Italy's oldest town is in the north, not the south
Istat's 2050 projections hand the strongest growth to two Calabrian villages. And around Naples, cradles still outnumber coffins.
Italy's oldest town is not in Calabria. It sits in the Apennines above Piacenza, in Emilia-Romagna. In Farini the average age is 59.7, and in 2025 not a single baby was born there: no cradles, 25 funerals. The old-age index reads 1,053.2, more than ten pensioners for every child under 15. Istat has just published its infographics on how the population is changing, and the familiar account runs like this: Italy is ageing, the south is emptying out, the north holds. Read town by town, the numbers draw a more crooked map.
The big cities are losing residents from their cores. Rome still counts 2,747,290 and leads Italy's most populous municipalities by a wide margin, ahead of Milan and Naples. Yet even in the capital more people die than are born: 15,817 births against 28,890 deaths in 2025, a natural balance of -13,073 in twelve months. The real growth, the kind that reshaped the country, happened elsewhere and seventy years ago. In Fonte Nuova, on Rome's doorstep, the population climbed from 583 in 1951 to 32,787 today, a rise of 5,523.8%, the steepest in the country. Behind it come Ardea, up 2,075.9%, then Pomezia and Ladispoli, all Roman commuter belts. Around Milan the same rush swelled Rozzano and Cesano Boscone. People did not vanish. They moved a few dozen kilometres out. And one stretch of Italy still makes babies: the belt between Naples and Caserta. In Giugliano in Campania births outnumber deaths by 196 in a single year, in Gricignano di Aversa by 89.
Where births still outnumber deaths (natural balance, 2025)
Source: DatiItalia — analysis of Istat data
Population, town by town
Each municipality shaded by number of residents
The projections to 2050 shift the weights again. The towns Istat expects to grow fastest are not the northern metropolises. Top of the list is Castel Gabbiano, 498 souls in the province of Cremona, on course for 1,102 residents, up 121.3%. Just behind come two Calabrian villages. Soriano Calabro, up 117.1%, and San Lucido, on the Cosenza coast, which should rise from 7,411 residents to 15,805. The Calabria that is said to be emptying holds, in the very same tables, the towns set to grow the most. The lead in births sits far from the cliché too: the highest birth rate is not in the south but in Rodengo, in South Tyrol, at 20.1 births per thousand inhabitants, in one of Italy's wealthiest provinces.
The towns with the highest birth rate
Source: DatiItalia — analysis of Istat data
Farini, in Emilia, had not one birth in 2025. Orta di Atella, in Campania, counted 254. Two towns in the same country, the same registry, two opposite directions: the map of population change does not run along the line that divides north from south. It cuts across it.