Milan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

"Milano" redirects here. For other uses, see Milano (disambiguation) and Milan (disambiguation).

Milan
Milano

Comune

Comune di Milano

Clockwise from top: Porta Nuova, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, La

Scala, Sforza Castle, CityLife project, Arch of Peace, and Milan

Cathedral

Flag

Coat of arms
Milan

Show map of Italy Show map of Europe

Show all

Location of Milan in Italy

Coordinates: 4528N 0911E45.467N

9.183ECoordinates: 4528N 0911E45.467N 9.183E

Country Italy

Region Lombardy

Province / Metropolitan city Milan

Government

Mayor Giuseppe Sala (PD)

Area

Total 181.76 km2 (70.18 sq mi)

Elevation 120 m (390 ft)

Population (31 December 2016)[1]

Total 1,368,590
 Density 7,500/km2 (20,000/sq mi)

Demonym(s) Milanesi o Meneghini

Time zone CET (UTC+1)

Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)

Postal code 2012120162

Dialing code 02

Patron saint Ambrose

Saint day 7 December

Website Official website

Milan (English: /mln/ or US: /mln/;[2] Italian: Milano [milano] ( listen); Lombard: Milan
[mil] (Milanese variant))[3][4] is the city capital of the Lombardy Region in Northern Italy and is
the 2nd richest city in the European Union after Paris in 2016. It is the second most populous city in
Italy after Rome, with the city proper at 1,369,000,[5] and the Metropolitan City of Milan at
3,219,000.[5] Its geographical outskirt (that stretches beyond the boundaries of the Metropolitan City
of Milan), has a population estimated to be about 5,270,000 in 1,891 square kilometres (730 square
miles),[6] ranking 2nd in the European Union. The wider Milan metropolitan area, popular for
Greater Milan, is a polycentric metropolitan region that comprehends almost every province of
Lombardy, the Piedmont province of Novara, and some parts of the province of Piacenza which
counts an estimated total population of 8,123,020.[7][8][9]

Milan is Italy's main industrial and financial capital and corporation hub home to thousands of the
most important companies worldwide. In terms of GDP, it has the largest economy among
European non-capital cities.[10][11] Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and has now become
the wealthiest city among the economic rivalry "Four Motors for Europe." The city is the capital of
the Lombardy Region which has an economy bigger than the U.S. state of Ohio in 2016.[12]

Milano is currently a leading Alpha Global City,[13] with strengths in the arts, commerce, design,
education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research, and tourism. Its
business district hosts Italy's Stock Exchange and the headquarters of the largest national and
international banks and companies. Its official stock index FTSE MIB is one of the world's most
valued stocks that, for an example, has surpassed the United States' Dow Jones and NASDAQ
indices by 300%.

The city has long been named Fashion Capital of the World and the World's Design capital,
attributed for several multinational events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan
Furniture Fair, which are currently the biggest in terms of revenue and capital growth.[14][15][16] The
city hosts numerous cultural institutions, academies and universities, with 11% of the national total
enrolled students.[17]
Milan's museums have one of the most expensive artifacts in the world. In terms of tourism and
arts, some of its few record-breaking landmarks are in the city center, home to the world's first 7
star hotel Town House Galleria, biggest gothic cathedral Duomo, and one of the leading opera and
ballet theatres in the world, La Scala. Landmarks (including the Milan Cathedral, Sforza Castle and
Leonardo da Vinci paintings such as The Last Supper, a UNESCO World Heritage Site) attract over
11 million visitors and grows by 12.5% each year, which means that Milan welcomes the most
cultural tourists in the world. (data referred to city proper).[18] Milan has one of the highest numbers
of accredited stars from the Michelin Guide in the world.[19] The city hosted the Universal
Exposition in 1906 and 2015. Milan hosts two of Europe's major football teams, A.C. Milan and
F.C. Internazionale, and one of Italy's major basketball teams, Olimpia Milano.

Contents
[hide]

1 Toponymy
2 History
3 Geography
o 3.1 Topography
4 Climate
5 Government
o 5.1 Municipal government
o 5.2 Provincial and regional government
6 Cityscape
o 6.1 Architecture
o 6.2 Parks and gardens
7 Demographics
o 7.1 Ethnic groups
o 7.2 Religion
8 Economy
9 Culture
o 9.1 Museums and art galleries
o 9.2 Music
o 9.3 Fashion and design
o 9.4 Languages and literature
o 9.5 Media
o 9.6 Cuisine
o 9.7 Sport
10 Education
11 Transport
12 International relations
o 12.1 Twin towns sister cities
o 12.2 Other relations
13 See also
14 References
o 14.1 Notes
o 14.2 Bibliography
15 External links

Toponymy[edit]

The etymology of the name Milan (Lombard: Milan [mil]) remains uncertain. One theory holds
that the Latin name Mediolanum comes from the Latin words medio (in the middle) and planus
(plain).[20] However, some scholars believe that lanum comes from the Celtic root lan, meaning an
enclosure or demarcated territory (source of the Welsh word llan, meaning "a sanctuary or church",
ultimately cognate to English/German Land) in which Celtic communities used to build shrines.[21]
Hence Mediolanum could signify the central town or sanctuary of a Celtic tribe. Indeed, about sixty
Gallo-Roman sites in France bore the name "Mediolanum", for example: Saintes (Mediolanum
Santonum) and vreux (Mediolanum Aulercorum).[22] In addition, another theory links the name to
the boar sow (the Scrofa semilanuta) an ancient emblem of the city, fancifully accounted for in
Andrea Alciato's Emblemata (1584), beneath a woodcut of the first raising of the city walls, where a
boar is seen lifted from the excavation, and the etymology of Mediolanum given as "half-wool",[23]
explained in Latin and in French.

The foundation of Milan is credited to two Celtic peoples, the Bituriges and the Aedui, having as
their emblems a ram and a boar;[24] therefore "The city's symbol is a wool-bearing boar, an animal of
double form, here with sharp bristles, there with sleek wool."[25] Alciato credits Ambrose for his
account.[26]

History[edit]
Main articles: History of Milan and Timeline of Milan

The Roman Colonne di San Lorenzo

Around 400 BC, the Celtic Insubres settled Milan and the surrounding region.[27] In 222 BC, the
Romans conquered the settlement, renaming it Mediolanum. Mediolanum (Milan), the Latinized
form of Medhelanon, meaning "sanctuary", was founded by the Insubri Celts in 590 BC. According
to Titus Livy's comments, the city was founded around 600 BC by Belloveso, chief of the Celtic
tribe.

Milan was conquered by the Romans in 222 BC due to its strategic position on the northern borders
of the Empire. When Diocletian decided to divide the Empire in half choosing the Eastern half for
himself, Milan became the residence of Maximian, ruler of the Western Roman Empire.

The beginning of the 5th century was the start of a tortuous period of barbarian invasions for Milan.
After the city was besieged by the Visigoths in 402, the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna.
An age of decadence began which worsened when Attila, King of the Huns, sacked and devastated
the city in 452 AD. In 539, the Ostrogoths conquered and destroyed Milan during the Gothic War
against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. In the summer of 569, a Teutonic tribe, the Lombards (from
which the name of the Italian region Lombardy derives), conquered Milan, overpowering the small
Byzantine army left for its defence. Some Roman structures remained in use in Milan under
Lombard rule.[28] Milan surrendered to Charlemagne and the Franks in 774.

The 11th century saw a reaction against the control of the German emperors. The city-state was
born, an expression of the new political power of the city and its will to fight against all feudal
powers. Milan was no exception. It did not take long, however, for the City States to begin fighting
each other to try to limit neighbouring powers.[29] The Milanese destroyed Lodi and continuously
warred with Pavia, Cremona and Como, who in turn asked the Emperor of Germany, Frederick I
Barbarossa for help. This brought the destruction of much of Milan in 1162. A fire destroyed the
storehouses containing the entire food supply: and within just a few days Milan was forced to
surrender.

The Biscione: the coat of arms of the House of Visconti

A period of peace followed and Milan prospered as a centre of trade due to its position. As a result
of the independence that the Lombard cities gained in the Peace of Constance in 1183, Milan
became a duchy. In 1447 Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, died without a male heir;
following the end of the Visconti line, the Ambrosian Republic was enacted. The Ambrosian
Republic took its name from St. Ambrose, popular patron saint of the city of Milan.[30] Both the
Guelph and the Ghibelline factions worked together to bring about the Ambrosian Republic in
Milan. Nonetheless, the Republic collapsed when, in 1450, Milan was conquered by Francesco
Sforza, of the House of Sforza, which made Milan one of the leading cities of the Italian
Renaissance.[30][31]

The Italian Wars were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most
of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, the Republic of Venice, and later most of the major states
of Western Europe.

The Great Plague of Milan in 162931 killed an estimated 60,000 people out of a population of
130,000. This episode is considered one of the last outbreaks of the centuries-long pandemic of
plague that began with the Black Death.[32]

Napoleon invaded Italy in 1796, and Milan was declared capital of the Cisalpine Republic. Later, he
declared Milan capital of the Kingdom of Italy and was crowned in the Duomo. Once Napoleon's
occupation ended, the Congress of Vienna returned Lombardy, and Milan, along with Veneto, to
Austrian control in 1815.[33] During this period, Milan became a centre of lyric opera. Here in the
1770s Mozart had premiered three operas at the Teatro Regio Ducal. Later La Scala became the
reference theatre in the world, with its premires of Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini and Verdi. Verdi
himself is interred in the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, his present to Milan. In the 19th century
other important theatres were La Cannobiana and the Teatro Carcano.

Episode from the "Five Days"

On 18 March 1848, the Milanese rebelled against Austrian rule, during the so-called "Five Days"
(Italian: Le Cinque Giornate), and Field Marshal Radetzky was forced to withdraw from the city
temporarily. The Kingdom of Sardinia stepped in to help the insurgents; a plebiscite held in
Lombardy decided in favour of unification with Sardinia. However, after defeating the Sardinian
forces at Custoza on 24 July, Radetzky was able to reassert Austrian control over Milan and
northern Italy. A few years on, however, Italian nationalists again called for the removal of Austria
and Italian unification. Sardinia and France formed an alliance and defeated Austria at the Battle of
Solferino in 1859.[34] Following this battle, Milan and the rest of Lombardy were incorporated into
the Kingdom of Sardinia, which soon gained control of most of Italy and in 1861 was rechristened
as the Kingdom of Italy.

The political unification of Italy cemented Milan's commercial dominance over northern Italy. It
also led to a flurry of railway construction that had started under Austrian partronage (Venice
Milan; MilanMonza) that made Milan the rail hub of northern Italy. Thereafter with the opening of
the Gotthard (1881) and Simplon (1906) railway tunnels, Milan became the major South European
rail focus for business and passenger movements e.g. the Simplon Orient Express. Rapid
industrialization and market expansion put Milan at the centre of Italy's leading industrial region,
including extensive stone quarries that have led to much of the air pollution we see today in the
region. In the 1890s Milan was shaken by the Bava-Beccaris massacre, a riot related to a high
inflation rate. Meanwhile, as Milanese banks dominated Italy's financial sphere, the city became the
country's leading financial centre.

In 1919, Benito Mussolini's Blackshirts rallied for the first time in Piazza San Sepolcro and later
began their March on Rome in Milan. During the Second World War Milan suffered extensive
damage from Allied bombings.[35] When Italy surrendered in 1943, German forces occupied most of
Northern Italy until 1945. As a result, resistance groups formed.[36] As the war came to an end, the
American 1st Armored Division advanced on Milan but before they arrived, the resistance seized
control of the city and executed Mussolini along with several members of his government. On 29
April 1945, the corpses of Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci and other Fascist leaders were
hanged in Piazzale Loreto.

Torre Velasca, one of the symbols of the post-war economic boom

During the post-war economic boom, a large wave of internal migration (especially from rural areas
of Southern Italy), moved to Milan. The population grew from 1.3 million in 1951 to 1.7 million in
1967.[37] During this period, Milan was largely reconstructed, with the building of several innovative
and modernist skyscrapers, such as the Torre Velasca and the Pirelli Tower.[38] The economic
prosperity was however overshadowed in the late 1960s and early 1970s during the so-called Years
of Lead, when Milan witnessed an unprecedented wave of street violence, labour strikes and
political terrorism. The apex of this period of turmoil occurred on 12 December 1969, when a bomb
exploded at the National Agrarian Bank in Piazza Fontana, killing seventeen people and injuring
eighty-eight.
In the 1980s, with the international success of Milanese houses (like Armani, Versace and Dolce &
Gabbana), Milan became one of the world's fashion capitals. The city saw also a marked rise in
international tourism, notably from America and Japan, while the stock exchange increased its
market capitalisation more than five-fold.[39] This period led the mass media to nickname the
metropolis "Milano da bere", literally "Milan to drink".[40] However, in the 1990s, Milan was badly
affected by Tangentopoli, a political scandal in which many politicians and businessmen were tried
for corruption. The city was also affected by a severe financial crisis and a steady decline in textiles,
automobile and steel production.[38]

In the early 21st century, Milan underwent a series of sweeping redevelopments. Its exhibition
centre moved to a much larger site in Rho.[41] New business districts such as Porta Nuova and
CityLife [42] were constructed. With the decline in manufacturing, the city has sought to develop on
its other sources of revenue, including publishing, finance, banking, fashion design, information
technology, logistics, transport and tourism.[43] In addition, the city's decades-long population
decline seems to have come to an end in recent years, with signs of recovery as it grew by seven
percent since the last census.