Region
Marche
Marche's 63 towns in our catalogue split across the Pesaro e Urbino, Macerata, and Ancona provinces; 31 carry the Borghi più belli d'Italia designation.
63 towns · highest: Arquata del Tronto 777m · smallest: Monte Rinaldo 317 people
63 of 63 towns
63 of 63 towns
Acqualagna
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
The Italian truffle capital at 204 meters in the Metauro valley, supplying two-thirds of the country's white truffle harvest from the surrounding limestone woods.
Acquasanta Terme
Province: Ascoli Piceno
A sulphur-spring spa at 392 meters in the upper Tronto valley, where the water still surfaces at 30 degrees.
Acquaviva Picena
Province: Ascoli Piceno
A walled hill borgo at 359 meters, six kilometers from the Adriatic, anchored by a cylindrical fortress keep and the surviving pajarola craft.
Amandola
Province: Fermo
A Sibillini gateway at 550 meters on three hills above the Tenna valley, founded 1248 and damaged but not levelled in 2016.
Arcevia
Province: Ancona
A hilltop borgo at 535 meters above the Misa and Nevola valleys, defended in the Middle Ages by a ring of nine satellite castles.
Arquata del Tronto
Province: Ascoli Piceno
At 777 meters between two national parks, the Marche commune levelled by the 2016 earthquakes and still rebuilding nine years on.
Ascoli Piceno
Province: Ascoli Piceno
The travertine city at 154 meters where the Tronto meets the Castellano, capital of the Piceni and host of the Quintana joust.
Camerino
Province: Macerata
A university city at 661 meters on the ridge between the Chienti and Potenza, rebuilding after 2016.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.
Carpegna
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A Montefeltro mountain town under Monte Carpegna, home of the DOP prosciutto and the seventeenth-century Carpegna family seat.
Cingoli
Province: Macerata
The Balcone delle Marche at 631 meters, a hilltop borgo where on clear days the view runs from the Sibillini to the Croatian coast.
Corinaldo
Province: Ancona
A walled hill borgo at 203 meters, ringed by 912 meters of intact medieval walls, and the birthplace of Saint Maria Goretti.
Esanatoglia
Province: Macerata
A medieval village of seven bell towers at 358 meters on the Marche-Umbria border, sitting at the source of the Esino river.
Fabriano
Province: Ancona
The Italian paper town at 325 meters, making fine watermarked sheets since 1264.
Fermo
Province: Fermo
The provincial capital on the Sabulo hill at 319 meters, with 2,200 square meters of Augustan Roman cisterns running under the centro storico.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Gabicce Mare
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
The northernmost Marche seaside on the Adriatic, where the coast meets the cliffs of the Parco del San Bartolo at the Romagna border.
Genga
Province: Ancona
A small Sentino-valley commune at 322 meters whose territory holds the Frasassi caves, the largest karst show cave in Italy.
Gradara
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
The walled hill borgo at 142 meters above the Adriatic where Dante set the deaths of Paolo and Francesca, with one of Italy's best-preserved castles.
Grottammare
Province: Ascoli Piceno
A double town on the Riviera delle Palme, with a palm-lined seafront and a medieval upper borgo where Pope Sixtus V was born.
Loreto
Province: Ancona
A hilltop pilgrimage town at 127 meters above the Adriatic where, since 1294, the Marian sanctuary has guarded the Holy House of Nazareth.
Macerata
Province: Macerata
The provincial capital at 315 meters between the Chienti and Potenza, home to Italy's oldest university and the Sferisterio open-air opera arena.
Macerata Feltria
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A 1,889-resident Borghi più belli borgo at 321m in the Marche side of the Montefeltro, built over the Roman municipium of Pitinum Pisaurense, with a small thermal spa still drawing on the same sulphurous spring water the Romans used.
Magliano di Tenna
Province: Fermo
A small Fermo-province borgo at 281 meters above the Tenna river, ringed by fourteenth-century walls with two of its six original towers still standing.
Matelica
Province: Macerata
A Verdicchio town at 354 meters in the upper Esino valley, with a Roman marble globe in its archaeological museum.
Mercatello sul Metauro
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A walled borgo at 429 meters in the upper Metauro, autonomous since 1235, with a pieve exempt from any bishop.
Mondavio
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A hill borgo at 280 meters whose fortress never took a cannon shot.
Mondolfo
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A walled hill borgo at 144 meters above the Adriatic, with the frazione of Marotta and its beach below.
Monte Grimano Terme
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A small Montefeltro borgo at 536 meters on the Marche-Romagna border, built around alkaline sulphur springs.
Monte Rinaldo
Province: Fermo
A 317-resident village on a 478-meter ridge of the Aso valley in the Marche interior, anchored by a 1st-century BC Roman sanctuary, the largest pre-imperial sanctuary excavated in the central Adriatic.
Montecassiano
Province: Macerata
A walled hill borgo north of Macerata, built around a terracotta altarpiece too large to move.
Montecosaro
Province: Macerata
A walled hilltop borgo at 267 meters above the Chienti valley, with a Romanesque basilica rebuilt in 1125 on the river plain below.
Montefiore dell'Aso
Province: Ascoli Piceno
A hilltop borgo at 412 meters between the Aso and Menocchia valleys, holding six surviving panels of Carlo Crivelli's 1472 polyptych.
Montelupone
Province: Macerata
A walled hill borgo at 272 meters above the lower Potenza valley, with a fourteenth-century civic loggia and a 1889 horseshoe theatre.
Monteprandone
Province: Ascoli Piceno
A hilltop borgo at 266 meters above the lower Tronto valley, its walled center climbing toward a summit church with a view to the Adriatic.
Moresco
Province: Fermo
A 516-person hill borgo at 405 meters above the Aso valley, with a 25-meter seven-sided tower unique in Europe.
Morro d'Alba
Province: Ancona
A walled Castello di Jesi at 199 meters above the Esino valley, ringed by a covered walkway found nowhere else in Italy.
Morrovalle
Province: Macerata
A hilltop borgo at 247 meters above the Chienti valley, its walled centro storico grown from a medieval castle called Mor-ro.
Numana
Province: Ancona
A Conero coastal town at 56 meters above its port, the Picene harbour that traded with Greek ships from the sixth century BC.
Offagna
Province: Ancona
A hilltop borgo at 309 meters between Ancona and Osimo, dominated by a Rocca built in just two years by the Anconitans in 1454-56.
Offida
Province: Ascoli Piceno
A hill borgo at 293 meters in the Piceno wine country, with a Romanesque-Gothic cliff church and women still working bobbin lace.
Pergola
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A hill town at 265 meters in the upper Cesano valley, holding the only surviving group of Roman gilded bronze statues from antiquity.
Pesaro
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
The Adriatic port at the mouth of the Foglia, founded as Roman Pisaurum in 184 BC and given to the world by Rossini in 1792.
Petritoli
Province: Fermo
A hilltop borgo at 358 meters above the Aso valley, formed around the year 1000 from the merger of three castles.
Porto San Giorgio
Province: Fermo
A 15,000-resident beach town on the Adriatic between Ancona and Pescara, with one of the largest tourist marinas in the central Adriatic, the medieval Rocca Tiepolo above the harbour, and a long fine-sand seafront under date palms.
Recanati
Province: Macerata
The hill town at 296 meters overlooking the Musone valley toward the Adriatic.
Ripatransone
Province: Ascoli Piceno
The Belvedere del Piceno at 494 meters, ridgetop borgo with views to the Adriatic and the narrowest alley in Italy at 43 centimeters.
San Ginesio
Province: Macerata
The Balcony of the Sibillini at 680 meters, where a 1295 pilgrim hospital and the only flowery gothic collegiate church in the Marche stand within the same walls.
San Severino Marche
Province: Macerata
A two-level town where a 224-meter elliptical piazza in the lower city looks up at a fortified hill crowned by a medieval tower and Salimbeni-painted churches.
Sant'Angelo in Vado
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A 359-meter terrace town on the upper Metauro, built over Roman Tifernum Mataurense and host of Italy's oldest white truffle fair after Alba.
Sarnano
Province: Macerata
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.
Sassoferrato
Province: Ancona
A two-level Apennine town above Roman Sentinum, where the consuls Decius Mus and Fabius Maximus defeated four allied tribes in 295 BC.
Senigallia
Province: Ancona
Thirteen kilometers of fine sand on the Adriatic, hometown to a chef and a photographer whose names carry beyond the region.
Serra San Quirico
Province: Ancona
A stone borgo on Monte Murano at the entrance to the Gola della Rossa, ringed by 1300 walls with covered passageways called copertelle.
Servigliano
Province: Fermo
An eighteenth-century ideal city at 215 meters in the Tenna valley, rebuilt by papal commission on a 137-by-144-meter quadrangle after the old hill village collapsed.
Sirolo
Province: Ancona
A clifftop borgo at 125 meters, above the Due Sorelle sea stacks of the Adriatic.
Staffolo
Province: Ancona
The Verdicchio balcony at 442 meters above three valleys, with a near-circular medieval wall ring and a wine museum carved into the ramparts.
Treia
Province: Macerata
A Macerata hill town at 342 meters, the Roman municipium Trea, renamed by Pope Pius VI in 1790 after centuries as Montecchio.
Urbania
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
The Montefeltro ceramics town on the upper Metauro, known as Casteldurante until Pope Urban VIII gave it his name in 1636.
Urbino
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
The Montefeltro capital at 451 meters on twin hills, where Federico II built the Renaissance court that produced Raffaello.
Valfornace
Province: Macerata
A 909-resident Sibillini commune at 441 meters in the upper Chienti valley, born in 2017 from the merger of Pievebovigliana and Fiordimonte.
Vallefoglia
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A 2014 merger commune at 295 meters in the Foglia valley, born from Colbordolo, birthplace of Raffaello's father, and Sant'Angelo in Lizzola.
Visso
Province: Macerata
The northern Sibillini gate at 607 meters where the Nera meets the Ussita, holding one of two surviving manuscripts of Leopardi's L'Infinito.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro
A village of 887 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
The 'Pearl of Molise', a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with a medieval castle rebuilt on its summit.
Varenna
Province: Lecco
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.
Rocca di Botte
Province: L'Aquila
At 750 meters on the Carseolani slopes between Abruzzo and Lazio, the birthplace of an eleventh-century hermit and a fief of the Colonna.