Physical Features of Italy
Italy may be divided into four basic geographic areas: the north, the peninsula (comprising central and southern Italy), the island of Sicily, and the island of Sardinia. It is hilly and mountainous country, with plains covering less than a quarter of its area.
The
massive arc of the Alps, straddling Italy's frontier with its northern
neighbors, sweeps around from the town of Savona located in the west to
the Slovenian border in the east. The Alps shelter the northern plain, Italy's most extensive lowland, from the colder climates north of the Alps.
The plain is blessed with long, warm summers and an abundant water
supply from rainfall and rivers; it supports Italy's richest farmland
and its heaviest concentration of industry.
Along
the northwestern coast, in the region of Liguria, the Alps give way to
the Apennine mountains, which curve southeastward to form the backbone
of Italy's familiar boot-shaped peninsula. Except in Apulia, the "heel" of the peninsula, the eastern flank of the Apennines descends sharply to the Adriatic Sea. The western flank falls away to create a complex belt of hills, basins, and poorly drained coastal plains. Peninsular Italy is Mediterranean in climate, with dry summers and mild, wet winters, at least at low elevations.
Because of the rugged terrain and dry summer climate, agriculture in
the peninsula is rarely as prosperous as in the northern plain.
Moreover, although the peninsula contains many large cities, including
Rome and Naples, few of them are heavily engaged in industry.
No
more favored in terrain and resources, and no less plagued by droughts
and floods, the two islands have the added handicap of isolation. Sicily depends largely on fruit and grain production, and Sardinia on mining and animal raising. In both islands, despite attempts at development after World War II, industry is poorly developed.
Northern Italy includes the Italian Alps, the northern plain, and the region of Liguria. Liguria, despite its Mediterranean climate and associations, is closely linked with its northern hinterland.
Except for the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino, the inner slopes of the Alps fall almost entirely within Italy.
Within Italy's borders the range is widest in the east—up to 100 miles
(160 km)—and highest in the west, where several peaks, including Monte
Rosa and the Matterhorn (Monte Cervino), exceed 14,000 feet (4,500
meters). A succession of valleys gives access
to the Alpine watershed, over which the Tenda, Mont Cenis, and Little
St. Bernard passes lead into France; the Great St. Bernard, the Simplon,
and the Splügen into Switzerland; and the Brenner into Austria. Road tunnels pierce Mont Blanc and the Great St. Bernard col, thus ensuring uninterrupted winter traffic. The Mont Cenis, Simplon, and St. Gotthard tunnels and the Brenner Pass route carry most of Italy's transalpine rail traffic.
The Alps are central European in climate, but with profound modifications caused by their altitude. In the lower valleys the long, warm summers enable maize, fruit, and vines to be grown, but the winters are cold. In the higher valleys the emphasis is on hay production and cattle raising. The lake shores enjoy a mild winter that is tolerable even for olive trees.
The mountains are markedly wetter than the valleys, and the
precipitation, much of it in the form of snow, may reach 80 inches
(2,000 mm). Such conditions favor extensive woodlands of pine, fir, and larch.
Apart from limestone and small deposits of anthracite coal and iron, there are few workable minerals in the Alps. However, much of Italy's hydroelectric power is produced there.
Although most of this power is used in the adjoining plain, locally it
supports steel, engineering, chemical, and textile industries. Otherwise, the economy of the Alpine region depends heavily on tourism. Aosta, Trento, and Bolzano are Italy's largest Alpine industrial centers.
Up
to 120 miles (190 km) wide and 280 miles (450 km) long from Turin to
Udine, the northern plain represents about 70% of Italy's lowland.
North of the Po River the surface deposits were laid down by glacial
streams; they are coarse and permeable in the upper plain and fine and
less easily drained in the lower plain. South of the Po, postglacial alluvial deposits predominate. Deltas, sandspits, and lagoons fringe the low-lying Adriatic coast.
The plain has a long, warm growing period, and receives 35 to 45 inches (90 to 115 cm) of rainfall annually.
The rainfall is supplemented by abundant springs that emerge at the
junction of the upper and lower plains; by the Alpine rivers, including
the Adige, Brenta, and Piave, as well as the tributaries of the Po; and
by winter floods of the Apennine rivers. The
exploitation of the plain has largely been made possible by humans'
successful control of their waters, achieved progressively over the
centuries. Most of the lower plain of Piedmont
and Lombardy is irrigated for the growing of grains, including rice,
and of fodder, which supports a flourishing meat and dairy industry.
The drier upper plain is dominated by maize, wheat, fodder, and vines,
but mulberries, peaches, pears, apples, and vegetables are locally
important. The short but very raw winters in the plain make it impossible to grow the more delicate fruits of the Mediterranean region.
Along
the coast and the lower course of the Po, flood control and drainage
are the main problems, but most of the area, the special crops of which
include sugar beets and hemp, has already been reclaimed. The marginal hills of Montferrat (Monferrato) and Veneto produce some famous wines.
The plain's prosperous farmlands have provided a firm financial base for industrial development.
Other advantages for industry in this area include plentiful water
supplies, Alpine hydroelectric power, adequate rail and road facilities,
access to transalpine markets and to the Ligurian and Adriatic ports,
abundant labor attracted from all over Italy, and, not least, a
tradition of artisanship and commercial enterprise.
The discovery of methane in the plain in 1946 was fortunate, but local
energy resources have nevertheless had to be increasingly supplemented
by imported oil, methane, and nuclear power.
The plain has had a flourishing and continuous urban civilization since its colonization by the Romans some 2,000 years ago. Milan dominates the whole plain and is the financial, commercial, and industrial capital of Italy.
With its satellite towns, it is heavily engaged in the engineering,
electrical, textile, chemical, and food-processing industries. Turin, the capital of the Piedmont region, is dominated by the Fiat automobile industry. Bologna, the largest of a chain of towns along the ancient Via Aemilia, serves the rich farmlands of the Emilia Romagna region.
Even the smaller cities, especially in Lombardy, are to some degree
industrial—steel is produced at Bergamo and Brescia; petrochemicals at
Novara, Mantua, Ferrara, and Ravenna; and textiles at Pavia, Biella, and
Vicenza. Of the ports on the Adriatic Sea, Trieste is a center of the steel, oil, and shipbuilding industries.
Venice, built in one of the few unsilted lagoons on Italy's Adriatic
coast, capitalizes on its past, leaving modern industry to the modern
mainland port of Porto Marghera nearby.
The region of Liguria occupies Italy's steep and narrow coastline on the Ligurian Sea. The climate is mild and supports an almost unbroken series of resorts, interrupted by three notable ports.
The largest port, Genoa, serves the industry of Lombardy as well as its
own enterprises, which include shipbuilding, chemicals, and oil
refining. Its oil pipelines penetrate to Switzerland and Germany. La Spezia, southeast of Genoa, is a naval base, while Savona to the southwest has built up special commercial links with Turin. The main problem for the Ligurian cities is their lack of space for expansion along the narrow coastline.
For about 600 miles (950 km) the Italian peninsula is ridged by the Apennines. They swing around from Cadibona Pass behind Savona to the peninsula's "toe" in the region of Calabria.
In general the Apennines range from 2,500 to 6,000 feet (750 to 1,800
meters) in height, but Gran Sasso d'Italia in central Italy exceeds
9,000 feet (2,800 meters). Although there are many passes over the mountains, the approaches to them are usually long and tortuous. Unlike the Alps, the Apennines, having escaped glaciation, are rarely sharp. Except in Calabria, where igneous rocks predominate, limestones make up the outstanding massifs. Extended areas of unstable and erodible clay produce rugged terrain and add to the problems of road and rail construction.
The
eastern flank of the Apennines in central Italy has been fretted by
rivers into a comblike succession of ridges and valleys, leaving only a
narrow coastal lowland. Farther south a
structural trough, which includes the Apulian plain, separates the
Apennines from the limestone blocks of the Promontorio del Gargano and
the Murge plateau. On the western flank of the range lies a complex area whose uplands are known collectively as the Anti-Apennines.
The oldest rocks emerge in the Apuan Alps of Tuscany, renowned for
their marble; in Monte Argentario Elba, whose ores have been mined since
Etruscan times. The hill country of Tuscany
consists mainly of clays and sands, but from Monte Amiata southward
volcanic cones, some with sand-filled craters, provide the most
interesting features of the relief. The Alban
Hills, near Rome; the crater in which the town of Roccamonfina is built,
the Phlegraean Fields, near Naples; and the nearby islands of Procida
and Ischia are all of volcanic origin. Mt. Vesuvius (3,891 feet, or 1,186 meters), a volcano near Naples, continues to erupt from time to time.
The
rivers to the west of the Apennines, in contrast with their eastern
counterparts, have marked longitudinal courses from which they escape in
narrow transverse valleys. The Serchio and the upper courses of the Arno, Tiber, Velino, Sacco, and Volturno are notable examples. The coastlands on the Tyrrhenian Sea present an alternation of rocky promontories and sickle-shaped, shallow bays. The coastal lowlands (that of Naples excepted) formerly were imperfectly drained and were infested with malaria. The Pontine Marshes and the Tiber delta were drained and recolonized between World Wars I and II. Many other lowlands were similarly rehabilitated after World War II.
Peninsular
Italy enjoys a Mediterranean climate, with long, warm summers from
which there is no escape below 3,000 feet (1,000 meters).
The effect of altitude is marked in winter, when the mildness of the
coastal lowlands contrasts with the raw and often snowy weather of the
interior highlands. The distribution of precipitation also shows a marked correlation with the topography. Rainfall is more abundant in the Abruzzi region and in the Tuscan Apennines than on the Apulian coast. The typical Mediterranean dry season lengthens in the southern latitudes.
The peninsular rivers flood disastrously in the winter but, unless they are spring-fed, almost dry up in the summer. The danger of flooding, always great in areas of impermeable rock, has been increased by deforestation in peninsular Italy.
Water control, an indispensable prerequisite of sound development, has
not been entirely achieved—witness the 1966 Florence flood disaster.
Nevertheless, some areas in the peninsula are entirely lacking in
surface water; the cities of Apulia, for example, have to be supplied by
aqueducts from the springs of the Apennines in the Campania region.
Although Italy's natural cover of vegetation has largely been destroyed over the centuries, the surviving remnants suggest
that the coastlands were once clothed in drought-resistant woodlands made up largely of the evergreen oak (ilex). Where it has not been replaced by cultivation, the former woodland has degenerated into scrub (macchia) or heath (garriga). With increasing altitude this vegetation pattern gives way in turn to deciduous oaks, chestnuts, beech, and conifers.
The most extensive spontaneous forests are in Calabria, the "toe" of
the peninsula, but elsewhere large areas are being reforested.
Central Italy is generally considered to include the regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Latium (Lazio), and Marche. Few areas have contributed more to Western civilization.
Its heritage attracts millions of visitors, whether they be religious
pilgrims to Rome and Assisi or tourists to Florence, Pisa, and Siena. This heritage is one of the area's most profitable assets.
Because
of population pressures of the past, most of the hill country and parts
of the lower mountainsides are farmed, although good land is scarce.
Wheat, beans, fodder, and a wide variety of vegetables are the main
field crops; they are grown mainly in the cool but rainier winter
season. Interplanting of these crops with tree
and bush crops (notably almonds, figs, pears, and cherries, but above
all olives and vines) is widely practiced; the wines of Orvieto and of
the Chianti hills enjoy an excellent reputation. In general the farms in central Italy are extremely small, rarely exceeding 30 acres (12 hectares).
However, there is a tendency toward larger holdings and a greater
emphasis on animal raising; such changes are necessary if farming in
central Italy is to be practical in the future.
Industrial
development in central Italy is handicapped by rugged terrain,
restricted water supplies, a lack of major ports, and the mediocrity of
its energy and raw material resources.
Hydroelectric power from the Apennines and small deposits of natural gas
and of lignite in Tuscany are incapable of meeting the area's needs;
the deficiency has to be made good with imported oil. Nevertheless, light industry has spread throughout the region. At Piombino, imported coal is used to smelt iron from Elba, while Terni's metal industries rely on electric furnaces. The pyrites, salt, gypsum, borax, and mercury of Tuscany support a few modest-sized chemical processing plants.
Central Italy is dominated by Rome and to a lesser extent by Florence. Rome forms the hub of the communications of the peninsula now as it did in classical times. Manufacturing is only a minor part of its activities.
Most of the Roman population depends directly or indirectly on state
employment or on the service industries, especially tourism. The tiny Vatican City, although it is a sovereign state with worldwide influence, is an integral part of Rome. Florence, like Rome, is an important route center, but it has little large-scale industry.
Its beauty and its artistic heritage attract vast numbers of tourists,
who support a variety of craft industries famous for their taste and
quality. Among the ports of central Italy, only Leghorn (Livorno) is important. Today it has oil refining, chemical, and engineering industries in addition to its function as a port. Civitavecchia serves as the port of Rome and has a packet service to Sardinia.
With
its expanses of deforested mountain and erodible hill country, its
aridity, and its hydrological disorders, which have hindered the
development of some of its most valuable lowlands, the south is the
least generously endowed part of mainland Italy.
In general, the use of the land is dominated by wheat, bean, olive, and
vine cultivation, though there is a greater variety and intensity of
agriculture in the proverbially fertile lowlands of Naples. In Apulia a tenacious peasantry coaxes heavy yields of wine, olives, and almonds from the dry Murge plateau. In the irrigated pockets of the Calabrian coastlands, citrus fruits are the major crops.
Everywhere, whether the land is generous or niggardly, there is pressure on the resources. Emigration has been one answer to this problem.
In the 1950s, however, the Fund for the South (the Cassa per il
Mezzogiorno) was established to promote extensive land reform,
large-scale irrigation, and infrastructure in the region.
In the 1960s it concentrated on heavy industrial development,
encouraging the establishment of steel and petrochemical plants in
Taranto, Bari, and Brindisi and the manufacture of automobiles and
office machines in the Naples area. In the
1970s and 1980s the emphasis turned to small-and medium-sized industry,
scattered in southern plains and valleys, especially between Naples and
Rome.
Naples is the main focus of communications and the unofficial capital of the south.
It is second only to Genoa among Italy's ports and is steadily
diversifying its industries, which include food processing, oil
refining, steel, engineering, and the manufacture of automobiles and
office machines. Bari, with its steel, chemical, oil, and rubber plants, is next in rank, followed by Salerno, Taranto, Reggio, and Brindisi. The tourist industry, long established in the Campania region, is expanding steadily into most areas of the south.
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