Catana Cayetano

Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, after

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by the presence of important road and rail transport infrastructures as well as by the main airport in Sicily, fifth in Italy. It is located on Sicily's east coast, at the base of the active volcano,

Mount Etna Mount Etna, or simply Etna ( it, Etna or ; scn, Muncibbeḍḍu or ; la, Aetna; grc, Αἴτνα and ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina a ...

, and it faces the

Ionian Sea The Ionian Sea ( el, Ιόνιο Πέλαγος, ''Iónio Pélagos'' ; it, Mar Ionio ; al, Deti Jon ) is an elongated bay of the Mediterranean Sea. It is connected to the Adriatic Sea to the north, and is bounded by Southern Italy, including C ...

. It is the capital of the 58-municipality region known as the

Metropolitan City of Catania The Metropolitan City of Catania ( it, Città metropolitana di Catania) is a Metropolitan cities of Italy, metropolitan city in Sicily, southern Italy. Its capital is the city of Catania. It replaced the Province of Catania and comprises the city o ...

, which is the seventh-largest metropolitan city in Italy. The population of the city proper is 311,584, while the population of the

is 1,107,702. Catania was founded in the 8th century BC by Chalcidian Greeks. The city