The agriturismo is rural Italy's most successful tourism invention: a model born to supplement farm income that became an international phenomenon, to the point that the word itself, agriturismo, has entered guidebooks worldwide untranslated. But where is this offer really concentrated?
The ISTAT municipal ranking, referring to 2019, the latest year for which the data is available at single-municipality level, draws a precise geography: almost 5,000 Italian municipalities have at least one agriturismo, but the capitals of the sector are few and highly recognisable, split between the Tuscan hills and the farmsteads of South Tyrol.
Grosseto the capital, Tuscany dominates
The national record belongs to Grosseto, with 239 farm stays: the capital of the Maremma outpaces everyone thanks to a vast municipal territory and a farming sector that has made hospitality a second vocation. Second comes Cortona, made world-famous by the book Under the Tuscan Sun, with 142 establishments, and the Tuscan top ten continues with Manciano at 124, San Gimignano with 112 and the Montalcino-Montepulciano pair, both at 111.
It is the snapshot of a model: wine and olive hills, restored farmhouses, an international market seeking the Tuscan landscape as a total experience. In the Maremma, between Grosseto, Manciano and Magliano in Toscana, which adds another 91 establishments, lies one of the highest farm-stay densities on the planet.
The 15 municipalities with the most agriturismo farm stays in Italy
Number of farm stays per municipality, ISTAT data 2019, latest year available at municipal level
The other model: the farmsteads of South Tyrol
The counterpoint to Tuscany is South Tyrol. Castelrotto, at the foot of the Alpe di Siusi, is third in Italy with 141 farm stays, closely followed by Appiano sulla strada del vino with 123 and Caldaro with 111. Further down comes Valle Aurina with 82. Here the model is the maso: family-run mountain farms, supported by a provincial policy that for decades has tied tourism to the survival of high-altitude agriculture.
The third pole is Umbria, with Assisi and Gubbio paired at 98 establishments and Perugia at 88: the more spiritual, less globalised version of the Tuscan hills. Striking, instead, is the absence from the top positions of the great agricultural South: agriturismo as an industry remains primarily a centre-northern phenomenon, despite a southern rural heritage that is second to none.
The capital regions of the agriturismo
Regional distribution of the top 50 Italian municipalities by number of farm stays
Why the geography of agriturismo matters
The regional distribution of the top fifty municipalities shows a clear duopoly: Tuscany and Trentino-Alto Adige share the majority of positions, with Umbria as the third player. It is no accident: these are the regions that first regulated and promoted the sector, and where the agricultural landscape has been protected as an economic asset, not just an aesthetic one.
For the inner areas of the rest of Italy, the lesson is concrete: the agriturismo is one of the few activities able to bring tourism income to territories without beaches or ski lifts. The municipal data, although stopping at 2019, precisely identifies where the model has taken root and where the room for growth remains enormous. On DatiItalia you can explore your municipality's rural tourism figures.