Milan

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(disambiguation).

Milan

Milano  (Italian)

Comune

Comune di Milano

Clockwise from top: Porta Nuova, Sforza Castle, La Scala, Galleria

Vittorio Emanuele II, Milano Centrale railway station, Arch of
Peace and Milan Cathedral.

Flag
 Coat of arms

Milan

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Coordinates:  45°28′01″N 09°11′24″ECoordinates:  45°28′01″N 0

9°11′24″E

Country  Italy

Region Lombardy

Metro Milan (MI)

Government

 • Type Strong Mayor–Council

 • Mayor Giuseppe Sala

 • Legislature Milan City Council

Area

 • Comune 181.76 km2 (70.18 sq mi)

Elevation 120 m (390 ft)

 Population

 (February 28, 2020)[1]

 • Comune 1,399,860

 • Density 7,700/km2 (20,000/sq mi)

 • Metro 4,336,121

[2]

Demonym(s) Milanese
Meneghino[3]

Area code(s) 0039 02

Website www.comune.milano.it

Milan (/mɪˈlæn/, US also /mɪˈlɑːn/,[4] Milanese: [miˈlãː] ( listen); Italian: Milano [miˈlaːno] (
listen))[5] is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city
in Italy after Rome. Milan served as the capital of the Western Roman Empire,
the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia. The city proper has a
population of about 1.4 million[6] while its metropolitan city has 3.26 million inhabitants.
[7]
 Its continuously built-up urban area, that stretches well beyond the boundaries of the
administrative metropolitan city, is the fourth largest in the EU with 5.27 million
inhabitants.[8] The population within the wider Milan metropolitan area, also known
as Greater Milan, is estimated at 8.2 million, making it by far the largest metropolitan
area in Italy and the 3rd largest in the EU.[9][10]
Milan is considered a leading alpha global city,[11] with strengths in the fields
of art, commerce, design, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, 
services, research and tourism. Its business district hosts Italy's stock
exchange (Italian: Borsa Italiana), and the headquarters of national and international
banks and companies. In terms of GDP, it has the second-largest economy among EU
cities after Paris, and is the wealthiest among EU non-capital cities. [12][13] Milan is viewed
as part of the Blue Banana and one of the "Four Motors for Europe".
The city has been recognized as one of the world's four fashion capitals[14] thanks to
several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan
Furniture Fair, which are currently among the world's biggest in terms of revenue,
visitors and growth.[15][16][17] It hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015. The city
hosts numerous cultural institutions, academies and universities, with 11% of the
national total of enrolled students. [18] Milan is the destination of 8 million overseas[citation
needed]
 visitors every year, attracted by its museums and art galleries that include some of
the most important collections in the world, including major works by Leonardo da Vinci.
The city is served by many luxury hotels and is the fifth-most starred in the world
by Michelin Guide.[19] The city is home to two of Europe's most successful football
teams, A.C. Milan and F.C. Internazionale, and one of Europe's main basketball
teams, Olimpia Milano. Milan will host the 2026 Winter Olympics together with Cortina
d'Ampezzo.
 Contents

Toponymy[edit]

Ruins of Roman Mediolanum: the Imperial palace.

Bas relief representing the scrofa semilanuta on the walls of Palazzo della Ragione.

The etymology of the name Milan (Lombard: Milan [miˈlãː]) remains uncertain. One

theory holds that the Latin name Mediolanum comes from the Latin words medio (in the
middle) and planus (plain).[20] However, some scholars believe that lanum comes from
the Celtic root lan, meaning an enclosure or demarcated territory (source of
the Welsh word llan, meaning "a sanctuary or church", ultimately cognate to
English/German Land) in which Celtic communities used to build shrines.
[21]
 Hence Mediolanum could signify the central town or sanctuary of a Celtic tribe.
Indeed, about sixty Gallo-Roman sites in France bore the name "Mediolanum", for
example: Saintes (Mediolanum Santonum) and Évreux (Mediolanum Aulercorum).[22] In
addition, another theory links the name to the boar sow (the Scrofa semilanuta) an
ancient emblem of the city, fancifully accounted for in Andrea
Alciato's Emblemata (1584), beneath a woodcut of the first raising of the city walls,
where a boar is seen lifted from the excavation, and the etymology of Mediolanum given
as "half-wool",[23] explained in Latin and in French. According to this theory, the
foundation of Milan is credited to two Celtic peoples, the Bituriges and the Aedui, having
as their emblems a ram and a boar;[24] therefore "The city's symbol is a wool-bearing
boar, an animal of double form, here with sharp bristles, there with sleek wool." [25] Alciato
credits Ambrose for his account.[26]

History[edit]
Main articles: History of Milan and Timeline of Milan
Prehistory and Roman times[edit]

Roman ruins in Milan: the Columns of San Lorenzo.

The remains of the Milan amphitheatre, which can be found inside the archaeological park of the Antiquarium
in Milan.

The Celtic Insubres, the inhabitants of the region of northern Italy called Insubria,

appear to have founded a settlement around 600 BC. According to the legend reported
by Livy (writing between 27 and 9 BC), the Gaulish king Ambicatus sent his
nephew Bellovesus into northern Italy at the head of a party drawn from various Gaulish
tribes; Bellovesus allegedly founded the settlement in the times of the Roman
monarchy, during the reign of Tarquinius Priscus. Tarquin is traditionally recorded as
reigning from 616 to 579 BC, according to ancient Roman historian Titus Livy. [27] During
the Roman Republic, the Romans, led by consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus,
fought the Insubres and captured the settlement in 222 BC. The chief of the Insubres
then submitted to Rome, giving the Romans control of the settlement. [28] They eventually
conquered the entirety of the region, calling the new province "Cisalpine Gaul"
(Latin: Gallia Cisalpina) – "Gaul this side of the Alps" – and may have given the site
its Latinized name of Mediolanum: in Gaulish *medio- meant "middle, center" and the
name element -lanon is the Celtic equivalent of Latin -planum "plain",
thus *Mediolanon (Latinized as Mediolānum) meant "(settlement) in the midst of the
plain".[29][30]
In 286 the Roman Emperor Diocletian moved the capital of the Western Roman
Empire from Rome to Mediolanum.[31]
Diocletian himself chose to reside at Nicomedia in the Eastern Empire, leaving his
colleague Maximian at Milan. Maximian built several gigantic monuments: the
large circus (470 × 85 metres), the thermae or "Baths of Hercules", a large complex of
imperial palaces and other services and buildings of which fewe visible traces remain.
Maximian increased the city area to 375 acres by surrounding it with a new, larger stone
wall (about 4.5 km long) with many 24-sided towers. The monumental area had twin
towers; one included in the convent of San Maurizio Maggiore remains 16.6 m high.
From Mediolanum the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD,
granting tolerance to all religions within the Empire, and thus paving the way
for Christianity to become the dominant religion of Roman Europe. Constantine was in
Mediolanum to celebrate the wedding of his sister to the Eastern Emperor, Licinius. In
402 the Visigoths besieged the city and the Emperor Honorius moved the Imperial
residence to Ravenna.[32] In 452 Attila in his turn besieged Mediolanum, but the real
break with the city's Imperial past came in 539, during the Gothic War, when Uraia (a
nephew of Witiges, formerly King of the Italian Ostrogoths) laid Mediolanum to waste
with great loss of life.[33] The Lombards took Ticinum as their capital in 572 (renaming
it Papia – the modern Pavia), and left early-medieval Milan to the governance of
its archbishops.