The metropolitan cities of Italy (Italian: ''città metropolitane d'Italia'') are

administrative division Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

s of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, operative since 2015, which are a special type of sub-provinces (''

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

''). The metropolitan city, as defined by law, includes a large core city and the smaller surrounding towns that are closely related to it with regard to economic activities and essential public services, as well as to cultural relations and to territorial features.

History

The original 1990 law defined as metropolitan cities the comuni of

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of t ...

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, Bari,

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and their respective hinterlands, reserving the autonomous regions the right to individuate metropolitan areas in their territory. In 2009, amendments added

Reggio Calabria Reggio di Calabria ( scn, label= Southern Calabrian, Riggiu; el, label= Calabrian Greek, Ρήγι, Rìji), usually referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the largest city in Calabria. It has an estimated pop ...

to the list. The metropolitan areas defined by the autonomous regions were:

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitan ...

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label= Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label= Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, af ...

; Catania,

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital city, capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 in ...

and

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

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

. On 3 April 2014 the

Italian Parliament The Italian Parliament ( it, Parlamento italiano) is the national parliament of the Italian Republic. It is the representative body of Italian citizens and is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1943), the transitio ...

approved a law that established 10 metropolitan cities in

, excluding the autonomous regions. Four more were added later. The new metropolitan cities have been operative since 1 January 2015.

Government

A metropolitan city is composed of a central city, which serves as the seat of government, and its surrounding municipalities (''comuni''). Each metropolitan city is headed by a metropolitan mayor (''sindaco metropolitano''), who is assisted by a legislative body, the metropolitan council (''consiglio metropolitano''), and by a non-legislative assembly, the metropolitan conference (''conferenza metropolitana''). The metropolitan mayor is the chief executive and administrative officer of the city. The mayor represents, convenes and chairs meetings of the metropolitan council, administers city offices, supervises the functioning of city services, and prepares the city's budget. The mayor of the provincial capital comune automatically becomes the metropolitan mayor. The metropolitan council is the chief legislative body of the metropolitan city. It proposes laws and amendments to the metropolitan conference, and approves programs, regulations and rules submitted to it by the metropolitan mayor such as the budget. The council consists of mayors and city councillors of each commune in the metropolitan city elected from amongst themselves using partially

open list Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, which allows only active members, p ...

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

, with seats allocated using the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highe ...

. Metropolitan councillors are elected

at-large At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather than ...

for five-year terms; votes for metropolitan councillors are weighted by grouping comunes of a certain population range into nine groups so that votes of the mayors and city councillors of the more populous groups are worth than those of less populous groups. The number of councillors a metropolitan city is granted depends upon its population: metropolitan cities with a population of 3 million or more have 24 councillors; metropolitan cities with a population of 800,000 but less than or equal to 3 million have 18 councillors; all other metropolitan cities have 14 councillors. The metropolitan conference adopts or rejects laws and amendments approved by the metropolitan council. It is the ultimate approving body of the city's budget. Actions in the conference require votes of at least two-thirds of comunes in the metropolitan city and the majority of overall resident population. The conference is composed of all mayors of the communes within the metropolitan city.

Functions

Metropolitan cities carry out the basic functions of a

. However, particular functions that devolved to them include but are not limited to: * local planning and zoning; * provision of local police services; * transport and city services coordination.

Metropolitan cities

References

External links