- published: 04 Jul 2016
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Associazione Calcio Milan (Italian pronunciation: [assotʃatˈtsjoːne ˈkaltʃo ˈmiːlan]), commonly referred to as A.C. Milan or simply Milan, is a professional Italian football club based in Milan, Lombardy, that plays in Serie A. Milan was founded in 1899 by English lace-maker Herbert Kilpin and businessman Alfred Edwards among others. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 and 1982–83 seasons, in the top flight of Italian football, known as Serie A since 1929–30.
With 18 officially recognised UEFA and FIFA titles, they are the second most successful club in the world in terms of number of international titles, together with Boca Juniors and Real Madrid, and behind Al Ahly with twenty titles. Milan has won a joint record of three Intercontinental Cups and one of its successor, the FIFA Club World Cup. Milan have also won the European Cup/Champions League on seven occasions, second only to Real Madrid. They have also won the UEFA Super Cup a joint record five times and the Cup Winners' Cup twice. Milan has won every major competition in which it has competed, with the exception of the Europa League (in this competition they have lost two semi-finals in 1972 and in 2002). Domestically, with 18 league titles Milan is the joint-second most successful club in Serie A behind Juventus (31 titles), along with local rivals Inter. They have also won the Coppa Italia five times, as well as six Supercoppa Italiana triumphs.
Milan (English /mᵻˈlæn/ or US /məˈlɑːn/;Lombard, Milanese variant: Milan [miˈlã]),Italian: Milano [miˈlaːno]), the second-most populous city in Italy, is the capital of Lombardy. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area (the 5th-largest in the EU) comprises an estimated 5 million people (former Provinces of Milan and Monza-Brianza, with other Comuni included in the former Province of Varese). The enormous suburban sprawl that followed the post-war boom of the 1950s–1960s has resulted in a polycentric metropolitan area, known as Greater Milan, of 7 to 10 million people, stretching over the provinces of Milan, Bergamo, Como, Lecco, Lodi, Monza and Brianza, Pavia, Varese and Novara. The Milan metropolitan region is part of the so-called Blue Banana, the area of Europe with the highest population and industrial density. In terms of GDP, Milan has the third largest economy among EU cities (after London and Paris) and the largest among European non-capital cities.