Second-largest city in Italy
About Milan
Milan is the regional capital of Lombardy, in northern Italy, and the seat of the Metropolitan City of Milan. It is the second-most populous city in Italy after Rome, with a population of 1,362,863 in 2026. The city's wider metropolitan area is the largest in Italy, and the fourth-largest in the European Union, with an estimated population of 6.55 million. Milan is considered Italy's economic capital, and its metropolitan area accounts for about 20% of the country's GDP.
Etymology
Milan was founded with the Celtic name of Medhelanon, later Latinized by the ancient Romans into Mediolanum. In Celtic language medhe- meant "middle, center" and the name element -lanon is the Celtic equivalent of Latin -planum "plain", meant "(settlement) in the midst of the plain", or of "place between watercourses" (Celtic medhe = "in the middle, central"; land or lan = "land"), given the presence of the Olona, Lambro, Seveso rivers and the Nirone and Pudiga streams. The Latin name Mediolanum comes from the Latin words medio (in the middle) and planus (plain). 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. …
History
Around 590 BC a Celtic tribe belonging to the Insubres group and belonging to the Golasecca culture settled the city under the name Medhelanon. According to the legend reported by Livy (writing between 27 and 9 BC), the Gaulish king Ambicatus sent his nephew Bellovesus into northern Italy at the head of a party drawn from various Gaulish tribes; Bellovesus allegedly founded the settlement in the times of the Roman monarchy, during the reign of Tarquinius Priscus. Tarquin is traditionally recorded as reigning from 616 to 579 BC, according to ancient Roman historian Titus Livy. Medhelanon, in particular, was developed around a sanctuary, which was the oldest area of the village. The sanctuary, which consisted of a wooded area in the shape of an ellipse with a central clearing, was aligned according to precise astronomical points. …
Geography
Milan is located in the north-western section of the Po Valley, approximately halfway between the river Po to the south and the foothills of the Alps with the great lakes (Como, Maggiore, and Lugano) to the north, the Ticino river to the west and the Adda to the east. The city's land is flat and the elevation is relatively low; its highest point is 122 m (400 ft) above sea level. The administrative comune, or city proper, covers an area of about 181 square kilometres (70 sq mi), with a population, in 2025, of 1,366,155 and a population density of 7,520 inhabitants per square kilometre (19,500/sq mi). Milan's continuous urban area extends beyond the city limits. …
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