Discover Lazio

Lazio is a region of west-central Italy stretching from the Tyrrhenian coast to the ridges of the central Apennines, organized into five provinces: Roma, Frosinone, Latina, Rieti, and Viterbo. Its capital, Rome, is also the capital of Italy, and the city's gravity shapes much of how the region is perceived from outside. Away from Rome, Lazio has its own layered identity, built from volcanic lake districts, Etruscan cities older than Rome itself, and a coastline and interior that developed largely independent of the capital's political history.

Before Rome existed as a city, this land belonged to the Latin peoples who gave the region its name, and to the Etruscans, whose civilization dominated much of central Italy in the first millennium BCE. The Etruscan necropolises at Cerveteri and Tarquinia, both inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2004, preserve a scale and detail of pre-Roman life -- painted tomb chambers, street-planned burial cities -- found nowhere else in the Mediterranean.

The region's geography is defined by a chain of volcanic craters: the Alban Hills south of Rome, now filled by Lake Albano and Lake Nemi, and the larger Lake Bolsena and Lake Bracciano further north and west. These lake districts, along with the Apennine interior and the long Tyrrhenian shoreline, give Lazio a physical variety that the popular image of Rome alone does not suggest.

Two UNESCO sites near Tivoli, Hadrian's Villa and the Renaissance gardens of Villa d'Este, and the excavated port city of Ostia Antica at the mouth of the Tiber, extend Lazio's historical record well past the reach of Rome's own city limits. Understanding the region means understanding how much of it exists on its own terms, only some of the time in relation to its capital.

How big is Lazio, and how many people live there? 17,232 square kilometres, with 5,709,339 inhabitants. It is Italy's second most populated region after Lombardy, and ninth by area.

When was the region created? It was established in 1948 and became operative in 1970. Its capital is Rome, which is also the capital of Italy.

What does it border? Tuscany to the north-west, Umbria to the north, the Marche and Abruzzo to the north-east, Molise and Campania to the south-east, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the south-west. Vatican City is a small enclave inside it.

Where does the name come from? From the Latin Latium, the region of the Latins. A major modern etymology derives it from latus, meaning wide — the idea of flat land, the Roman Campagna.

Was ancient Latium the same as modern Lazio? No. In remote antiquity it covered only a limited part of the present region, between the lower Tiber, the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Monti Sabini and the Pontine Marshes. It later expanded into the lands of the Samnites, Marsi, Hernici, Aequi, Aurunci and Volsci, and was divided into Latium Vetus and Latium Novum.

What is the terrain like? Predominantly hill: 54% hill, 26% mountain, 20% plain, with the plains mostly near the coast.

What is the highest point? Monte Gorzano, 2,458 metres, in the Monti della Laga.

Why are there so many lakes? They are volcanic. The Monti Volsini, Cimini and Sabatini each hold one — Bolsena, Vico and Bracciano — and the Colli Albani hold the lakes of Albano and Nemi.

Which national parks are here? Three reach into the region: Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise; Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga; and Circeo, which is the only one lying entirely within Lazio.

What are Lazio's UNESCO World Heritage sites? The historic centre of Rome with the Holy See's extraterritorial properties and San Paolo fuori le mura (1980–1990); Villa Adriana and Villa d'Este at Tivoli; the Etruscan necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia (2004); the ancient beech wood of Monte Raschio and the beech wood of Monte Cimino (2017); and the Via Appia, Regina Viarum (2024).

What is the climate like? On the coast, temperatures run between 9–10 °C in January and 24–25 °C in July. Rainfall is low on the northern coast — under 600 mm a year in the Maremma around Montalto di Castro — and around 1,100 mm between Formia and the Campanian border. Inland it is more continental. Rieti is the coldest province, then Viterbo, Frosinone, Rome and Latina.

Where does it rain most? Around Velletri, averaging 2,500 mm a year, and on the massifs along the Abruzzo border — the Simbruini, Cantari and Ernici — which exceed 2,000 mm.

Is dialect still spoken? Less and less, especially in metropolitan Rome, where a regional variant of Italian has replaced it. Dialects hold on in the other provinces, where the capital's linguistic pull is weaker.