0007 - La madonnina del porto

Messina (Italian pronunciation: [mesˈsiːna] ( listen), Sicilian: Missina) is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, Italy and the capital of the province of Messina. It has a population of about 250,000 inhabitants in the city proper and about 650,000 in the province. It is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina, just opposite Villa San Giovanni on the mainland.

The main economical resources of the city are: the port (commercial and military), provided with several shipyards; agriculture (including wine production and the cultivation of lemons, oranges, mandarin oranges and olives); tourism.

The city has been a Roman Catholic Archdiocese and Archimandrite seat since 1548 and is home to a locally important international fair.

Messina (Italian: Provincia di Messina; Sicilian: Pruvincia di Missina) is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Messina.

It has an area of 3,247 km² (12.6% of total of the island), and a total population of 662,450 (2001, 13% of the total population of Sicily). There are 108 comuni (singular: comune) in the province [1], see Comuni of the Province of Messina.

The province includes the Aeolian Islands, all part of the comune of Lipari (with the exception of Salina). The territory is largely mountainous, with the exception of alluvional plain at the mouths of the various rivers. The largest plain is that in the area between Milazzo and Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, which, together with Messina, form a metropolitan area of some 500,000 inhabitants, one of the largest in southern Italy. Much of the population is concentrated in the coastal area, after the hill towns have been largely abandoned from the 19th century.

The main mountain ridges are the Peloritani (up to 1300 m) and the Nebrodi (up to 1,900 m) mountains, which are included in a Regional Natural Reserve.

Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, whilst Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.