Located in the extension of the tip of the
Apennine peninsula, from which is separated only by the narrow
Strait of Messina,
Sicily is the largest island in the
Mediterranean Sea. Its terrain is mostly hilly and intensively cultivated, but has also mountain ranges. The eastern coast is dominates by the
Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, and the
Aeolian Islands, in the
Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily, exhibit also a volcanic complex, including
Stromboli. With a population of slightly more than 5 million, it has only two metropolitan areas: the capital
Palermo, and
Catania. For a long time the poorest region of
Italy, with a social, economic and political life dominated by
Mafia (
Cosa Nostra), which led to massive waves of emigration, especially in Americas, in the last years Sicily had a regular growth, mainly due to the reforms in agriculture, the investments in industry and tourism development, so that today it is
the eighth richest italian region in terms of total GDP.
The earliest archeological evidence of human dwelling on the island dates from 8000 BC. At around 750 BC it was host to
Phoenician and
Greek colonies and for the next 600 years it was the site of the
Greek-Punic and
Roman-Punic wars, which ended with the destruction of
Carthage. After
the fall of the Roman Empire, Sicily often changed hands, and during the early Middle Ages it was ruled in turn by the
Vandals,
Ostrogoths,
Byzantines,
Saracens and
Normans. Later on, the
Kingdom of Sicily lasted between 1130 and 1816, first subordinated to the crowns of
Aragon,
Spain, the
Holy Roman Empire, and finally unified under the
Bourbons with
Naples, as the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Following the
Expedition of the Thousand, a
Giuseppe Garibaldi-led revolt during the
Italian Unification process and a plebiscite, it became part of Italy in 1860. After the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region.
As in the rest of Italy, the official language is
Italian (even if the most people are bilingual and speak also
Sicilian, a distinct and historical
Romance language) and the primary religion is
Roman Catholicism. In its long and tumultuous history, it received a variety of different cultures, each of them contributing to the island's culture, particularly in the areas of cuisine and architecture. It's the reason for that it has a rich and unique culture, many poets, writers, philosophers, intellectuals, architects and painters having roots on the island.
The
flag of Sicily (which is also its coat of arms) was first adopted in 1282, after the successful
Sicilian Vespers revolt against the king
Charles I of Sicily. It is characterized by the presence of the
triskelion (
trinacria) in its middle, the (winged) head of
Medusa and three wheat ears. The three bent legs allegedly represent the three points of the triangular shape of the island. The present design became the official public flag of the Autonomous Region of Sicily on 4 January 2000. The flag is bisected diagonally into regions colored red and yellow, red representing the municipality of Palermo, yellow representing
Corleone, which in medieval times was an agricultural city of renown. The
triskelion appears also on the flag of the
Isle of Man.
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