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.
Taormina (UK: /ˌtɑːɔːrˈmiːnə/ TAH-or-MEE-nə, US: /-nɑː/ -nah, also /taʊərˈ-/, Italian: [ta.orˈmiːna]; Sicilian: Taurmina) is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina, on the east coast of the island of Sicily, Italy. Taormina has been a tourist destination since the 19th century. Its beaches on the Ionian Sea, including that of Isola Bella, are accessible via an aerial tramway built in 1992, and via highways from Messina in the north and Catania in the south.
Messina (/mɛˈsiːnə/ mess-EE-nə, US also /mɪˈ-/ miss-; Italian: [mesˈsiːna] ; Sicilian: Missina [mɪsˈsiːna]; Greek: Μεσσήνη) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 216,918 inhabitants in the city proper and 595,948 in the metropolitan city as of 2025. It is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina and it is an important access terminal to Calabria region, Villa San Giovanni, Reggio Calabria on the mainland.
Founded by the Sicels with the name of Zancle in 757 BC, which in their language meant sickle, it was repopulated by Greek colonists of Magna Graecia and renamed Messana. The city was renamed Messina in the Byzantine age. It was an important Roman, and then Greek-Byzantine city, but in 843 it was completely destroyed by the Arabs. Almost abandoned during the Islamic period, it rose again in the Norman era and reached the height of its grandeur between the late Middle Ages and the mid-17th century, when it competed with Palermo for the role of capital of the Kingdom of Sicily.
Eastern Sicily (Italian: Sicilia orientale) is an area formed by the territories of Sicily on the Ionian and Eastern Tyrrhenian coast of the isle, namely the provinces and metropolitan cities of Messina, Catania, Siracusa and Ragusa.
Eastern Sicily was originally settled by the tribe of the Sicels during the island's prehistory, and later on it was taken over by the Greeks.
Rometta (Sicilian: Ramietta) is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina in the Italian region Sicily, located about 180 kilometres (110 mi) east of Palermo and about 12 kilometres (7 mi) west of Messina. It was the last bastion of Sicily controlled by the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), and falling only in 965 to the Kalbids' Muslim army in the Siege of Rometta.
Rometta borders the following municipalities: Messina, Monforte San Giorgio, Roccavaldina, Saponara, Venetico, Spadafora.
The province of Messina (Italian: provincia di Messina; Sicilian: pruvincia di Missina) was a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily, Italy. Its capital was the city of Messina. It was replaced by the Metropolitan City of Messina.
Fondachelli-Fantina (Gallo-Italic of Sicily: Funnaghellu) is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina, Sicily, southern Italy. Situated between Novara and Francavilla di Sicilia, in the southern Peloritani mountains, it is 604 metres (1,982 ft) above sea level. The community borders the municipalities of Antillo and Rodì Milici. The most populated villages are Rubino, Evangelisti, Chiesa, Figheri and Fantina. It is 73 kilometres (45 mi) from Messina.
Lipari (/ˈlɪpəri/ LIP-ər-ee, Italian: [ˈliːpari]; Sicilian: Lìpari; Latin: Lipara or Meligūnis; Ancient Greek: Μελιγουνίς, romanized: Meligounís, or Λιπάρα, Lipára) is the largest of the seven Aeolian Islands, located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, Southern Italy, and a comune (municipality) including six of them (Lipari, Vulcano, Panarea, Stromboli, Filicudi and Alicudi); it is administratively part of the Metropolitan City of Messina. It has 12,793 permanent residents, but during the May to September tourist season, the total population may reach up to 20,000. It is also the name of the biggest island in the archipelago, where the main urban area of the comune is located.
Christopher Nolan shot his upcoming 2026 film The Odyssey throughout the Aeolian Islands and particularly around the island of Lipari, cited by its ancient name of Aeolia after Homer.
Milazzo (Sicilian: Milazzu; Latin: Mylae; Ancient Greek: Μύλαι, romanized: Mýlai) is a municipality (comune) in the Metropolitan City of Messina, Sicily, southern Italy. It is the largest municipality in the Metropolitan City after Messina and Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto. The town has a population of around 31,500 inhabitants.
Founded by the ancient Greeks around 716 BC and part of Magna Graecia and recognised as a Roman civitas since 36 BC, the city was also at the centre of history during the First Punic War (260 BC), and in July 1860 with the arrival of the red shirts in the battle of Milazzo during the Expedition of the Thousand, an event of the unification of Italy.