BASILICATA

Provinces - This region has 2 provinces: Matera and Potenza
Chief town - Potenza
Surface - kmq 9.992
National Parks - National Park of Pollino (1923

Reliefs - Passes - Coast - Islands:

To shelter Campania, we find the mountain band of Appennino Campano, while in the oriental part we find the hilly zone that goes down to the sea. The greatest tops are: the Volturino, the Volture, the Sirino Mountain, and the Pollino Mountain on the border of Calabria. The width of the lowland of Basilicata is revolved around the 20-30 kms from the coast, and it is less than a tenth of the territory. It is crossed by the inferior course of some rivers. A long time ago the level area was marshy and unhealthy, as it is almost entirely now. The coasts are along the Ionian Sea, low and uniform, the sandy lines alternate from mouths of rivers to swampy zones and swamps. The western coastal slope, is tall to the contrary, and is often introduced with deep precipices.

The Norman Castle imposes itself
in the landscape of Melfi

Landscape:
A big part of the territory is mountainous and hilly, dug from spacious and sinuous valleys up to where they go down to the brief band of coastal lowland. The mountainous zone introduces each other arid and deprived of vegetation. In the zones of country there are few isolated houses. The urban agglomerations are built very distant the one from the other, often above to the big hills. Even if the Region is bathed from two seas, very great harbors don't exist, as well as no big urban centers.

Agriculture - Stock-farm - Fishing:
Agriculture is the principal economic source, but it produces low incomes. The principal crops are cereals, sugar beets, ulivo, grapevines, citrus fruits and tobacco. Notable is the production of tomatoes, almonds, strawberries, walnut-trees and fig trees. The breeding is constituted in the greatest part from the pastorizia ovina and caprina, of which it is produced a considerable wool quantity and cheese. Numerous are the swines, while the cattle are more scarce.

Industry - Turism:

Old part of Matera

The regional industry is very scarce. There are fittings for the limited workmanship to the local products, agricultural and breeding. In the last times the petrochemical fittings are being developed, after the recovery of some layers of methane in the territory and those of plastic subjects. Numerous are the handicraft activities as those of the ceramicha and of the utensils of wood. The tourism is not an advantageous economic activity. Between the tourist places we remember: the Lakes of Monticchio placed in craters of out volcanos in the Vulture Mountain, the beaches of Maratea and Metaponto and Policoro with its ancient ruins.

Position and Frontier:
The Basilicata finds its confinements to north with Puglia, to east always with Puglia and Ionian Sea, to south with Calabria and to west with the Tyrrhenian Sea and Campania.

Rivers - Lakes:
The rivers are all to torrential character. The principal goes down from the Appennino in the ionic lowland. These are Bradano, Basento, Agri and Sinni. In some zones there are the gravine, zones in which deep waters dig crepaccis spioventi. There are some volcanic lakes such as those of Monticchio and the artificial basins built to regulate the waters of the rivers, for use in the irrigation and in the production of electric energy. The most important basins are that of Bradano, of Agri and of Pertusillo.

Climate:
The climate is continental typically, even if the Region is bathed in the two slopes from the sea; besides being beaten from the southern current heats that dry up little existing humidity.

Polulation:
The Basilicata is one of the least populated regions in Italy in as much as its mountainous territory doesn't facilitate the habitation of man. The dry and unproductive territory has favored the abandonment and the isolation of the Region. Intense emigration tells us that there are more Lucanis in the world than in their own country.

Communication:
The Region possesses three railway lines: two pass next to the coast, while one is crossing the inside part connecting Taranto-Metaponto-power-Naples. The chief town of Matera is the only one in Italy where a railway line doesn't pass. The only highway that grazes the territory is that of the Sun. Some roads were built in the last years and connect a part of the greatest inhabited zones breaking the isolation.