Italy - RMRG Guide

🇮🇹 Italy

Guide to Regionguess Italy

General

One thing that’s very important to understand about Italy is the unintuitive way that rainfall is distributed on the peninsula. Calabria and Campania are surprisingly wet, which produces rounds that look weirdly northern, while the area in between in Southern Tuscany and Lazio is quite dry (especially around Grosseto).

The Alps & Po Valley are already well-known, however it is worth learning Italian topography in more detail. Many unique topographical areas will be discussed in the landscape section, but notice how the highest mountains on the peninsula are in Northern Tuscany and in Abruzzo - these are the only ranges which have peaks above the treeline (outside of the Alps). It is also worth learning about the numerous large northwest-southeast oriented valleys in Tuscany and Umbria, as well as the numerous flat coastal plains in otherwise very hilly regions such as Sicily (south of Mount Etna next to Catania) and Sardinia (south around Cagliari).

Italy has a strong north-south divide with the north being much more prosperous than the south. It is worth bearing this in mind as well as more subtle differences as it impacts heavily on architecture and quality of infrastructure.

Landscape

Mountainious

The Alps can be hard to regionguess, however if you see particularly jagged peaks you can generally safely assume that you are in the eastern Italian Alps, specifically within this area: (Note the ‘Dolomites’ is not the name of the whole range but the most famous and jagged part)

The Appennini mountains is the mountain range that forms the spine of the whole Italian ‘boot’. In the exact centre of Italy you can find the highest mountains of this range, covered by numerous national parks from Monti Sibillini in the north to Maiella in the south.

Treeless yet snowless mountaintops distinct from the Alps are unique to this area. Roads going through these treeless highlands are usually in the Gran Sasso area.

The Euganei Hills are a very good reference point within the flat north, marked clearly on Google Maps just southwest of Padua. The hills are very unique and conical, and can often be seen from quite a distance.

The Palermo area has quite dramatic topography in a relatively dry area. It is usually quite reliable to go Palermo if you suspect Sicily and see dramatic mountains, particularly around/from an urban area.

The Gargano - the only mountainous part of the east coast, is not an easy area to get, but good to be aware of. The only somewhat unique thing about it is the abundance of Aleppo pines on the lower slopes (Aleppo Pines are mostly limited to Apulia) and dense forests of lichen and vine covered trees in the highlands.

In much of eastern Basilicata you can find these interesting exposed limestone formations which are highly distinct and localised. (This can be found in the hills of Emilia-Romagna too but in a far more green landscape).

The Dolomiti Lucane are a small, unique mountain range in the middle of Basilicata, known for their jagged peaks and striking rock formations. On Google Maps, look for the label “Parco Regionale Gallipoli Cognato, Piccole Dolomiti Lucane” near the center of the region.

In Northwestern Sardinia you can find many flat-topped mountains with a slight ‘wild west’ feel.

Monte Arcuentu and its neighbouring jagged peaks create a highly recognisable Mordor-like ridge visible for some distance on the west coast of Sardinia.

The Amalfi Coast is a distinctive, south-facing stretch of coastline on the Sorrento Peninsula, west of Salerno. Known for its steep cliffs and photogenic views, a dramatic, cliffy coastline almost always means you’re looking at Amalfi.

The Gubbio plain in Umbria is one of numerous NW-SE-facing ‘sister’ valleys of the Florence one, and it’s particularly recognisable for the ‘bald’ mountain on the northeast side of it.

The upper Adige Valley near the tripoint with Switzerland and Austria (as well as connected valleys) is the driest part of the Alps. Here you’ll find very short grass and few trees outside of the mountain slopes.

General

The Tuscan landscape is very iconic, consisting of rolling hills with loads of cypress trees. You will also commonly find vineyards, stone pines, and sometimes sunflowers and olives here.

On eastern side of the peninsula you can find Tuscany-like hills, making it hard to distinguish at times. However, it lacks key plants like cypress trees and stone pines, which are mostly found on the western side.

At the western tip of Sicily, the landscape features bare, rolling hills with more vineyards and wind turbines than elsewhere on the island. Scattered Baglios (large stone farmhouses, often abandoned) are also common. Further south, in the Marsala–Mazara area, the terrain becomes extremely flat, with more shrubs and olive plantations.

This valley is covered in industrial estates and even more uniquely, vast areas dedicated to growing/storing ornamental plants, something very distinct and unique to this area.

Prato is the most Chinese city in Europe and many of the industrial estates around it have Chinese signage.

The coastal plain south of Rome is very flat and surprisingly warm given how far north it is. A deadflat area with lots of palms, reeds, stone pines, eucalyptus rows and mountains northeast is a guaranteed Litoral Romano.

Besides the Northern Plain, the only other major flat farming area in Italy is around Foggia. It’s easy to tell apart—this region is much drier, with many fallow fields and olive plantations, which are rare in the north.

Around the Foggia plain you will find very gentle but bare rolling hills, often with wind turbines.

Vegetation

Agriculture

Sunflowers are an underrated way to regionguess Italy. They are generally found in a belt stretching from Tuscany to Marche, towards the top of the Italian peninsula, although they are a little more common to the eastern end of that belt. Sunflowers in a dead-flat area are usually in the valley around Pisa.

Corn is a less useful crop. It’s primarily only found in the Po valley which is generally free anyway. Just note that it’s more common in the northern half of the valley than the southern half.

Almond trees are of some use, mostly they blend with areas of heavy olive production, however combinations of almond and olive plantations can be indicative of Northern Puglia rather than the peninsula. Almond trees look similar to olive trees but have more saturated leaves and bloom during the spring.

Italy is the second-largest hazelnut producer after Turkey, with most grown in Lazio and Campania along the central west coast. A hotspot lies just southeast of Viterbo. Hazelnut trees are easy to recognize by their multiple stems growing from a single base.

The Adige Valley is a unique area within the Alps, located within Trentino province. Here you’ll find huge amounts of fruit trees (mostly just apple trees but occasionally vineyards too) against an alpine backdrop, making this region very recognisable.

As the world’s largest wine producer, vineyards are found in almost every Italian region and may seem unhelpful for regionguessing, however some wine regions look rather unique, and vineyards in combination with other metas can be very helpful.

The Barolo wine region is extremely recognisable as virtually every inch of space is covered by neatly organised vineyards. Once you see it you’ll always be able to recognise it. If you find yourself in such a region I recommend hedging near the city of Alba as Barolo itself is a small village on the edge of this region.

Vineyards in a dead-flat region resembling the Po Valley means you are most likely in Veneto/Friuli towards the eastern end of the great North Italian Plain.

North of Verano you can find the Valpolicella wine region (appears in a few municipality names too), which has these quite distinct terraced vineyards.

Cherry trees in Italy are heavily concentrated around the town of Vignola near Modena. These are very recognisable for their concrete supports if not the droopy-leafed trees themselves.

While olive trees can be found in most of Southern and even Central Italy, in Calabria olive plantations look quite distinct, with these orderly hillside plantations that are often visible from a distance.

Sheep = Sardinia (if not then most likely Tuscany)

Greenhouses

Italy has a couple ‘seas of plastic’ (similar to the one in southern Spain). Most of these are along the southern coast of Sicily.

You can find another sea of plastic in the coastal plain south of Salerno. This one is easily distinguished from Sicily by the much greener landscape. You may also see mountains in the distance from certain angles.

The third large sea of plastic is on the southern end of the aforementioned Litoral Romano and the adjacent coastal valley around Fondi.

Around Albenga (in Liguria) you will find a huge number of glass greenhouses that look very distinct from the plastic ones in other parts of Italy. You can also find these in smaller numbers in some of the valleys further west towards the French border.

Trees

Birch can be used to identify the Northwestern mountains of the country, which can be very hard to distinguish from other parts of the Alps. (technically it can be found in other parts of the Alps, but it will be far less common).

Eucalyptus is a very good clue for Sardinia, where it is far more common than anywhere else in Italy. There are however a couple of other hotspots on the Litoral Romano and around Caltanissetta, Sicily.

Cork oak is another good indicator for Sardinia. The tree itself is recognisable when the cork (the bark of the tree) has been harvested, baring its distinctive red trunk.

The highlands of Calabria can be devastating bait rounds as they consist of forests made almost entirely of pine. Being able to distinguish these Black pines (Pinus nigra) forests from Alpine or other mountainous woodlands of the peninsula will spare you great embarrassment, especially as Pinus Nigra isn’t really found in any other part of Italy.

Maritime Pine (Pinus pinaster) also has a very neat distribution in Italy, although it rarely forms full forests. Nonetheless, if you can identify them, you can safely assume you are in Liguria or northern Tuscany.

Palms are fairly common in many parts of Italy, but on the East coast they are essentially limited to a stretch of riviera in Marche between the cities of Cupra Maritima and San Benedetto del Tronto. Palms with sea to the east (or low hills to the west) should be here.

In Friuli and eastern Veneto, you will find many ‘pollarded’ trees lining the roads. This means trees that have been ornamentally trimmed (similar to ‘Colombian trees’).

Poplar plantations are a risky meta for the eastern ends of the Northern Plain, particularly Friuli, where they are particularly highly concentrated, although they are also common in Piedmont/Lombardy. They are very recognisable for their orderliness and thin trunks.

Giant fennel is a very recognisable plant that is generally found in the far south of the country (Sicily, Calabria and Apulia). Be careful as they can also be found slightly less commonly in Sardinia.

Stone pines are a little elusive. Generally speaking they can be found in most parts of Italy but if you see large numbers of them, or roads lined with stone pines, you are most likely in Lazio, with stone pines increasing in density with proximity to Rome.

General

Mastic bushes typify much of Sardinian coastal areas. Note that mastic can be found all over Italy, but Sardinia is the only place it seems where they are often the dominant species. Fields of low, puffy, bright green bushes are generally a good meta for Sardinia. (in the flat south of Sardinia you can also find many mastic trees lining rural roads).

Architecture

Liguria has some of the most distinct architecture in Italy, consisting of larger, more elegant, more richly coloured houses, often with painted motifs. While not unique to Liguria, green shutters are almost ubiquitous in this region. The way these shutters open upwards (visible in most pics below) is particularly distinct for Liguria and Tuscany.

Umbrian architecture predominantly uses these beige bricks that are fairly distinct. While not unique, seeing them in large numbers can be a good indicator of the region, although this style does also leak substantially into Marche.

All-brick architecture is particularly prominent in Piedmont. The more buildings you see made of brick, and the darker and thinner the bricks, the more likely you are to be in northern Piedmont. In addition, the further west you go in the Padan plain, the older the buildings.

The city of Bologna is famous for its porticoes - covered walkways in place of pavements. These can also be found in most city centres in the area around Bologna, including in nearby cities like Modena and Ferrara, as well as smaller towns.

Older towns from southern Marche down to the inland parts of Campania commonly feature pavement consisting of small black tiles with white motifs as well as arched doorways supported by three blocks.

In these regions you will find thin buildings made of thin, often unevenly coloured beige bricks. The colour can look similar to Umbrian stone, but these are thin bricks rather than large blocks.

In many Sardinian coastal towns you can find this quite unique style of modernist architecture. Note also that these mini villas are very common here even without this style.

In central/inland Sardinia on the other hand you will find this unique stone type on older buildings.

In Southern Sicily, you will find an abundance of bright stone walls similar to those in Apulia but in a much more hilly landscape.

The small island of Ponza south of the Litoral Romano has very unique architecture. Almost all the buildings are boxy with defined outlines along all the edges. Some buildings are also baby blue which is even more unique.

Slate roofs are a good way to distinguish the Northwestern Alps (not just Aosta) from Trentino-South Tyrol. Furthermore, different types of slate roofs can be used to regionguess more narrowly within the northwestern mountains.

In Aosta and valleys south of it, you’ll find roofs made of large, diamond-shaped slabs of slate.

East of Aosta all the way to the border between Lombardy and Trentino, you will find smaller, rectangular slate tiles.

In the Ossola Valley, you will find these very unique rocky-looking roofs with small, messy tiles.

Infrastructure

General

On the island of Elba, poles are uniquely painted a pale yellow colour.

Plain yellow stickers are commonly found on signbacks in the region around Bari

These upside-down U-shaped mile markers are unique to the eastern regions of Veneto, Friuli and Trentino-South Tyrol (sometimes Emilia-Romagna).

Italy has three types of roads, SS (state roads), SR (region roads) and SP (province roads). For the longest time SR roads were unique to the Aosta Valley as it is the only region not divided into provinces. SR roads have since extended to other regions but there are some where they are more common than others and some where they are completely absent.

Italian provinces are almost always named after the largest city within the province. They use two-letter abbreviations that can appear in several places:

The full names of provinces can also be found on many signs, including Hunting signs (although rarely large enough to read) and occasionally road signs, and are also often found as parts of smaller town names (see below).

Wind Farms

This is a map showing all Windfarm Locations

Windfarms are extremely concentrated north of Benevento (literally “good wind”). If you see scenes like this then hedge along the Campania-Apulia border.

Windfarms with very low hills are a very reliable indicator of the Foggia area.

Windfarms + dry landscape is a fairly good indicator for Sicily

No Hunting Signs

‘Divieto di Caccia’ (Hunting Prohibited) signs have some regionguessing potential. Yellow signs are generally only found in Emilia-Romagna & Veneto (rarely Lombardy).

Red signs can be found in Lombardy, Liguria and Marche.

In Veneto, ‘No Hunting’ signs often carry the title ‘Art. 11’.

In Piedmont, signs often have a red line through them.

Linguistic & Culture

Sardinia

Sardinia has its own language - Sardinian, although I’ve chosen to include it here rather than the Minority Languages section because while you will very rarely find bilingual signage, the language has made the standard place names in Sardinia incredibly recognisable. Sardinian includes the following distinct features:

‘tz’ and ‘x’
Much higher prevalence of doubled consonants, particularly ‘dd’
‘u’ at the end of words (note that ‘ù’ can be found in word endings in other parts of Italy)
Place names ending in ‘s’ (not unusual for other min. languages but very rare in Italian)
‘ei’ at the end of place names + other vowel combos that look out of place in Italian

Furthermore, in the north of Sardinia they actually speak a different language called Gallurese which is closer to Corsican. In far northern Sardinia you can therefore find place names starting with the articles ‘Lu’ or ‘Li’ (you can find ‘La’ as well which exists in the rest of Italy but not the rest of Sardinia).

Also ‘Nuraghe’ are ancient tombs that cover the island and can often be found signposted.

In the far southwest corner of Sardinia the article ‘Is’ is incredibly common in place names and is unique to this area.

Localities

Sometimes shortened to c/da. Contradas mostly replace ‘Località’s which are found in most remaining regions.(Use this one cautiously as contradas can rarely be found outside of this region)

Sometimes shortened to ‘Casc.’ or ‘c/na’. Cascina are more common towards the western end of the Po Valley.

Casali unique to Friuli.

Corte is not that common but indicates a pretty specific area south of Lake Garda.

Ca’ is common but less reliable. It’s very Venetian but has a wide eastern spread beyond that.

Minority Languages

Besides the already known French, German and Slovenian, there are many other regional languages worth bearing in mind. These are listed in order of usefulness.

Friulian is found on roughly 40% of signs in the Friuli region and is highly recognisable for a few key features: ‘cj’, ‘ç’, and circumflex and grave accents (e.g. ‘â’, ‘à’). ‘N’ at the end of words is also common, although this can also be found in Eastern Veneto (see ‘-on’ suffix above). On street signs you will see the word ‘vie’ instead of Italian ‘via’.

Ladin is in the same Rhaeto-Romance subfamily as Friulian, but doesn’t really have any distinguishing features. The helpful thing about Ladin is that it is spoken in parts of Italy where German is also official, so the clue here is trilingual signage, which is unique to only a few valleys between South Tyrol, Trentino and the Belluno province of Veneto.

Francoprovençal is spoken in parts of Italy, mainly in the Aosta Valley and the valleys just south of it (often labeled as ‘Piedmont dialects’ on maps). While French is co-official in Aosta and useful as a meta, the valleys to the south are where you’ll see Francoprovençal signage—look for town entry signs with “pais francoprovénsal” in the bottom right corner.

Occitan is widely spoken, but bilingual signs in it are rare. If you're in the Alps and see signage that's not French or German, first check for the “pais francoprovénsal” logo. If it’s missing, you're likely further south, in an Occitan-speaking valley. You might also spot Occitan flags as an extra clue.

In several municipalities in Northern Calabria you can find bilingual communities who speak Arbëreshë - a dialect of Albanian, as well as Albanian national symbols and the town name component ‘Albanese’. Albanian is mainly recognisable for the ‘ë’ vowel, as well as lots of ‘dh’, ‘q’, ‘j’ and ‘k’. (Note the Albanian municipalities in Molise and Sicily on the map don’t seem to have bilingual signs).

There are three Croatian-speaking municipalities in Molise. The Croatian spoken here is a little different but retains the characteristic ‘š’, ‘č’, ‘ž’ and ‘ć’ characters.

Griko is a dialect of Greek spoken in two separate locations in Apulia and the southern tip of Calabria. In each case it is only spoken in a handful of towns/villages.

Resian is a dialect of Slovenian found in one valley west of the border peak Kanin (mainly towns of Oseacco and Stolvizza). Lots of irregular features such as two dots on vowels (ë), letter ‘ś’ and streets names with hyphens.

Other smaller minority languages:

Cimbrian – A German dialect spoken in scattered mountain villages in Veneto. It’s hard to pinpoint due to its spread, but if you see German-like names on town entry signs without other German signage, you’re likely in mountainous Veneto.

Mòcheno – A rare German dialect spoken south of usual bilingual areas, mainly in the Bernstol valley. On signs, town names often end in “Pèrg”, though they won’t appear this way on Google Maps.

Wals – A German dialect from Valais, Switzerland, that crosses into a few valleys near the Piedmont–Aosta border.

Algherese Catalan – Found only in the old town of Alghero, Sardinia.

Guardia Piemontese – A single village in Calabria where they speak a dialect of Occitan.

Celle di San Vito – A village in Apulia where Francoprovençal is spoken.

Toponymy

PLACE NAME COMPONENTS
Similarly to France, Italian place names often contain references to the region, province, local river, historical region, etc…
It is highly recommended to learn both the 20 regions and 107 provinces as these often show up in town names.

Region quiz

Province quiz

There are two misleading ones however:

‘Ligure’ is more common in parts of Piedmont immediately across the border

‘Dei Lombardi’ is found affixed to 3 towns in Campania settled by immigrants from Lombardy in the far north

There are however many other types of area that can appear in town names. These maps show you clusters of the most repeated place name components sorted by category:

Pre-Roman tribal domains

Historical/cultural regions

Wine regions (Tuscany)

Rivers

Natural regions

There are many regional town name endings that can be used to regionguess. Here are distribution maps of the most useful:

Source, More detailed maps: Map1, Map2

Surnames

In Italian towns it is common to find obituary boards where you’ll find many surnames - these have quite strong regionguessing potential, as surnames are quite regional within Italy.

Very generally, in Central Italian regions (Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio, Emilia-Romagna, Marche), surnames almost exclusively end in ‘i’.

With surnames ending in ‘o’ being more common to the south and north

The surname Rossi is the most common in most northern regions, with the similar surname Russo being the most common in most southern regions. The border between ‘north’ and ‘south’ Italy is the border between Lazio/Molise and Campania/Apulia.

Greco is very common in the far southern regions of Italy where there has historically been a lot of Greek migration. The variant ‘Grieco’ is mostly found in Basilicata.

The prefix ‘De’ (meaning ‘of’ is mostly only found in southern surnames. ‘Di’ is the variant used in Sicily and Abruzzo (super common in Abruzzo), although it is far more common in the latter. You will also uniquely find ‘Da’/Dal’ in Veneto.

Sardinia has the least surname diversity in Italy, with many people sharing a small set of very distinctive names. These surnames often reflect features of the Sardinian language, tend to be short, and commonly end in “a”. Key names to remember include: Sanna, Pinna, Serra, Manca, Melis, Piras, Lai, and Mura.

Surnames ending in a grave accent (à) are pretty much only found in Calabria.

The second most common surname in Sicily is Messina and it’s essentially unique to the island.

The surname ‘Esposito’ is the most common in Campania and particularly localised to the Naples area. The surname was historically given to abandoned children who were ‘exhibited’ for potential adopters in the city.

Here is a useful tool to explore the italian surnames in more detail

RMRG

🇮🇹 Italy

Categories

General

Landscape

Mountainious

General

Vegetation

Agriculture

Greenhouses

Trees

General

Architecture

Infrastructure

General

Wind Farms

No Hunting Signs

Linguistic & Culture

Sardinia

Localities

Minority Languages

Toponymy

Surnames

Credits