Reggio Calabria - Stretto di Messina

Reggio Calabria is the largest city in Calabria. It has an estimated population of nearly 200,000. Reggio is the oldest city in the region, and during ancient times, it was an important and flourishing colony of Magna Graecia. It is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina. Today Reggio has a modern urban system, set up after the catastrophic earthquake of 1908, which destroyed most of the city. The seismicity is caused by Reggio being on the Eurasian Plate near the faultline where it meets the African Plate that runs through the strait, dividing the two European regions of Calabria and Sicily into two different tectonic regions.


Reggio, located opposite Messina, always had strategic importance. Invasions by the Vandals, the Lombards, and the Goths occurred in the 5th–6th centuries. Then, under Byzantine rule, it became a metropolis of Byzantine possessions in Italy. Until the 15th century, Reggio was one of the most important Greek-rite Bishoprics in Italy. The Arabs occupied Reggio in 918. For brief periods in the 10th–11th centuries, the city was ruled by the Arabs and it became part of the Emirate of Sicily. In 1005, a Christian fleet coming from Pisa sacked the city and massacred all the Saracens to the great jubilation of the local population. In 1060 the Normans, under Robert Guiscard and Roger I of Sicily, captured Reggio. In 1194 Reggio and the whole of southern Italy went to the Hohenstaufen, who held it until 1266. In 1234 the town fair was established by decree of King Frederick II.


Mount Etna is located on the Island of Sicily. Here the volcano is seen from Reggio Calabria in clear weather. In between the narrow Strait of Messina.