Toscana

Tuscany is an Italian region with an ordinary statute of 3 647 610 inhabitants, located in central Italy, with Florence as its capital. It borders Liguria to the north-west, Emilia-Romagna to the north, Marche and Umbria to the east, and Lazio to the south. To the west, its 397 km of continental coastline are washed by the Ligurian Sea in the central-northern stretch between Carrara (mouth of the Parmignola stream, border with Liguria) and the Gulf of Baratti; the Tyrrhenian Sea bathes the southern coastal stretch between the promontory of Piombino and the mouth of the Chiarone, which marks the border with Lazio.

The regional capital is Florence, the most populated city (360 843 inhabitants) and the main historical, artistic and economic-administrative centre; the other provincial capitals are: Arezzo, Grosseto, Livorno, Lucca, Massa, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato and Siena. It also administers the islands of the Tuscan archipelago, as well as a small exclave located within the borders of Emilia-Romagna, in which some hamlets of the municipality of Badia Tedalda are located.

The name is very old and derives from the ethnonym used by the Latins to define the land inhabited by the Etruscans: ‘Etruria’, later changed to ‘Tuscia’ and then to ‘Toscana’. The borders of today’s Tuscany also broadly correspond to those of ancient Etruria, which also included parts of today’s regions of Lazio and Umbria, as far as the Tiber. Until 1861 it was an independent entity, known as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany with an enclave consisting of the Republic and then the Duchy of Lucca. Since then it has been part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Italy and later the Italian Republic.