Quartu Sant'Elena (; ), located four miles East from

Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...

on the ancient Roman road, is a city and ''

comune A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, titl ...

'' in the

Metropolitan City of Cagliari The Metropolitan City of Cagliari (; Sardinian language, Sardinian: ''tzittadi metropolitana de Casteddu'') is a Metropolitan cities of Italy, metropolitan city in Sardinia, Italy. Its capital is the city of Cagliari and includes 17 ''comuni'' ( ...

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. It is the third largest city of Sardinia with a population of 68,108 as of 2025.

History

The city's name comes from its distance to Cagliari (''Quartum miles'',

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for “four miles”), and from the passage there of

St. Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

, mother of emperor Constantine. The first traces of human presence in Quartu are from the Prenuragic, Nuragic and Phoenician period, as attested by findings in Cepola, Geremeas, Is Mortorius and Separassiu localities. Roman findings were found near Sant’Andrea villa, a graveyard at S. Martino and a few tombs at Simbirizzi. In the 11th century AD Sardinia was divided into four Giudicati: Quartu, which included fourteen villas, belonged to the

Giudicato of Cagliari The Judicate of Cagliari (, ) was one of the Sardinian medieval kingdoms, four kingdoms or judicates (''iudicati'', literally "judgeship") into which Sardinia was divided during the Middle Ages. The Judicate of Cagliari occupied the entire southe ...

. In 1066 Quartu was given to Cagliari's archbishop and then went back to Judge Torchitorio II of Cagliari. During the Aragonese rule, Quartu suffered from famines, plague, malaria and continuous raids from

Saracen upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens ''Saracen'' ( ) was a term used both in Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Rom ...

pirates, following the general path of decay of the whole of Sardinia. In 1793 the soldiers of a French fleet landed on the coast of Quartu, with the intention of conquering the whole island; the people of the city, led by Antonio Pisanu, assailed the French and repelled them after a bloody battle. The feudalism started by the Aragonese, led since 1436 by Giovanni de Sena, viscount of Sanluri and baron of Quatru Saint'Elena, ended in 1836 under the baron Pes di Villamarina. In 1956 Quartu Sant’Elena was upgraded to the status of “city” by the

President of Italy The president of Italy, officially titled President of the Italian Republic (), is the head of state of Italy. In that role, the president represents national unity and guarantees that Politics of Italy, Italian politics comply with the Consti ...

Giovanni Gronchi.

Geography

Quartu has a long, shallow coastline. It also looks onto the pond of Molentargius, where flamingos and Sultan roosters nest.

Climate

Demographics

Economy

The economy is based on the tertiary industry. Quartu also produces excellent wines, bread and cakes. Although the city is not extremely big, there are many shopping opportunities:

Carrefour Carrefour Group, S.A. (, ), is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, Essonne, Massy, France. It operates a chain of hypermarkets, grocery stores and convenience stores. By 2024, the group had 14,000 ...

, E. Leclerc-Conad, Iper Pan.

Main sights

There are five churches situated in the city. The most important are the churches of ''Sant'Elena Imperatrice'' (dating before 1589, but now in neoclassical style and recently proclaimed "

Basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

"), ''Santa Maria Cepola'' (before 1089) and ''Sant'Agata''. There is also ''Sa dom’e farra'', a large peasant house of the 17th century with various rooms, objects and tools used by the peasant society. There are numerous '' nuraghi'' in the vicinity.

Festivities

The most important religious festivity is dedicated to Saint Helena and is celebrated on 14 September.

Sport

Quartu Sant'Elena has a 16,500-capacity football stadium, the Stadio Is Arenas. In the 2012–13 season, it hosted

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

club

Cagliari Calcio Cagliari Calcio, commonly referred to as Cagliari (), is an Football in Italy, Italian football club based in Cagliari, Sardinia, that plays in Serie A, the first tier of Italian football. The club currently plays home matches at the 16,416-sea ...

, whose Stadio Sant'Elia was closed that year. Quartu Sant'Elena has also a 500-capacity Marina, Marina di Capitana, with a sailing school, Scuola Italia in Vela.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quartu Sant'elena Cities and towns in Sardinia