Italy - Naples - Capri Island - 4K (UHD) Ultra High Definition Resolution
Channel: Cities Around The World
Date: 15/08/2023

"Naples", Italian "Naples", ancient (Latin) "Naples" (“New Town”), city, capital of "Naples" provincia, Campania region, southern "Italy". It lies on the west coast of the Italian peninsula, 120 miles (190 km) southeast of Rome. On its celebrated bay—flanked to the west by the smaller Gulf of Pozzuoli and to the southeast by the more extended indentation of the Gulf of Salerno—the city is situated between two areas of volcanic activity: Mount Vesuvius to the east and the Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean Fields) to the northwest. The most recent eruption of Vesuvius occurred in 1944. In 1980 an earthquake damaged "Naples" and its outlying towns, and since then Pozzuoli to the west has been seriously afflicted by bradyseism (a phenomenon involving a fall or rise of land).

"Naples" is located near the midpoint of the arc of hills that, commencing in the north at the promontory of Posillipo and terminating in the south with the Sorrentine peninsula, form the central focus of the Bay of "Naples". To the south of the bay’s entrance to the Tyrrhenian Sea, the island of "Capri" forms a partial breakwater, visible from the city in clear weather and at times of impending storm but increasingly screened by polluted air from the industrial zone developed, since World War II, between central "Naples" and the Vesuvian slopes. Pollution also afflicts the waters of the port, obliging the more scrupulous practitioners of the immemorial Neapolitan fishing industry to withdraw ever farther from their native shore.

While the importance of "Naples" as the principal port of southern Italy is at last in decline, the city remains the centre of the nation’s meridional commerce and culture, beset by inveterate difficulties, and distinguished by an adroit and original spirit that retains many suggestions of the classical past and of assimilated historical experience. Of all the cities of southern "Italy" with Greek origins, "Naples" presents the most striking example of a lively continuity. It is also perhaps the last great metropolis of western Europe whose monuments, albeit often in decay, may still be seen in their popular context, without distractions of tourism or self-conscious commercialism.

Since World War II, during which "Naples" suffered severe bombardment, modernization has increasingly altered the city’s setting and character; and a measure of long-deferred but often speculative prosperity is reflected in new suburbs now proliferating in once-rural surroundings. However, "Naples" remains arcane and compelling, a city whose richness requires from the visitor time, accessibility, and some knowledge of the Neapolitan past. Its historic centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995. Pop. (2022 est.) 914,758; metropolitan area, 3,054,956.

Physical and human geography
The landscape
Description and climate
Generations of observers have described "Naples" as a vast popular theatre, a designation applying as much to the city’s aspect of a tiered arena as to its animated street life. It may also be characterized as an immense presepio, in evocation of the populous scene of the traditional Neapolitan Christmas crèche—the expansive natural setting being countered, within the town itself, by a congested vitality. In the shadow of Vesuvius, within the sweep of the bay, the Neapolitan decor is still predominantly one of moldering palaces in red or ochre and ancient churches in stone or stucco. Although the narrow old streets, teeming and traffic-ridden, clamber up hillsides topped by new constructions, few buildings in central "Naples" as yet rise more than 10 stories. Three fortified castles—two of them on the seafront and one on a central eminence—still define the city’s heart. At the picturesque, pale Castel dell’Ovo, the shoreline divides into two natural crescents.

Layout and architecture
Naples, Suburban "Naples" incorporates the headland of Posillipo, which joins the city at the yachting port of Mergellina—signaled by the church of Santa Maria del Parto. The nearby church of Santa Maria di Piedigrotta, centre of a now-diminished popular festival, is steeply overlooked by a small park encompassing the entrance to the Roman grotto called the Crypta Neapolitana. This poignant place also contains the Roman columbarium known as the Tomb of Virgil, and the sepulchre of the Romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi, who died at "Naples" in 1837.