Piedmont Tours - Piedmont (
Italian: Piemonte, pronounced [pjeˈmonte];
Piedmontese and
Occitan: Piemont;
French: Piémont) is one of the 20 regions of
Italy. It has an area of 25,399 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is
Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the
Occitan Valleys. Franco-Provençal is also spoken by another minority in the alpine heights of the
Province of Turin. The name Piedmont comes from medieval
Latin Pedemontium or Pedemontis, i. e. ad pedem montium, meaning at the foot of the mountains (attested in documents of the end of the
13th century)[1].
Geography
Landscape in Montferrat.
Piedmont is surrounded on three sides by the
Alps, including Monviso (
Mont Vis), where the Po rises, and
Monte Rosa. It borders
France,
Switzerland and the
Italian regions of Lombardy,
Liguria,
Aosta Valley and for a very small fragment with
Emilia Romagna. The geography of Piedmont is 43.3% mountainous, along with extensive areas of hills (30.3%) and plains (26.4%). Piedmont is the second largest of Italys 20 administrative regions, after
Sicily. It is broadly contiguous with the upper part of the drainage basin of the river Po, which rises from the slopes of Monviso in the west of the region and is Italys largest river. The Po collects all the waters provided within the semicircle of mountains (Alps and
Apennines) which surround the region on three sides. From the highest peaks the land slopes down to hilly areas, (not always, though; sometimes there is a brusque transition from the mountains to the plains) and then to the upper, and then the lower the great
Padan Plain. The boundary between the first and the second is characterised by risorgive, springs typical of the pianura padana which supply fresh water both to the rivers and to a dense network of irrigation canals. The countryside, then, is very varied: one passes from the rugged peaks of the massifs of Monte Rosa and of
Gran Paradiso (national park), to the damp rice paddies of the
Vercellese and Novarese; from the gentle hillsides of the
Langhe and of Montferrat to the plains. The percentage of the territory which is a protected area is 7.6%. There are 56 different national or regional parks. One such park is the
Gran Paradiso National Park (
Grand Paradis).
Enjoy Your Piedmont Tours!
- published: 15 Aug 2014
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