Sottomarina is a coastal town of the province of Venice in the Veneto region of northern Italy, 45°13N 12°18E, occupying a sandbar 5.5 km long and up to 300 meters wide at the southern entrance to the Lagoon of Venice about 25 km south of Venice (50 km by road); a bridge connects it to the comune of Chioggia (q.v.), of which it is a frazione. The population of Sottomarina is about 25,000; with 60 hotels and 17 campgrounds, it is almost entirely given over to seafront tourism, although the old core of the town includes several medieval churches, of brick. Venice (It. ... Veneto is a region in northeastern Italy, bordering on Lombardy, Trentino-South Tyrol, Austria, Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Emilia-Romagna, between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea. ... The Venetian Lagoon The Venetian Lagoon is a lagoon off the Adriatic Sea in which the city of Venice is situated. ... Location within Italy Venice (Italian Venezia), the city of canals, is the capital of the region of Veneto, population 271,663 (census estimate 2004-01-01). ... In Italy, the commune (comune, plural comuni) is the basic administrative unit of both provinces and regions, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township. ... Chioggia is a coastal town in the Veneto region of northern Italy (pop. ... A frazione, in Italy, is the name given in administrative law to a type of territorial subdivision of a comune; for other subdivisions, see municipio, circoscrizione, quartiere: these are the lowest subdivisions of the country. ...

In Antiquity, Sottomarina and Chioggia were referred to as the fossa Clodia; in the Middle Ages, Sottomarina was known as Clugia minor by opposition to Clugia major, Chioggia proper. Sand bars are tenuous, and around the time of the Chioggia War Clugia minor was abandoned, not to be inhabited again in any significant way until the 18th century when a long sea wall of large cut stone blocks, the Murazzo, was built to prevent erosion on the Adriatic side of the bar. The Murazzo can still be seen today, but is now very much inland: in the 1930's the mole of S. Felice was built that delimits the southern end of the Lagoon, and Sottomarina started gaining about 3 meters a year on the sea.

With its twenty thousand inhabitants, Sottomarina is a very large town to be a frazione, and is larger than many comuni, in the Veneto and elsewhere: but though a strong movement is afoot to gain it independence from Chioggia, so far it has not prevailed, despite episodic referendums, the last of which was held in 2001. 2001 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External link

• Bill Thayer's site