Aeolian Islands in the context of "Lipari"

The Metropolitan City of Messina (Italian: città metropolitana di Messina) is a metropolitan city in Sicily, Italy. Its capital is the city of Messina. It replaced the province of Messina and comprises Messina and 107 other comuni (sg.: comune).

It has 595,948 inhabitants as of 2025. According to Eurostat in 2014, the FUA of the metropolitan area of Messina had 277,584 inhabitants. The nearby archipelago of Aeolian Islands is also administratively a part of the Metropolitan City of Messina.

Sicilia (/sɪˈsɪliə/; Classical Latin: [sɪˈkɪ.li.a]; Ancient Greek: Σικελία, romanized: Sikelía) was the first province acquired by the Roman Republic, encompassing the island of Sicily. The western part of the island was brought under Roman control in 241 BC at the conclusion of the First Punic War with Carthage. A praetor was regularly assigned to the island from c. 227 BC. The Kingdom of Syracuse under Hieron II remained an independent ally of Rome until its defeat in 212 BC during the Second Punic War. Thereafter the province included the whole of the island of Sicily, the island of Malta, and the smaller island groups (the Egadi islands, the Lipari islands, Ustica, and Pantelleria).

During the Roman Republic, the island was the main source of grain for the city of Rome. Extraction was heavy, provoking armed uprisings known as the First and Second Servile Wars in the second century BC. In the first century, the Roman governor, Verres, was famously prosecuted for his corruption by Cicero. In the civil wars which brought the Roman Republic to an end, Sicily was controlled by Sextus Pompey in opposition to the Second Triumvirate. When the island finally came under the control of Augustus in 36 BC, it was substantially reorganised, with large Roman colonies being established in several major cities.

The volcanism of Italy is due chiefly to the presence, a short distance to the south, of the boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate. Italy is a volcanically active country, containing the only active volcanoes in mainland Europe (while volcanic islands are also present in Greece, in the volcanic arc of the southern Aegean). The lava erupted by Italy's volcanoes is thought to result from the subduction and melting of one plate below another.

Three main clusters of volcanism exist: a line of volcanic centres running northwest along the central part of the Italian mainland (see: Campanian volcanic arc); a cluster northeast of Sicily in the Aeolian Islands; and a cluster southwest of Sicily around the island of Pantelleria, in the Mediterranean's Strait of Sicily. Sardinia has had a totally separate geological history from that of the rest of Italy, where several cycles of volcanic activity occurred, the last of which ended at the beginning of the Pleistocene, but currently hosts only permanently extinct volcanoes.

Stromboli (/ˈstrɒmbəli/ STROM-bə-lee, Italian: [ˈstromboli]; Sicilian: Struògnuli [ˈʂː(ɽ)wɔɲɲʊlɪ]) is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the north coast of Sicily, containing Mount Stromboli, one of the four active volcanoes in Italy. It is one of the seven Aeolian Islands, a volcanic arc north of Sicily, and the mythological home of Aeolus.

The island, with an area of 12.6 square kilometres (4.9 sq mi), represents the upper third of the volcano. Its population was about 500 as of 2016. The volcano has erupted many times and is constantly active with minor eruptions, often visible from many points on the island and from the surrounding sea, giving rise to the island's nickname "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean".

In Greek mythology, Xuthus (/ˈz(j)uːθəs/; Ancient Greek: Ξοῦθος Xouthos means 'sparrow') may refer to the following characters:

• Xuthus, son of Hellen and father of Ion by Creusa.
• Xuthus, one of the sons of King Aeolus of Aeolian Islands, the keeper of the winds. His mother was named as either Cyane, daughter of Liparus or Telepora (Telepatra), daughter of Laestrygon. Xuthus's siblings were variously given as (1) Agathyrnus, Astyochus, Androcles, Iocastus and Pheraemon; (2) Androcles, Chrysippus, Jocastus, Phalacrus, Pheraemon, Aeole, Astycrateia, Dia, Hephaestia, Iphthe and Periboea; and lastly, (3) Periphas, Agenor, Euchenor, Klymenos, Macareus, Klymene, Kallithyia, Eurygone, Lysidike, Kanake and an unnamed sister. According to various accounts, Aeolus yoked in marriage his sons, including Xuthus, and daughters in order to preserve concord and affection among them. Later on, Xuthus became king of the land in the neighbourhood of Leontini, which is known after him as Xuthia to this day.

Aeolia (Ancient Greek: Αἰολία, romanized: Aiolía), the island kingdom of Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, visited by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. In the Odyssey, Aeolus' Aeolia was a floating island surrounded by "a wall of unbreakable bronze" where the "cliffs run up shear."

Homer does not say anything about where the island was located, but later writers came to associate Aeolia with one or another of the Lipari Islands (also called the Aeolian Islands), north of eastern Sicily. The Greek geographer Strabo reports that Strongyle (modern Stromboli), one of the Lipari Islands, was said to be Aeolus' island. Others associated the island of Lipara (modern Lipari) with Aeolia.

Vulcano (Sicilian: Vurcanu) or Vulcan is a small volcanic island belonging to Italy in the Tyrrhenian Sea, about 20 km (12 mi) north of Sicily and located at the southernmost end of the seven Aeolian Islands. The island is known for its volcanic activity and contains several volcanic calderas, including one of the four active volcanoes in Italy that are not submarine. The English word "volcano", and its equivalent in several European languages, derives from the name of this island, which derives from the Roman belief that the tiny island was the chimney of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. In November 2021, 150 people were evacuated from the island's harbour area due to increased volcanic activity and gases; an amber alert had been issued in October 2021 after several significant changes in the volcano's parameters. In the fall of 2025, volcanic unrest increased again with strong gas emissions reported on October 15, 2025.

Salina (Italian pronunciation: [saˈliːna]) is one of the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily, Southern Italy. It is the second largest island in the archipelago.

Salina is divided between three comuni: Santa Marina on the eastern coast, Malfa to the north, and Leni to the south-west. From Leni down towards the sea is the village of Rinella. Above the village of Leni is Valdichiesa in the center of the island. The other smaller villages are Capo Faro, Pollara and Lingua.