Catania is an Italian municipality in Sicily, with 310,247 inhabitants, and the capital of the metropolitan city area.
Heart of an urban agglomeration of about 700,000 residents extended to the south-eastern slopes of Mount Etna, it is the centre of the most densely populated metropolitan area of Sicily, and of a larger conurbation, known as the linear system of eastern Sicily, which has about 1,700,000 inhabitants on an area of 2,400 square kilometres. The city is also the economic and infrastructural hub of the South-East District of Sicily, established on 26 February 2014 in the presence of the then President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano. It is the tenth municipality in Italy by population and the most populous without being the regional capital.

It is Sicily’s main industrial, logistic and commercial centre and is home to the Vincenzo Bellini Airport.

Founded in 729 BC from the Chalcis of the nearby Naxos, the city boasts a thousand-year history characterised by various dominations, the remains of which enrich its artistic, architectural and cultural heritage. Under the Aragonese dynasty it was the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily, and since 1434, at the behest of King Alfonso V it has been the headquarters of the oldest university on the island. In the course of its history it has been affected several times by volcanic eruptions (in historical times, the most impressive was that of 1669) and by earthquakes (the most catastrophic were those of 1169 and 1693).
In 2002, the Baroque architecture of its historic centre was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, together with that of seven municipalities of the Val di Noto (Caltagirone, Militello in Val di Catania, Modica, Noto, Palazzolo Acreide, Ragusa and Scicli).


Available courses in Catania