The largest city in Italy is Rome, with roughly 2.8 million residents, followed by Milan (1.4 million), Naples (0.97 million), Turin (0.87 million), Palermo (0.67 million), Genoa (0.58 million), Bologna (0.39 million), Florence (0.38 million), Bari (0.32 million) and Catania (0.31 million). These figures count the population within each city's official municipal boundaries (the comune), not the wider metropolitan areas, which are considerably larger. Together they form the urban backbone of a country of around 60 million people.
The Ten Largest Italian Cities
Italy's largest cities by municipal population are spread the length of the peninsula and its islands, reflecting a long history of independent city-states rather than a single dominant metropolis:
- Rome – about 2.8 million. The capital and by far the largest city, located on the Tiber River in the central Lazio region.
- Milan – about 1.4 million. The financial and fashion capital, in the northern Lombardy region.
- Naples – about 0.97 million. The largest city in southern Italy, set on a bay beneath Mount Vesuvius.
- Turin – about 0.87 million. An industrial powerhouse in the northwest, home to Fiat.
- Palermo – about 0.67 million. The largest city on the island of Sicily.
- Genoa – about 0.58 million. A major Mediterranean port city on the northwest coast.
- Bologna – about 0.39 million. A university city in the Emilia-Romagna region.
- Florence – about 0.38 million. The cradle of the Renaissance, in Tuscany.
- Bari – about 0.32 million. A port city and gateway to the Adriatic in the southeast.
- Catania – about 0.31 million. Sicily's second city, sitting at the foot of Mount Etna.
Rome: The Capital and Largest City
Rome dwarfs every other Italian city, holding roughly twice the population of Milan within its boundaries. Founded according to tradition in 753 BC, it has been continuously inhabited for well over two and a half thousand years and once governed an empire that stretched from Britain to the Middle East. Today it is the seat of national government, hosts the independent enclave of Vatican City, and draws millions of visitors to landmarks such as the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and St Peter's Basilica. Its sprawling comune is also one of the largest by land area of any major European capital.
North vs South: A Geographic Divide
The list reveals Italy's long-standing economic geography. The wealthy, industrialised north is represented by Milan, Turin, Genoa and Bologna, clustered around the Po Valley and the Alpine foothills. Milan anchors the country's largest metropolitan economy, while Turin built its fortune on automobiles and Genoa on maritime trade. The south, historically poorer, is led by Naples, the third-largest city and the cultural capital of the Mezzogiorno. The two big Sicilian cities, Palermo and Catania, round out the southern presence. This split between a prosperous north and a developing south remains one of the defining features of modern Italy.
City Population vs Metropolitan Area
It is important to note that the rankings above use the comune (municipal) population. Metropolitan areas tell a different story. Greater Milan, for instance, is home to several million people once its surrounding towns are included, making the Milan urban region comparable to or larger than metropolitan Rome by some measures. Naples likewise anchors one of Europe's most densely populated metropolitan zones. Because Italian municipal boundaries vary widely in how much suburban land they enclose, the city-proper ranking and the metro-area ranking do not always agree. You can explore more facts and figures in our italy country guide.
Why Italy Has So Many Mid-Sized Cities
Unlike France or the United Kingdom, which are dominated by a single huge capital, Italy's urban population is spread across many historic centres. This is a legacy of the medieval and Renaissance periods, when independent city-states such as Florence, Genoa, Venice and Milan competed as rival powers, each developing its own commerce, art and architecture. Italy was only unified as a single nation in 1861, relatively late by European standards. As a result, cities like Florence and Bologna punch far above their population weight in cultural and economic influence, and regional identity remains exceptionally strong.
Italy Was a Country of City-States
Italy did not exist as a unified state until 1861, and that single fact explains the shape of this list better than any other. For centuries the peninsula was a patchwork of republics, duchies, kingdoms and papal territory, each with its own capital, currency, dialect and, frequently, army.
Venice, Genoa, Florence, Milan, Naples and Rome were rival powers rather than provincial centres, and each accumulated the palaces, cathedrals and universities of a capital. That is why Italy has no single dominant city in the way France has Paris or Britain has London.
The legacy is administrative as well as architectural. Italy has more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country, and a great many of them are the historic centres of these formerly independent cities.
The North-South Divide Runs Through the Ranking
The questione meridionale, the southern question, has been a live political issue since unification. Northern cities industrialised early around Milan and Turin; the south, the Mezzogiorno, remained agricultural and poorer, and the gap in income and employment persists.
Internal migration from south to north through the 1950s and 1960s was enormous, filling the factories of Milan and Turin with workers from Sicily, Calabria and Campania. Turin in particular became known as the third-largest southern Italian city by population of origin.
Naples and Palermo remain the two largest southern cities, and both have unemployment and youth emigration rates well above the national average. The south's population is now falling as young people leave for the north or abroad.
Rome Is a City Built on Itself
Rome has been continuously inhabited for well over two and a half thousand years, and the archaeological consequence is that the ancient city sits several metres below the modern one. Ground level in the Forum is roughly ten metres lower than the surrounding streets.
That is why the metro system has only three lines in a city of nearly three million: every excavation hits ruins, and construction of Line C has been repeatedly halted by discoveries, including an entire second-century military barracks now incorporated into a station.
The city also contains a sovereign state. Vatican City, at about 49 hectares, is the smallest country in the world by both area and population, and it sits entirely inside Rome's municipal boundary.
Milan Does the Work
Milan is the economic capital and generates a disproportionate share of national output. It holds the stock exchange, the fashion industry, most of the banking sector and the design and publishing trades, and it is the only Italian city with a skyline of recent towers.
Its fashion and furniture weeks are among the largest trade events in the world, and the Salone del Mobile in particular fills the city each April. Leonardo's Last Supper is in Santa Maria delle Grazie, and La Scala remains the most consequential opera house in Italy.
The Lombardy region around it was the hardest hit part of Europe in the first wave of the 2020 pandemic, and Bergamo's experience that March became the defining image of it.
Venice Is Losing Its Residents
Venice does not appear high on this list, and the reason is striking: the historic centre has lost roughly two thirds of its residents since the 1950s, falling from around 175,000 to under 50,000, while receiving upwards of twenty million visitors a year.
Housing has converted to short-term rental, ordinary shops have given way to souvenir trade, and the population decline has been marked in the city by a pharmacy window counting residents downwards. Venice introduced an entry fee for day visitors in 2024, the first city in the world to do so.
The lagoon itself is defended by the MOSE barrier system, a set of mobile flood gates first proposed in the 1980s and finally operational from 2020 after decades of cost overruns and corruption investigations.
Common Questions About Italian Cities
What is the largest city in Italy?
Rome is the largest city in Italy, with a municipal population of approximately 2.8 million people. It is also the national capital.
Is Milan bigger than Rome?
By city-proper population, Rome is larger, with about 2.8 million residents to Milan's 1.4 million. However, the Milan metropolitan area is one of the largest and most economically powerful urban regions in Italy, so the two are often considered rivals in size and importance.
What is the largest city in southern Italy?
Naples is the largest city in southern Italy, with roughly 0.97 million residents. It sits on the Bay of Naples near Mount Vesuvius and is the cultural and economic centre of the south.
How many people live in Italy?
Italy has a total population of approximately 60 million people. A large share of them live in or around the country's major cities, though the population is more evenly distributed than in many other European nations.
Which Italian city has the largest historic centre?
Rome's is the largest and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its entirety, but Genoa, Naples, Florence, Siena and Venice all have listed historic centres too. Italy holds more World Heritage Sites than any other country.