spighe Verdi · Parco Nazionale | Open → |
Questions, interviews, data requests
Write to Peter directly. He answers press requests himself, usually within a day, in English, Italian or Hungarian. Interviews in person in Tuscany or by video; data extracts on request.
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