South Italy - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

South Italy Italia meridionale  (Italian) Sud Italia  (Italian)
Country	Italy
Regions	List Abruzzo Apulia Basilicata Calabria Campania Molise
Area
• Total	73,223 km2 (28,272 sq mi)
Population [1]
• Estimate  (2022)	13,430,686
Languages
– Official language	Italian
– Official linguistic minorities[2]	Arbëresh Calabrian Greek Griko dialect Serbo-Croatian
– Regional languages	Neapolitan

South Italy (Italian: Italia meridionale or just Sud Italia) is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a NUTS1 level region.

South Italy is defined only for statistical and for some elections. It should not to be confused with the Mezzogiorno, or Southern Italy, which generally refers to all the southern half of the Italian State, including the island of Sicily and sometimes even Sardinia.^[3] The two islands form a distinct statistical region.region.

South Italy borders to the north with Central Italy (to the northwest with Lazio and to the northeast with Marche). The Adriatic Sea is to the east and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west, and the Ionian Sea to the south.

The Apennines are mountain ranges that goes from north to south through South Italy. The highest point in the region is the Corno Grande (42°18′10″N 13°33′56″E / 42.30278°N 13.56556°E / 42.30278; 13.56556 (Ortles)) (part of the Gran Sasso) that is 2,912 metres (9,554 ft) high.^[4]

Central Italy encompasses six of the 20 regions of Italy, including 24 provinces and 1,789 comuniː

The comuni with more than 100,000 persons living in them areː

• NUTS level 1:
  • Northwest Italy
  • Northeast Italy
  • Central Italy
  • South Italy
  • Insular Italy
• Northern Italy
• Southern Italy