Northern Italy (Italian: Italia Settentrionale, Nord Italia, Alta Italia) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four northwestern regions of Piedmont, Aosta Valley, Liguria and Lombardy in addition to the four northeastern regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Emilia-Romagna.
With a population of 27.5 million in an area of 120,312.72 km2 (46,453.00 mi2) as of 2026, the region covers 39.8% of Italy and contains 46.8% of its population. Two of Italy's largest metropolitan areas, Milan and Turin, are located in the region. Northern Italy's GDP was estimated at €1 trillion in 2021, accounting for 56.5% of the Italian economy.
Northern Italy has a rich and distinct culture. Thirty-seven of the fifty-nine World Heritage Sites in Italy are found in the region. Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in the region, as opposed to the Italo-Dalmatian languages spoken in the rest of Italy. The Venetian language is sometimes considered to be part of the Italo-Dalmatian languages, but some major publications such as Ethnologue (to which UNESCO refers on its page about endangered languages) and Glottolog define it as Gallo-Italic.
Northern Italy was called by different terms in different periods of history. During ancient times the terms Cisalpine Gaul, Gallia Citerior or Gallia Togata were used to define that part of Italy inhabited by Celts (Gauls) between the 4th and 3rd century BC. Conquered by the Roman Republic in the 220s BC, it was a Roman province from c. 81 BC until 42 BC, when it was merged into Roman Italy. Until that time, it was considered part of Gaul, precisely that part of Gaul on the "hither side of the Alps" (from the perspective of the Romans), as opposed to Transalpine Gaul ("on the far side of the Alps").
After the fall of the Roman Empire and the settlement of the Lombards the name Langobardia Maior was used, in the early Middle Ages, to define the domains of the Lombard Kingdom in northern Italy with capital Pavia. The Lombard territories beyond were called Langobardia Minor, consisting of the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento.
During the late Middle Ages, after the fall of the northern part of the Lombard Kingdom to Charlemagne, the term Longobardia was used to mean northern Italy within the medieval Kingdom of Italy. As the area became partitioned into regional states, the term Lombardy subsequently shifted to indicate only the area of the Duchies of Milan, Mantua, Parma and Modena and later only to the area around Milan.
More recently, the term Alta Italia (Italian for 'High Italy') became widely used, for such by the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia during the Second World War. In the 1960s, the term Padania began to be sometimes used as a geographical synonym of the Po Valley. The term appeared sparingly until the early 1990s, when Lega Nord, then a secessionist political party, proposed Padania as a possible name for an independent state in northern Italy, giving the term a strong political connotation.
For statistical purposes, the Italian National Institute of Statistics uses the terms northwest Italy and northeast Italy for two of Italy's five statistical regions in its reporting. These same subdivisions are used to demarcate first-level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) regions ("NUTS 1 regions") within the European Union, and the Italian constituencies for the European Parliament.
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
In pre-Roman centuries it was inhabited by different peoples among whom the Ligures, the ancient Veneti, who prospered through their trade in amber and breeding of horses, the Etruscans, attested in northern Italy at least since the early Iron Age during the Villanova period, founded the city of Bologna and spread the use of writing; later, starting from the 5th century BC, the area was invaded by Celtic – Gallic tribes. These people founded several cities like Turin and Milan and extended their rule from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea. Their development was halted by the Roman expansion in the Po Valley from the 3rd century BC onwards. After centuries of struggle, probably officially around 81 BC, the entire area of what is now northern Italy became a Roman province with the name of Gallia Cisalpina ("Gaul on the inner side (with respect to Rome) of the Alps").
In 49 BC, with the Lex Roscia, Julius Caesar granted to the populations of the province full Roman citizenship. The Rubicon River marked its southern boundary with Italia proper. By crossing this river in 49 BC with his loyal XIII Legion, returning from the conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar precipitated the civil war within the Roman Republic which led, eventually, to the establishment of the Roman Empire. To this day the term "crossing the Rubicon" means, figuratively, "reaching the point of no return". In late antiquity, the strategic role of northern Italy was emphasized by the moving of the capital of the Western Empire from Rome to Mediolanum in 286 and later to Ravenna from 402 until the empire collapsed in 476.
After the fall of the Western Empire, northern Italy suffered heavily from destruction brought about by migration from Germanic peoples. In 493 the Ostrogoths managed to create a stable and prosperous kingdom, with its capital first in Ravenna and then in Pavia, but the Gothic War caused the kingdom to fall and devastated the region. In the 570s the Germanic Lombards, or Longobardi, entered northern Italy from Friuli and founded a long-lasting reign (with its capital in Pavia) that gave the medieval name to the whole northern Italy and the current name to the Lombardy region. After the initial struggles, relationships between the Lombard people and the Latin-speaking people improved. In the end, the Lombard language and culture assimilated with the Latin culture, leaving evidence in many names, the legal code and laws, and other things. The end of Lombard rule came in 774, when the Frankish king Charlemagne conquered Pavia, deposed Desiderius, the last Lombard king, and annexed the Lombard Kingdom to his empire changing the name in Kingdom of Italy. The former Lombard dukes were mostly replaced by Frankish counts, prince-bishops or marquises.
High Middle Ages and Renaissance
In the 10th century, north Italy, although formally under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, was included in the kingdom of Italy, of which Pavia remained the capital until 1024, however, gradually, starting from the last decades of the 11th century was in fact divided in a multiplicity of small, autonomous city-states, the medieval communes and maritime republic. The 11th century marked a significant boom in northern Italy's economy, due to improved trading and agricultural innovations, culture flourished as well with many universities founded, among them the University of Bologna, the world's oldest university in continuous operation.
The increasing richness of the city-states made them able to defy the traditional feudal supreme power, represented by the German emperors and their local vassals. This process led to the creation of different Lombard Leagues formed by allied cities of Lombardy that defeated the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I, at Legnano, and his grandson Frederick II, at Parma, and becoming virtually independent from the German emperors. Although having the military purpose as preponderant, the Lombard League also had its own stable government, considered one of the first examples of confederation in Europe.
The Leagues failed to develop from an alliance to a lasting confederation and subsequently, among the various local city-states, a process of consolidation took place; most of them became lordships ruled by powerful families like the Della Scala of Verona or the Visconti of Milan, and conquered neighbouring cities threatening to unify northern Italy into one kingdom, a revived Lombard empire.