Reggio Calabria, also known as Reggio di Calabria and often simply as Reggio, is the largest city in Calabria as well as the seat of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria. As of 2026, with a population of 167,925, it is the 22nd most populous city in Italy, after Reggio Emilia. Reggio Calabria is located near the center of the Mediterranean and is known for its climate, and ethnic and cultural diversity. It is the third economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. About 511,935 people live in its metropolitan area.
Reggio is located on the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula and is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina. It is situated on the slopes of the Aspromonte, a long, craggy mountain range that runs up through the centre of the region.
As a major functional pole in the region, it has strong historical, cultural and economic ties with the city of Messina, which lies across the strait in Sicily, forming a metro city of less than 1 million people.
Reggio is the oldest city in the region, and during ancient times, it was an important and flourishing colony of Magna Graecia. Reggio has a modern urban system, set up after the catastrophic earthquake of 1908, which destroyed most of the city. Before that seismic event, the region had been subject to several other previous earthquakes. The seismicity is caused by Reggio being on the Eurasian Plate near the faultline where it meets the African Plate that runs through the strait, dividing the two European regions of Calabria and Sicily into two different tectonic regions.
It is a major economic centre for regional services and transport on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Reggio, with Naples and Taranto, is home to one of the most important archaeological museums, the National Archaeological Museum of Magna Græcia, dedicated to Ancient Greece (which houses the Bronzes of Riace, rare example of Greek bronze sculpture, which became one of the symbols of the city). Reggio is the seat, since 1907, of the Archeological Superintendence of Bruttium and Lucania. The city is home to football club Reggina, which previously played in the Italian top flight.
The city centre, consisting primarily of Liberty buildings, has a linear development along the coast with parallel streets, and the promenade is dotted with rare magnolias and exotic palms. Reggio has several commonly used nicknames: The "City of Bronzes", after the Bronzes of Riace that are testimonials of its Greek origins; the "City of bergamot", which is exclusively cultivated in the region; and the "City of Fatamorgana", an optical phenomenon visible in Italy only from the Reggio seaside.
Etymology
During its 3,500-year history Reggio has often been renamed. Each name corresponds with the city's major historical phases:
- Erythra (Greek for 'red'), allegedly the name of the pre-Greek settlement.
- Rhegion (Ῥήγιον), the Greek city from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BC.
- Phoibeia (after Apollo), a short period under Dionysius II of Syracuse, in the 4th century BC.
- Regium or Rhegium, its first Latin name, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.
- Rhegium Julii (Reggio Giulia), during the Roman Imperial period.
- Riyyu, Arabic name under the short domination by Emirate of Sicily, between 10th and 11th centuries.
- Rìsa, under the Normans, between the 11th and 12th centuries.
- Regols, Catalan name under the Crown of Aragon, in the late 13th century.
- Reggio or Regio, usual Italian name in the Middle and Modern age.
- Reggio di Calàbria, post Italian Unification (to be distinguished from Reggio di Lombardia or di Modena – located in northern Italy – which was renamed Reggio nell'Emilia).
The toponym of the city might derive from an Italic word rec (meaning 'king', cognate with Latin rex). Ancient Greek and Roman etymologists derived it from the Greek regnynai (ῥηγνυναι, 'break'), referring to a mythic earthquake in which Sicily was broken off from the Italian mainland.
History
Ancient times
The history of the area before the arrival of the Greeks in the eighth century BC is not reliably known. Mythical accounts record a series of different peoples in the region, including the Osci (sometimes referred to as Opici), Trojans, Oenotrians, Ligures, Ausones, Mamertines, Taureani, Sicels, Morgetes and Itali. They also claim that the land around Reggio was first known as Saturnia, or Neptunia. The term 'Italia' initially referred to the area around Reggio itself, before expanding to cover present-day southern Calabria (later known as Bruttium), and finally becoming the name of the whole Italian peninsula around the third century BC. Allegedly, the name derives from king Italus, an Oenotrian king of the region.
After Cumae, Reggio was one of the first Greek colonies in southern Italy. The colony was settled by the inhabitants of Chalcis in 730 or 743 BC on the site of the older settlement, Erythra (Ερυθρά), meaning 'red'. The legendary founder of the city was King Iocastus, son of Aeolus, who was later said to be buried on the Punta Calamizzi promontory (called "Pallantion") and appeared on the city's coinage. The colony retained the name of "Rhegion" (Ῥήγιον). Pseudo-Scylax also writes that it was a Greek city.
Rhegion was one of the most important cities in Magna Graecia, reaching great economic and political power during the 5th and 6th centuries BC under Anaxilas, who reigned as tyrant from 494 to 476 BC. Anaxilas conquered Zancle (modern Messina), extending Rhegian control over both shores of the Straits of Messina. He attempted to conquer Locri as well in 477 BC but was rebuffed. When he died in 476 BC, his two sons were too young to rule, so power was held by their regent Micythus. Under his rule, Rhegion founded a colony, Pyxous (modern Policastro Bussentino) in Campania in 471 BC. Hieron I of Syracuse orchestrated Micythus' removal from power in 467 BC, after which Anaxilas' sons ruled on their own until they were deposed in 461 BC. During the Peloponnesian War, Rhegion allied with Athens. An Athenian inscription (IG I3 53) reports a renewal of this alliance in 433 BC. The Athenians supported Rhegion in a war with Locri during the First Sicilian Expedition (427–425 BC). However, when the Athenians launched the much larger Sicilian Expedition of 415–413 BC, Rhegion offered them only limited assistance.
During the Third Sicilian War, Rhegion became hostile to Dionysius I of Syracuse. He attacked the city for the first time in 396 BC, but he was rebuffed. Dionysius destroyed the Rhegian navy in 389 BC, besieged the city again in 388 BC and, when it finally fell in 387 BC, destroyed it. His son, Dionysius II refounded the city as 'Phoebeia' in the 360s BC. When he was expelled from Syracuse in 356 BC, he retained control of Phoebeia, but it was captured by Syracusan forces led by Leptines and Callippus in 351 BC. Rhegion then reverted to its original name.
Throughout classical antiquity Rhegion remained an important maritime and commercial city as well as a cultural centre, as is demonstrated by the presence of academies of art, philosophy, and science, such as the Pythagorean School, and also by its well-known poet Ibycus, the historian Ippys, the musicologist Glaucus, and the sculptors Pythagoras and Clearchus.
Rhegion made an alliance with the Roman Republic in 282 BC, shortly before the Pyrrhic War. The Legio Campana, under the command of Decius Vibellus, was installed as a garrison but subsequently launched a violent coup and seized control of the city. Roman forces deposed Decius and restored the city's independence in 271 BC. Thereafter, Rhegium was an important ally of Rome, with the status of municipium and socia navalis (naval ally). It retained its Greek customs and language, as well as its mint. It was a central pivot for both maritime and mainland traffic, reached by the final part of the Via Popilia, which was built in the 2nd century BC and joined the older Via Appia at Capua, south of Rome. Close to Rhegion, on the Straits of Messina, was the busy port of Columna Rhegina. Under the Emperor Augustus, the city was renamed Rhegium Juli in honour of the emperor's adoptive father Julius Caesar and was the seat of the corrēctor (governor) of "Regio III Lucania et Bruttii" (the southernmost of the eleven regiones into which Italy was divided). In AD 61 the apostle St. Paul passed through Rhegium on his final voyage towards Rome, converting the first local Christians and, according to tradition, laying the foundations of the Christianization of Bruttium.
Rhegium boasted in imperial times nine thermal baths, one of which is still visible today on the sea-front. Due to its seismic activity, the area was often damaged by earthquakes, such as in 91 BC, AD 17, 305 and 374.
Middle Ages
Numerous occupying armies came to Reggio during the early Middle Ages due to the city's strategic importance.
Invasions by the Vandals, the Lombards and the Goths occurred in the 5th–6th centuries. Then, under Byzantine rule, it became a metropolis of the Byzantine possessions in Italy and was also the capital of the Duchy of Calabria several times between 536 and 1060 AD. Following wars between the Lombards and Byzantines in the 6th century, Bruttium was renamed Calabria.
As a Byzantine centre of culture, certain monks there undertook scribal work, carrying out the transcription of ancient classical works. Until the 15th century, Reggio was one of the most important Greek-rite Bishoprics in Italy—even today Greek words are used and are recognisable in local speech and Byzantine terms can be found in local liturgy, in religious icons and even in local recipes. During this period, constant migrations of Greeks fleeing the Slavic invasion of Peloponnese, further strengthened the Hellenic element of the city. During this period, the Byzantines decided to move the cultivation of mulberry trees and the breeding of silkworms from Syria (constantly under threat) to Reggio, which would later prove important for the economy of Reggio and for the entire empire.
The Arabs occupied Reggio in 918 and held some of its inhabitants to ransom or kept them prisoners as slaves. For brief periods in the 10th–11th centuries the city was ruled by the Arabs and, renamed Rivàh (or sometimes Rŷu), became part of the Emirate of Sicily. During the period of Arab rule various beneficial ideas were introduced into Calabria, such as citrus fruit trees, and several ways of cooking local vegetables such as aubergines. The Arabs introduced water ices and ice cream and also greatly improved agricultural and hydraulic techniques for irrigation.
In 1005, a Christian fleet coming from Pisa sacked the city and massacred all the Saracens to the great jubilation of the local population. The city was once again taken by the Byzantines, who made it the administrative center of southern Italy with the title of capital of the Duchy of Calabria, and Reggio became prosperous and very populous again.
In 1060, the Normans seized it permanently from the Eastern Roman Empire, gradually bringing it into the Latin cultural sphere under the influence of the Papacy, which sought to extend its power over the entire peninsula.
In 1122, hostilities arose between Roger II, Count of Sicily, and his cousin William II, the new Duke of Calabria, culminating in a conflict that was resolved only through the intervention of Pope Callixtus II. In 1121, the Pope succeeded in reconciling the two rivals by securing an agreement whereby the Count of Sicily would provide his cousin with a cavalry squadron to suppress the revolt led by Giordano, Count of Ariano. In exchange, William renounced his possessions in Sicily and Calabria. Roger II, already Prince of Salerno, then travelled to Reggio, where he was recognized as Duke of Calabria and Apulia, Count of Sicily, and sovereign over Amalfi and Gaeta, parts of Naples, as well as Taranto, Capua, and the Abruzzi. When Roger II was crowned King of Sicily in 1131, he transferred his seat from Reggio to Palermo, although Reggio remained the capital of the Justiciarate of Calabria. In 1234 the town fair was established by decree of King Frederick II. Following Norman rule, the city experienced the alternating dominion of the Angevin and the Aragonese, yet it consistently remained the capital and principal center of the Calabrian territories.
From 1266 it was ruled by the Angevins, under whom life in Calabria deteriorated because of their tendency to accumulate wealth in their capital, Naples, leaving Calabria in the power of local barons. In 1282, during the Sicilian Vespers, Reggio rallied in support of Messina and the other oriental Sicily cities because of the shared history, commercial and cultural interests. From 1147 to 1443 and again from 1465 to 1582, Reggio was the capital of the Calabrian Giustizierato. It supported the Aragonese forces against the House of Anjou. In the 14th century it obtained new administrative powers. In 1459, the Aragonese enlarged its medieval castle.
Reggio, throughout the Middle Ages, was first an important centre of calligraphy and then of printing after its invention. It boasts the first dated, printed edition of a Hebrew text, a Rashi commentary on the Pentateuch, printed in 1475 in La Giudecca of Reggio, even though scholars consider Rome as the city where Hebrew printing began. The Jewish community of Reggio was also considered to be among the foremost internationally, for the dyeing and the trading of silk: silk woven in Reggio was esteemed and bought by the Spaniards, the Genoese, the Dutch, the English and the Venetians, as it was recognised as the best silk in the Kingdom of Naples.
Early modern period
From the early 16th century, the Kingdom of Naples was under the Habsburgs of Spain, who put Reggio under a viceroy from 1504 to 1713. The 16th and 17th centuries were an age of decay due to high Spanish taxes, pestilence, the 1562 earthquake, and the Ottoman Turkish invasions suffered by Reggio between 1534 and 1594. In 1534, facing attack by an Ottoman fleet under Hayreddin Barbarossa, the townspeople abandoned Reggio. Barbarossa captured eight hundred of those who remained and then burned the town. After Barbary pirates attacked Reggio in 1558, they took most of its inhabitants as slaves to Tripoli.
In 1714, southern Italy became once more property of the Austrian Habsburgs, who remained until 1734, when they were replaced by the Bourbons of Spain. Reggio was the capital of Calabria Ulteriore Prima from 1759 to 1860. In 1783, a disastrous earthquake damaged Reggio, all of southern Calabria and Messina.