Vibo Valentia is a town and comune (municipality) in the Calabria region of southern Italy, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital of the Vibo Valentia province, and is an agricultural, commercial and tourist center (the most famous places are Tropea, Ricadi and Pizzo). There are also many important manifacturing industries, and here there is the tuna district of Maierato. Very important for the local economy is the Vibo Marina's harbour. Its population according to the 2001 census was 33,957. In Italy, the 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 or municipality. ... Calabria, formerly Brutium, is a region in southern Italy which occupies the toe of the Italian peninsula south of Naples. ... Tyrrhenian Sea. ... Vibo Valentia (It. ... The castle Tropea is a municipality located within the territory of the Province of Vibo Valentia, in Calabria (Italy). ... Ricadi is a municipality located within the Province of Vibo Valentia (license plate is VV), in Calabria the most southern region of the Italian peninsula, lies between the Ionian Sea to east and the Tyrrhenian Sea to west. ... Vibo Marina is a town in the comune (municipality) of Vibo Valentia in the Calabria region of southern Italy, opposite the Tyrrhenian Sea. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... A census is the process of obtaining information about every member of a population (not necessarily a human population). ...

History

Vibo Valentia was originally the Greek colony of Hipponion. It was founded, probably around the late 7th century BC, by inhabitants of Locri, a principal city of the Italian Magna Graecia, located to the west of Vibo Valentia on the Ionian Sea. Diodorus Siculus reports that the city was taken in 388 BC by Dionysius the Elder tyrant of Syracuse, who deported all the population. The population came back in 378 BC, with the help of the Cartaginians. In the following years Hipponion came under the dominion of the Brutti, a barbarian population which controlled most of Calabria. The town became a Roman colony in 194 BC with the name of Vibo Valentia. After a phase of prosperity during the late Republic and early Empire, the town was almost completely abandoned after the fall of the Roman Empire. In 1070 the Normans build a castle at the site of the old Acropolis and in 1235 a new city was established by Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor and king of Sicily, with the name of Monteleone. The city got back the old Roman name of Vibo Valentia only in 1928. In politics and in history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a geographically-distant state (or city, in ancient times). ... (8th century BC - 7th century BC - 6th century BC - other centuries) (700s BC - 690s BC - 680s BC - 670s BC - 660s BC - 650s BC - 640s BC - 630s BC - 620s BC - 610s BC - 600s BC - other decades) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) Events Scythians arrived in Asia Collapse... Locri Epizephyri (epi-Zephyros, under the West wind; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was founded about 680 BC on the Italian shores of the Ionian Sea, near modern Capo Zefirio, by the Locrians, apparently by Opuntii (East Locrians) from the city of Opus, but including Ozolae (West... Map of Magna Graecia Italy. ... The Ionian Sea. ... Diodorus Siculus (ca. ... This page is about Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse. ... Syracuse, Italy Syracuse, New York Syracuse is the name of two major cities in the world. ... Calabria, formerly Brutium, is a region in southern Italy which occupies the toe of the Italian peninsula south of Naples. ... Frederick II (left) meets al-Kamil (right). ...

References

• Official site
• The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press. 2001. [1]
• The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites; Stillwell, Richard. MacDonald, William L. McAlister, Marian Holland. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press. 1976. ISBN 0691035423 [2]

External Links

• ItalianVisits.com