Administrative Italy is full of surprising geographic records. The country's highest town hall sits at 2,035 metres above sea level; the largest municipality could contain the smallest more than ten thousand times over. In this comparison we explore the extremes of Italian municipal geography: altitude and surface area, from the giants to the pocket-sized.
The Highest Municipalities: Living Above 1,600 Metres
The municipality with the highest town hall in Italy is Sestriere, in the province of Torino, at 2,035 metres: born in the 1930s as a ski resort, it is the only Italian municipality above two thousand metres. Second is Livigno, in Valtellina, at 1,816 metres, followed by Chamois in Valle d'Aosta and Valfurva in Lombardy, both at 1,800 metres. Chamois holds another record: it is the only Italian municipality that cannot be reached by car, only by cable car or on foot.
The top ten continues with Claviere (1,760 metres), Rhêmes-Notre-Dame (1,725), Ayas (1,698), Argentera (1,684), Valgrisenche (1,664) and Livinallongo del Col di Lana (1,645). Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta and Lombardy share almost the entire ranking: Italy's inhabited high altitude is concentrated in the western Alps.
The 10 highest municipalities in Italy
Altitude of the town hall in metres above sea level. Source: ISTAT.
At the Other Extreme: The Municipalities at Sea Level
Dozens of Italian municipalities have their town hall at exactly 0 metres above sea level: from Diano Marina in Liguria to Lizzano in Puglia, via Capaccio Paestum in Campania. Italy's coastal geography, with over 7,500 kilometres of shoreline, makes sea level the starting point for hundreds of town halls.
Between Sestriere's 2,035 metres and the zero of the coasts unfolds the country's entire altimetric range: Italy is among the European states with the widest altitude span between its municipalities.
The Giant Municipalities: Rome Is a World Apart
By surface area, nothing comes close to Roma: 1,287 square kilometres, Italy's largest municipality. To give an idea: the territories of Milano, Napoli, Torino, Palermo, Genova and Bologna combined would fit comfortably within the capital's borders. Second is Ravenna with 654 km², followed by Cerignola in Puglia (594 km²), Sassari (547 km²) and Monreale in Sicily (530 km²).
The ranking of giants blends two types: large cities with vast historical hinterlands (Roma, Ravenna, Sassari) and rural municipalities with enormous territories and modest populations, such as Gubbio (526 km²) and Grosseto (474 km²). What stands out is the number of central-southern municipalities high in the ranking: the municipal grid there is historically much coarser than in the North.
The 10 largest municipalities in Italy
Territorial surface in square kilometres. Source: ISTAT.
The Pocket Municipalities: Atrani and Friends
At the opposite extreme lies Atrani, on the Amalfi Coast: 0.12 square kilometres, that is 12 hectares. It is Italy's smallest municipality by area: Roma is more than ten thousand times larger than Atrani. The second smallest is Miagliano, in the province of Biella, at 0.67 km², followed by Fiorano al Serio, in the province of Bergamo, at 1.06 km².
Atrani is a unique case: a vertical village wedged between sea and rock, where the entire municipal territory is barely larger than a shopping centre. And yet it is a fully fledged municipality, with its own mayor and budget, a few hundred metres from Amalfi.
The Kingdom of High Altitude: Valle d'Aosta and the Western Alps
Extending the ranking beyond the top ten, the dominance of the western Alps becomes overwhelming. Eleventh is La Magdeleine, in Valle d'Aosta, at 1,644 metres; twelfth is Elva, in the province of Cuneo, at 1,637. Valle d'Aosta, Italy's smallest region, alone places five municipalities in the first eleven: Chamois, Rhêmes-Notre-Dame, Ayas, Valgrisenche and La Magdeleine. A concentration without equal: the Dolomites, though higher as mountains, have their inhabited valley floors at lower altitudes, and the first Venetian municipality in the ranking, Livinallongo del Col di Lana, is only tenth.
There is also a correlation with demographics: many of the highest municipalities are also among the smallest. Chamois counts 113 inhabitants, Rhêmes-Notre-Dame just 74, Valgrisenche 193. The exceptions are the big ski resorts: Sestriere and above all Livigno, which thanks to its duty-free status and winter tourism has one of the liveliest economies in the Alpine arc.
The Country's Altimetric Map
The three-dimensional map below shows the population of each municipality with colour tied to density: at a glance you can see how Italians cluster in the plains and along the coasts, leaving the high ground to a network of small mountain municipalities. The highest municipalities in the ranking — Sestriere, Livigno, Chamois — are also among the least populated, while the territorial giants such as Roma and Ravenna dominate the plains and the coast.
Geography and demography, in Italy, go hand in hand: altitude explains depopulation better than almost any other variable, as we saw in the analysis of Italy's smallest municipalities. Want to see where your municipality stands? On DatiItalia you can find altitude, surface area, density and population for all 7,896 municipalities, with rankings filterable by region.
Methodological note: town hall altitude and territorial surface from ISTAT data; population as of 1 January 2025.
Population of municipalities, coloured by density
Height: resident population 2025. Colour: population density (inhabitants per km²). Source: ISTAT.