Southern Italy

Southern Italy, also known as Meridione ([meriˈdjoːne]) or Mezzogiorno ([ˌmɛddzoˈdʒorno] ^ⓘ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern regions.

The term "Mezzogiorno" today 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.