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Italy: the 20 Regioni

[A schematic political map of Italy marking its 20 regions.
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The map above gives you a bird's-eye view of Italy — at least, that of an administratively-minded bird, since it shows the twenty "autonomous regions" into which the country is divided. (If you are from a federal country like Germany, Switzerland, or the United States, don't be misled, though: despite recent projects or noises in the Italian political arena, Italy is not a federal republic, and the regions are mere administrative divisions with rather little actual autonomy.)

Each of the 20 regions on the map should eventually link to an orientation page taking the mapping one level lower, to provinces and towns. Currently (May 08), that's true only for the best-developed subsite, Umbria, with 644 pages and about 1450 photos: the other active regions link to less developed orientation pages, with quite a bit of material, but no map; and most of the regions are still inactive — this is all still a work in progress.

The regions colored dark green are those I know best. I've walked about 2000 km in Umbria, the Lazio, the Marche, and Tuscany, and taken lots of pictures. This is where the best information will be. Even where I may not have got round to writing an in-depth site, the orientation page also links to my diary, where there is often a fair amount of additional information and photos.

The regions colored medium green, well, I've been thru them and visited a place or two (Milan, Rimini), but don't know that well. Correspondingly less walking and fewer pictures, and a much patchier quality to the site. Here too though, there will be a link to my diary, with probably a bit more information and a couple more photos.

The regions in light green, I've never been to at all, or at least not as an adult with a good camera.

Each orientation page of my own includes an index of other people's sites. Since almost none of those other sites link to each other, this makes the map in front of you a good source for sorting out the morass of sites out there.

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Finally, Italy is a land of churches: some few date to Roman times, and many more are medieval or Renaissance; most of these in turn have at least one beautiful fresco or sculpture, and often a good deal more. So for those who prefer a topical approach to this important side of Italy, I am continuing to develop my Churches of Italy site: as of May 08, it covered 619 churches in 370 pages and 1390 large photos — plus three entire books on the churches of Rome past and present — about 950 of them! with, as you might expect, some very good information.

Images with borders lead to more information.
The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)

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