Southern Italy, also known as Meridione ([meriˈdjoːne]) or Mezzogiorno ([ˌmɛddzoˈdʒorno] ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern regions. In the 21st century, the term "Mezzogiorno" mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or culture of the historical and cultural region that was once politically under the administration of the former Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily (officially denominated as one entity Regnum Siciliae citra Pharum and ultra Pharum, i.e. "Kingdom of Sicily on the other side of the Strait" and "across the Strait") and which later shared a common organization into Italy's largest pre-unitarian state, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
The island of Sardinia, which was not part of the aforementioned polity and had been under the rule of the Alpine House of Savoy, which would eventually annex the Bourbons' southern Italian kingdom altogether, is nonetheless often subsumed into the Mezzogiorno. The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) employs the term "South Italy" (Italia meridionale, or just Sud, i.e. "south") to statistically identify in its reportings the six mainland regions of southern Italy without Sicily and Sardinia, which form a distinct statistical region under the ISTAT denominated "Insular Italy" (Italia insulare, or simply Isole "Islands"). These same subdivisions are at the bottom of the Italian First level NUTS of the European Union and the Italian constituencies for the European Parliament. Nonetheless, Sardinia and especially Sicily are included as "southern Italy" in most definitions of the southern Italy macroregion.
In a similar fashion to France's Midi ("midday" or "noon" in French), the Italian term "Mezzogiorno" refers to the intensity and the position of sunshine at midday in the south of the Italian Peninsula. The term came into vogue after the annexation of the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by the mainland-based Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia, and the subsequent Italian unification of 1861.
Southern Italy is generally thought to comprise the administrative regions that correspond to the geopolitical extent of the historical Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, including Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, and Sicily. The island of Sardinia, although being culturally, linguistically, and historically less related to the aforementioned regions than any of them is to one another is frequently included as part of the Mezzogiorno, often for statistical and economical purposes.
Southern Italy forms the lower part of the Italian "boot," comprising the ankle (Campania), the toe (Calabria), the arch (Basilicata), and the heel (Apulia), as well as Molise (north of Apulia) and Abruzzo (north of Molise). It also includes Sicily, which is separated from Calabria by the narrow Strait of Messina. The Gulf of Taranto—an arm of the Ionian Sea—lies between the heel and toe of the "boot" and is named after the city of Taranto, situated at the angle between them. The island of Sardinia, located west of the Italian peninsula and just south of the French island of Corsica, is also often included in Southern Italy.
The eastern coast is bordered by the Adriatic Sea, which connects to the wider Mediterranean via the Strait of Otranto, named after the largest city on the tip of the heel. On the Adriatic, just south of the "spur" of the boot, lies the Monte Gargano peninsula. On the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Gulfs of Salerno, Naples, Policastro, and Gaeta are each named after major coastal cities. Along the northern coast of the Gulf of Salerno and the southern edge of the Sorrentine Peninsula runs the Amalfi Coast; off the peninsula's tip is the island of Capri.
The region's climate is predominantly Mediterranean (Köppen classification Csa), except at higher elevations (Dsa, Dsb) and in the semi-arid eastern areas of Apulia and Molise, as well as along the Ionian coast of Calabria and in southern Sicily (BSk/BSh). Naples is the largest city in Southern Italy, retaining its ancient Greek name for millennia. Other major cities include Bari, Taranto, Reggio Calabria, Foggia, and Salerno. Southern Italy is geologically active and highly seismic, with the exception of the Salento area in Apulia. The 1980 Irpinia earthquake, for example, resulted in 2,914 deaths, over 10,000 injuries, and left 300,000 people homeless.
In the 8th and the 7th centuries BCE, for various reasons, including demographic crisis (famine, overcrowding etc.), the search for new commercial outlets and ports, and expulsion from their homeland, Greeks began to settle in southern Italy. Also during this period, Greek colonies were established in places as widely separated as the eastern coast of the Black Sea, Eastern Libya and Massalia (Marseille).
They included settlements in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula. The first Greek settlers found Italy inhabited by three major populations: Ausones, Oenotrians and Iapyges (the last of which were subdivided into three tribes: Daunians, Peucetians and Messapians). The relationships between the Greek settlers and the native peoples were initially hostile especially with the Iapygian tribes. The Hellenic influence eventually shaped their culture and way of life.
The Romans used to call the area of Sicily and coastal southern Italy Magna Graecia ("Great Greece") since it was so densely populated by coastal Greek colonies; the ancient geographers differed on whether the term included Sicily or merely Apulia and Calabria with Strabo being the most prominent advocate of the wider definitions.
With this colonisation, Greek culture was exported to Italy in its dialects of the Ancient Greek language, its religious rites and its traditions of the independent polis. An original Hellenic civilization soon developed, later interacting with the native Italic and Roman civilisations. The most important cultural transplant was the Chalcidean/Cumaean variety of the Greek alphabet, which was adopted by the Etruscans; the Old Italic alphabet subsequently evolved into the Latin alphabet, which became the most widely used alphabet in the world.
Many of the new Hellenic cities became very rich and powerful like Neapolis (Νεάπολις, Naples, "New City"), Syrakousai (Συράκουσαι, Syracuse), Akragas (Ἀκράγας, Agrigento), and Sybaris (Σύβαρις, Sibari). Other cities in Magna Graecia included Tarentum (Τάρας), Metapontum (Μεταπόντιον), Heraclea (Ἡράκλεια), Epizephyrian Locri (Λοκροὶ Ἐπιζεφύριοι), Rhegium (Ῥήγιον), Croton (Κρότων), Thurii (Θούριοι), Elea (Ἐλέα), Nola (Νῶλα), Syessa (Σύεσσα), Bari (Βάριον), and others.
Although many of the Greek inhabitants of Magna Graecia were entirely Latinized during the Middle Ages, pockets of Greek culture and language remained and have survived to the present day. One example is the Griko people in Calabria (Bovesia) and Salento (Grecìa Salentina), some of whom still maintain their Greek language (Griko language) and customs. The Griko language is the last living trace of the Greek elements that once formed Magna Graecia.
After Pyrrhus of Epirus failed in his attempt to stop the spread of Roman hegemony in 282 BCE, the south fell under Roman domination and remained in such a position until the barbarian invasions (the Gladiator War is a notable suspension of imperial control). It was restored to Eastern Roman control in the 530s after the fall of Rome in the West in 476, and some form of imperial authority survived until the 1070s. Total East Roman rule was ended by the Lombards by Zotto's conquest in the final quarter of the 6th century.
After the Gothic War (535–554) until the arrival of the Normans, much of southern Italy's destiny was linked to the fortunes of the Eastern Empire even though Byzantine domination was challenged in the 9th century by the Lombards, who annexed the area of Cosenza to their Duchy of Benevento. Consequently, the Lombard and the Byzantine areas became influenced by Eastern monasticism, and much of southern Italy experienced a slow process of orientalisation in religious life (rites, cults and liturgy), which accompanied a spread of Eastern churches and monasteries that preserved and transmitted the Greek and Hellenistic tradition. The Cattolica monastery in Stilo is the most representative of these Byzantine monuments. From then to the 11th-century Norman conquest the south of the peninsula was constantly plunged into wars between the Byzantines, Lombardy, and the Aghlabid dynasty. The latter established two emirates in southern Italy: the Emirate of Sicily and, for 25 years, the Emirate of Bari. Amalfi, an independent republic from the 7th century until 1075, and to a lesser extent Gaeta, Molfetta and Trani, rivalled other Italian maritime republics in their domestic prosperity and maritime importance.