Apulia

Coordinates: 41°0′31″N 16°30′46″E / 41.00861°N 16.51278°E / 41.00861; 16.51278

Apulia
Puglia
Region of Italy

Flag
Coat of arms
Country Italy
Capital Bari
Government
 • President Michele Emiliano (PD)
Area
 • Total 19,358 km2 (7,474 sq mi)
Population (31-12-2016)
 • Total 4,063,888
 • Density 210/km2 (540/sq mi)
Demonym(s) English: Apulian(s), Puglian(s)
Italian: Pugliese, pl. Pugliesi
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 • Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
GDP/ Nominal €69.5[1] billion (2008)
GDP per capita €16,900[2] (2008)
NUTS Region ITF
Website www.regione.puglia.it

Apulia (/əˈpuːliə/ ə-POO-lee-ə; Italian: Puglia [ˈpuʎʎa]; Neapolitan: Pùglia [ˈpuʝːə]; Albanian: Pulia; Ancient Greek: Ἀπουλία, Apoulia) is a region of Italy in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto to the south. Its southernmost portion, known as the Salento peninsula, forms a "stiletto" heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises 19,345 square kilometers (7,469 sq mi), and its population is about four million.

It is bordered by the other Italian regions of Molise to the north, Campania to the west, and Basilicata to the southwest. Across the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, it faces Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, and Montenegro, The Apulia region extends as far north as Monte Gargano. Its capital city is Bari.

Geography

Torre Sant'Andrea, Salento

Puglia's coastline is longer than that of any other mainland Italian region. In the north, the Gargano promontory extends out into the Adriatic while in the south, the dry Salento area forms the 'stiletto of Italy's boot [3]

It is home to two national parks, the Alta Murgia National Park and Gargano National Park.[4]

Landscape of the Murge plateau

History

Castel del Monte, built by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II between 1240 and 1250 in Andria
The medieval town Ostuni

Apulia is one of the richest archaeological regions in Italy. It was first colonized by Mycenaean Greeks.[5]

A number of castles were built in the area by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, including Castel del Monte,[6] sometimes called the "Crown of Apulia".[7]

After 1282, when the island of Sicily was lost, Apulia was part of the Kingdom of Naples (confusingly known also as the Kingdom of Sicily), and remained so until the unification of Italy in the 1860s. This kingdom was independent under the House of Anjou from 1282 to 1442, then was part of Aragon until 1458, after which it was again independent under a cadet branch of the House of Trastámara until 1501. As a result of the French–Spanish war of 1501–1504, Naples again came under the rule of Aragon and the Spanish Empire from 1504 to 1714. When Barbary pirates of North Africa sacked Vieste in 1554, they took an estimated 7,000 slaves.[8] The coast of Apulia was occupied at times by the Turks and at other times by the Venetians.[9]

In 1861 the region became part of the Kingdom of Italy, with the new capital city at Turin. In the words of one historian, Turin was "so far away that Otranto is today closer to seventeen foreign capitals than it is to Turin".[10]

Economy

The region's contribution to Italy's gross value added was around 4.6% in 2000, while its population was 7% of the total. The per capita GDP is low compared to the national average and represents about 68.1% of the EU average.[11]

The share of gross value added by the agricultural and services sectors was above the national average in 2000. The region has industries specialising in particular areas, including food processing and vehicles in Foggia; footwear and textiles in the Barletta area, and wood and furniture in the Murge area to the west.[12]

Between 2007 and 2013 the economy of Apulia expanded more than that of the rest of southern Italy.[13] Such growth, over several decades, is a severe challenge to the hydrogeological system.[14]

Transport

The region has a good network of roads but the railway network is less comprehensive, particularly in the south.[12]

Demographics

Historical population
YearPop.±%
1861 1,335,000—    
1871 1,440,000+7.9%
1881 1,609,000+11.7%
1901 1,987,000+23.5%
1911 2,195,000+10.5%
1921 2,365,000+7.7%
1931 2,508,000+6.0%
1936 2,642,000+5.3%
1951 3,220,000+21.9%
1961 3,421,000+6.2%
1971 3,583,000+4.7%
1981 3,872,000+8.1%
1991 4,032,000+4.1%
2001 4,021,000−0.3%
2011 4,091,000+1.7%
2017 4,063,888−0.7%
Source: ISTAT 2001

Emigration from the region's depressed areas to northern Italy and the rest of Europe was very intense in the years between 1956 and 1971. Subsequently, the trend declined as economic conditions improved, to the point where there was net immigration in the years between 1982 and 1985. Since 1986 the stagnation in employment has led to a new inversion of the trend, caused by a decrease in immigration.[15]

Government and politics

Since 1 June 2015, former judge and mayor of Bari Michele Emiliano of the Democratic Party has served as President.[16][17]

Culture

Cuisine

Cuisine plays an important role throughout Apulia. The key locally produced ingredients used there include olive oil, artichokes, tomatoes, eggplants, asparagus, and mushrooms.[18]

Language

As with the other regions of Italy, the national language (since 1861) is Italian. However, because of its long and varied history, other historical languages have been spoken in this region for centuries.

In isolated pockets of the southern part of Salento, a dialect of modern Greek called Griko is spoken by a few thousand people.[19] In addition, rare dialects of the Franco-Provençal language called Faetar and the closely related Cellese are spoken by a dwindling number of individuals in the towns of Faeto and Celle Di San Vito, in the Province of Foggia.[20]

The Arbëreshë dialect of the Albanian language has been spoken by a small community since refugees settled there in the 15th century.[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Regional gross domestic product by NUTS 2 regions - million". Eurostat. Retrieved 8 September 2013.
  2. ↑ EUROPA – Press Releases – Regional GDP per inhabitant in 2008 GDP per inhabitant ranged from 28% of the EU27 average in Severozapaden in Bulgaria to 343% in Inner London Archived February 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ "Introducing Puglia". Lonely Planet. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  4. ↑ "Holiday guide to Puglia, southern Italy: the best towns, restaurants and hotels". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. 4 July 2015. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  5. ↑ Elizabeth A. Fisher, The Mycenaeans and Apulia. An Examination of Aegean Bronze Age Contacts with Apulia in Eastern Magna Grecia, Astrom, 1998
  6. ↑ "Italy: Puglia". Rough Guides. Retrieved 8 December 2013.
  7. ↑ Heinz Götze, Castel Del Monte: Geometric Marvel of the Middle Ages (1998), p. 89
  8. ↑ Asaolu, Richard Oluseyi (n.d.). Slavery:Abolition. Mainz: Pedia. p. 50. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
  9. ↑ Dursteler, Eric R., ed. (2013). A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797. Leiden: Koninklejke. pp. 142–43. ISBN 978-9004252516. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
  10. ↑ David Gilmour, The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions and their Peoples (2012), p. 24
  11. ↑ "Eurostat". Greenreport. Archived from the original on April 24, 2014. Retrieved 2010-08-02.
  12. 1 2 "Puglia - Economy". Portrait of the Regions. Eurostat. March 2004. Archived from the original on August 21, 2009. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  13. ↑ Massimo Monteduro, Pierangelo Buongiorno, Saverio Di Benedetto, Law and Agroecology: A Transdisciplinary Dialogue (2015), p. 176
  14. ↑ Amílcar Soares, Maria João Pereira, Roussos Dimitrakopoulos! geoENV VI – Geostatistics for Environmental Application (2008), p. 191: "The approach highlighted the widespread degradation of water resources in the Apulian groundwater. ... Above all the rapid socio-economic growth over the last decades has caused severe stress to the Apulian hydrogeological system."
  15. ↑ "Eurostat". c.europa.eu. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved 2010-04-22.
  16. ↑ "Scheda Personale". Sito web Istituzionale della Regione Puglia (in Italian). Retrieved October 17, 2015.
  17. ↑ "BIOGRAFIA" (PDF). CompletaMente.org (in Italian). Retrieved September 5, 2015.
  18. ↑ Around Italy: A look at Apulia the cuisine at sacla.se, accessed 22 July 2016
  19. ↑ "Ethnologue report for language code:ell". Ethnologue.com. Archived from the original on 28 May 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-22.
  20. ↑ Nagy, Naomi (2011). "A Multilingual Corpus to Explore Variation in Language Contact Situations" (PDF). Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata. 43 (1–2): 3. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  21. ↑ "Ethnologue report for language code:aae". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 13 July 2016.

Further reading

See also: Bibliography of the history of Apulia (in Italian)

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