Piedmont

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For other uses, see Piedmont (disambiguation).

**Regione Piemonte (it)**


Map highlighting the location of Piedmont (en), Piemont (pie), Piemonte (it), Piémont (fr) in Italy
Capital	Turin
President	Mercedes Bresso (DS-Union)
Provinces	8
Comuni	1,206
Area	25,399 km²
- Ranked	2nd (8.4 %)
Population (2006 est.) - Total - Ranked - Density	4,341,733 6th (7.4 %) 171/km²

Piedmont (Italian: Piemonte; Piedmontese: Piemont; French: Piémont) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,399 km² (third greatest region in Italy and the greatest in italian peninsula) and a population of 4.4 million. The capital is Turin, and the local language is Piedmontese.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Economy
4 Politics
5 Demographics
6 References
7 See also
8 Image gallery
9 External links

[edit] Geography

Piedmont is surrounded on three sides by the Alps mountain range, including the Monviso (Mont Vis), where the Po River rises, and Monte Rosa. It borders with France, Switzerland, and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Liguria and the Aosta Valley. 7.6% of the territory is protected area, 56 different ones of which the most famous national park is Gran Paradiso (Grand Paradis).

Piedmont is divided into eight provinces:

[edit] History

In 1046, the counts of the House of Savoy added Piedmont to their main territory of Savoy, with a capital at Chambéry (now in France). The County of Savoy was elevated to a duchy in 1416, and Duke Emanuele Filiberto moved the seat to Turin in 1563. In 1720, the Duke of Savoy became King of Sardinia, founding what evolved into the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and increasing Turin's importance as a European capital.

The Republic of Alba was created in 1796 as a French client republic in Piedmont before the area was annexed by France in 1801. In June 1802 a new client republic, the Subalpine Republic, was established in Piedmont and in September it was also annexed. In the congress of Vienna, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was restored, and furthermore received the Republic of Genoa to strengthen it as a barrier against France.

Piedmont was the springboard for Italy's unification in 1859-1861, following earlier unsuccessful wars against the Austrian Empire in 1820-1821 and 1848-1849. This process is sometimes referred to as Piedmontisation.^[1]^[2] The House of Savoy became Kings of Italy, and Turin briefly became the capital of Italy. However, the addition of territory paradoxically reduced Piedmont's importance to the kingdom, and the capital was removed to Florence, and then to Rome. One remaining recognition of Piedmont's historical role was that the crown prince of Italy was known as the Prince of Piedmont.

[edit] Economy

Rice fields of Piemonte between Novara and Vercelli

Lowland Piedmont is a fertile agricultural region, producing wheat, rice, maize, and wine grapes. Piedmont is one of the great winegrowing regions in Italy. More than half of its 700 km² (170,000 acres) of vineyards are registered with DOC designations. It produces wines of renowned depth such as the famed Barbera, Barolo, Barbaresco and Moscato, as well as lesser known varieties such as Dolcetto, Freisa, Grignolino and Brachetto. The region contains major industrial centres, notably Turin, home to the FIAT automobile works. Biella produces tissues and silks. Cuneo is the house of Ferrero's chocolate factories and important mechanical industries, able in the past to build the trailer for the Space Shuttle Columbia. The tertiary also is flourishing: one of Italy's major banking and insurance groups, Sanpaolo IMI, is based in Turin. In February 2006 Turin hosted the XX Olympic Winter Games and in 2007 the Universiades, Olympic games for university students.

[edit] Politics

The region has a center-left local government with Mercedes Bresso as president, following the regional legislative and presidential election of 2005. However, at the April 2006 Italian national election, Piedmont gave 50.5% of its votes to the Centre-Right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi.

[edit] Demographics

The Turin metro area grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s due to an increase of immigrants from southern Italy, and today it has a population of approximately two million. As of 2006, the Italian national institute of statistics (ISTAT) estimated that 231,611 foreign-born immigrants live in Piedmont, equal to 5.3% of the total regional population.

Towns of Piedmont with a population of 50,000 or more:

Comune	Population (2006 est.)
Turin	900,608
Novara	102,817
Alessandria	91,593
Asti	73,734
Moncalieri	55,983
Cuneo	54,817
Rivoli	50,213

[edit] References

^ Valeria Fargion, From the Southern to the Northern Question: Territorial and Social Politics in Italy, paper presented at the RC 19 conference 'Welfare state restructuring: processes and social outcomes', 2-4 September 2004, Sciences-Po Paris, accessed 7 January 2007
^ Anna Bull, Regionalism in Italy, Europa 2(4), accessed 7 January 2007