The province of Salerno (Italian: provincia di Salerno) is a province in the Campania region of Italy. It has 1,054,766 inhabitants as of 2025.
The province of Salerno (Italian: provincia di Salerno) is a province in the Campania region of Italy. It has 1,054,766 inhabitants as of 2025.
Salerno (UK: /sæˈlɛərnoʊ/, US: /səˈ-, sɑːˈ-, səˈlɜːrnoʊ/; Italian: [saˈlɛrno] ; Neapolitan: Salierno [saˈljernə]) is an ancient city and comune (municipality) in Campania, southwestern Italy, and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is the second largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, after Naples. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Some of the Allied landings during Operation Avalanche (the invasion of Italy) occurred near Salerno. For a time the city became home to Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy, who moved from Rome in 1943 after Italy negotiated a peace with the Allies in World War II. Salerno thus became the capital of the Kingdom of the South, the seat of the provisional government and Italy's de facto capital for six months. The city has 125,958 inhabitants as of 2025.
Human settlement at Salerno has a rich past dating back to pre-historic times. In the early Middle Ages it was an independent Lombard principality, the Principality of Salerno, which around the 11th century comprised most of Southern Italy. During this time, the Schola Medica Salernitana, the first medical school in the world, was founded. In 1077, the Normans made Salerno the capital of their lands in all of continental southern Italy. In the 16th century, under the Sanseverino family, who were among the most powerful feudal lords in southern Italy, the city became a great centre of learning, culture and the arts, and the family hired several of the greatest intellectuals of the time. Later, in 1694, the city was struck by several catastrophic earthquakes and plagues. During a period of Spanish rule the city suffered a crisis which would last until the 18th century, but under Napoleon Salerno became part of the Parthenopean Republic. In the 19th century Salerno supported ideas of the Risorgimento and welcomed Garibaldi in 1861.
Lucania was a historical region of Southern Italy, named after its native Lucani, an Oscan people. It extended from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. It bordered with Samnium and Campania in the north, Apulia in the east, and Bruttium in the south-west, and was at the tip of the peninsula which is now called Calabria. It comprised almost all the modern region of Basilicata, the southern part of the Province of Salerno (the Cilento area), the western part of Province of Taranto and a northern portion of the Province of Cosenza.
The precise limits were the river Silarus in the north-west, which separated it from Campania, and the Gravina which flows into the Gulf of Taranto in the east. The lower tract of the river Laus, which flows from a ridge of the Apennine Mountains to the Tyrrhenian Sea in an east-west direction, marked part of the border with Bruttium.
Velia was the Roman name of an ancient city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is located near the modern village of Ascea in the Province of Salerno, Italy.
It was founded by Greeks from Phocaea as Hyele (Ancient Greek: Ὑέλη) around 538–535 BCE, which one scholar has suggested may be a feminine form of ὕελος "glass", an Ionic form of the usual ὕαλος. The name later changed to Ele and then Elea (/ˈɛliə/; Ancient Greek: Ἐλέα) before it became known by its current Latin and Italian name during the Roman era.
Cilento (Italian: [tʃiˈlɛnto]) is an Italian mountain range (part of the Lucan Apennines), which gives its name to a geographical region of Campania in the central and southern part of the province of Salerno. Is an important tourist area of southern Italy.
The Sele is a river in southwestern Italy. Originating from the Monti Picentini in Caposele, it flows through the region of Campania, in the provinces of Salerno and Avellino. Its mouth is in the Gulf of Salerno, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, at the borders between the municipalities of Eboli and Capaccio (not too far from Paestum), in the beginning point of Cilentan Coast.
Camerota is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
The Gulf of Salerno (Italian: Golfo di Salerno; Neapolitan: Gurfo 'e Salierno) is a gulf of the Tyrrhenian Sea in the coast of the province of Salerno in south-western Italy.
The northern part of this coast is the Costiera Amalfitana, which ends at Punta Campanella and includes towns like Amalfi, Maiori, Positano and the city of Salerno itself. The gulf also borders Piana del Sele to the east and the Cilento coast, which ends at Punta Licosa, to the south. The distance from Punta Campanella to Punta Licosa is approximately 61 km (38 miles). The surface of the gulf, delimited by the imaginary line that connects Punta Campanella to Punta Licosa and by the coast, is approximately 2,450 km2.
Amalfi (UK: /əˈmælfi/, US: /ɑːˈmɑːlfi/, Italian: [aˈmalfi]) is a town and comune in the province of Salerno, in the region of Campania, Italy, on the Gulf of Salerno. It lies at the mouth of a deep ravine, at the foot of Monte Cerreto (1,315 metres, 4,314 feet), surrounded by dramatic cliffs and coastal scenery. The town of Amalfi was the capital of the maritime republic known as the Duchy of Amalfi, an important trading power in the Mediterranean between 839 and around 1200. It has 4,611 inhabitants.
The town became a popular seaside resort beginning in the Edwardian era, with members of the British upper class spending their winters in Amalfi. Amalfi is included in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The National Archaeological Museum of Paestum (Italian: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Paestum) is a museum in Capaccio-Paestum, Salerno, southern Italy that houses archaeological finds from excavations of the ancient Greek city of Poseidonia/Paistom, then Paestum.The museum is one of the major "on-site" museums in Italy. The different sections that compose it allow the visitor to retrace the history of the Greek, Lucanian and Roman city.
The museum houses numerous archaeological finds originating from the sacred city of Paestum, the Heraion at Foce del Sele, and nearby necropoleis, including the Gaudo necropolis and the Santa Venera necropolis.