Civita di Bagnoregio
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Civita di Bagnoregio is a town of Viterbo province in Central Italy, a frazione of the comune of Bagnoregio, 2 km (about 1 mile) W from it. It is about 145 km (90 mi) north of Rome.
It is located at .
It was founded by Etruscans over twenty-five hundred years ago, has seen its population dwindle to just fifteen residents over the course of the 20th century, and has only recently been experiencing a tourist revival, due in great measure to the American travel guide Rick Steves who popularized it in the 1990s and calls it his favorite hill town.
The town is noted for its striking position atop a plateau of friable volcanic tuff overlooking the Tiber river valley, in constant danger of destruction as its edges fall off, leaving the buildings built on the plateau to crumble. As of 2004, there are plans to reinforce the plateau with steel rods to prevent further geological damage. The city is also much admired for its architecture, some spanning several thousand years. Civita di Bagnoregio owes much of its unaltered condition to its relative isolation: the town was able to withstand most intrusions of modernity as well as the destruction wrought by two world wars.
