territory

Liguriais an Italian region of 1,567,339 inhabitants, located in the northwest of the peninsula and which has as its capital the city of Genoa. It is bordered to the south by the Ligurian Sea, in the west it borders with France (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur), to the north by the Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna and south-east of Tuscany.

With its 5420 km ² Liguria is one of the smallest regions of Italy, after Valle d'Aosta and Molise, but it is one of the most densely populated as it hosts more than 1,600,000 inhabitants with a density of 298 inhabitants / km ², very above the national average, ranking fourth after Campania, Lombardy and Lazio, in the relationship between population and land area. Considering the topography of the area and the fact that forests not hold 62.6%, it seems clear, however, that there are significant differences between the population density of the hinterland (in which, however, have occurred depopulation and migration to coastal cities) and that of the coast, which touches 1000 km2.

The region lies between the Ligurian Alps and the Ligurian Apennines and the Ligurian Sea north to south, with an unbroken chain which constitutes a real backbone which is continuing in its development (oriented along two axes: SW / NE and NW / SE encountered a few kilometers west of the center of Genoa), but discontinuous in its morphology, with sections where the ridge Alpine / Apennine is extremely compact and high mountain ranges lining up very high (behind Ventimiglia, a series massive, that after the Second World War have become administratively French, rises up to elevations of 2700-3000 m), while in other sections (eg in the hinterland of Savona and Genoa), the mountain barrier is low-lying and deeply engraved by short transverse valleys and passes that do not come to an altitude of 500m above sea level (Hill of Cadibona, Footstep of Jupiter, Crocetta d'Orero).

The Ligurian Sea, opposite the Italian Riviera, is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Genoa is an important part, and the second largest bay is that of Spezia. In the eastern part of the Gulf of Genoa is the Gulf of Tigullio from Portofino to Sestri Levante.

The coasts are generally high, rocky, jagged, especially in the Riviera di Levante, while to the west is an almost perfect alternation between rocks overlooking the sea and sandy beaches.

The coasts are sometimes interrupted by estuaries of small rivers, often torrential character, which run through the area perpendicular to the coast at the bottom of deep valleys.

Liguria is a region of great tourist attraction for its beautiful natural and anthropogenic, among which - to the west - the Riviera dei Fiori, and - to the east - Portofino, Cinque Terre and Porto Venere.

Liguria has a Mediterranean climate, but not uniformly: it is in fact affected the uneven morphology of its territory largely mountainous, open sea on a very hot compared to its relatively high latitude. The main morphological factors are in fact two: the open arc shape around noon the region and the mountain ridge that develops between the French border and the Tuscan and forms the watershed between the tax side of the Ligurian Sea and the Padano-Adriatico.