Provinces of Italy

The provinces of Italy (Italian: province [proˈvintʃe]; sing. provincia [proˈvintʃa] ) are the second-level administrative divisions of the Italian Republic, on an intermediate level between a municipality (comune) and a region (regione). Since 2015, provinces have been classified as "institutional bodies of second level".
There are currently 107 institutional bodies of second level in Italy, including 80 ordinary provinces, 2 autonomous provinces, 4 regional decentralization entities, 6 free municipal consortia, and 14 metropolitan cities, as well as the Aosta Valley region (which also exercises the powers of a province).
Italian provinces (with the exception of the current Sardinian provinces) correspond to the NUTS 3 regions.
A province of the Italian Republic is composed of many municipalities (comune). Usually several provinces together form a region; the region of Aosta Valley is the sole exception—it is not subdivided into provinces, and provincial functions are exercised by the region.
The three main functions devolved to provinces are:
The number of provinces in Italy has been steadily growing in recent years, as many new ones are carved out of older ones. Usually, the province's name is the same as that of its capital city.
According to the 2014 reform, each province is headed by a President (or Commissioner) assisted by a legislative body, the Provincial Council, and an executive body, the Provincial Executive. President (Commissioner) and members of Council are elected together by mayors and city councilors of each municipality of the province. The Executive is chaired by the President (Commissioner) who appoint others members, called assessori. Since 2015, the President (Commissioner) and other members of the council will not receive a salary.
In each province, there is also a Prefect (prefetto), a representative of the central government who heads an agency called prefettura-ufficio territoriale del governo. The Questor (questore) is the head of State Police (Polizia di Stato) in the province and his office is called questura. There is also a provincial police force depending from local government, called provincial police (polizia provinciale).
The Aosta Valley region is not divided into provinces due to its size, but straight to the comune level.
South Tyrol and Trentino are autonomous provinces, unlike all other provinces they have the same legislative powers as regions and are not subordinated to Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, the region they are part of.
Based on the most recent legislation, contained in the law of 7 April 2014 n. 56, the council and the presidents of the provinces of the regions with ordinary statute are elected by restricted suffrage by the mayors and councilors of the province's municipalities, while in the metropolitan cities, the equivalent of the president of the province is the (elective) mayor of the capital, called "metropolitan mayor".
There are other types of entities similar to the provinces in the regions with special statutes: the free municipal consortia in Sicily and the Sardinian provinces are governed by extraordinary commissioners appointed by the respective regional administrations, the autonomous provinces of Trentino-Alto Adige each elect its own president, and finally, in Aosta Valley, the functions of the province are carried out by the regional administration (whose president is elected by the regional council).
Note: the data is updated as of 1 January 2021.
In 1861, at the birth of the Kingdom of Italy, there were 59 provinces. However, at that time the national territory was smaller than the current one: regions of Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and Lazio were not included in the kingdom.
In 1866, following the Third Independence War, territories of Veneto, Friuli and Mantua were annexed. There were therefore nine more provinces: Belluno, Mantua, Padua, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza, and Udine, all previously part of the Austrian Empire. Eventually, in 1870, following the union of Rome and its province from the Papal States, the provinces rose in number to 69.
After the World War I, new territories were annexed to Italy. The province of Trento was created in 1923. Provinces of La Spezia and Trieste in 1923, while Ionio in 1924. In 1924 the new provinces of Fiume, Pola, and Zara were created, increasing the total number of provinces in Italy to 76.
In 1927, after a royal charter, a general province rearrangement took place. 17 new provinces were created: Aosta, Vercelli, Varese, Savona, Bolzano, Gorizia, Pistoia, Pescara, Rieti, Terni, Viterbo, Frosinone, Brindisi, Matera, Ragusa, Castrogiovanni, Nuoro. In the same year, the province of Caserta was dissolved, Girgenti was renamed Agrigento, and the institution of circondari, sub-provincial wards created before the unification, was abolished.
In 1930 Spezia became La Spezia, while in 1931 Bari delle Puglie became Bari. Province of Littoria (Latina) was created in 1934, and the province of Asti in 1935. In 1939 the province of Aquila degli Abruzzi became the province of L'Aquila, and in 1940 the province of Friuli was renamed the province of Udine.
Following the annexation of a part of Yugoslavia in 1941, during the World War II, the province of Zara was enlarged and joined the Governorate of Dalmatia (comprising the province of Zara, and the new provinces of Spalato, and Cattaro), while in the occupied central part of the present-day Slovenia the new province of Ljubljana was created. This lasted only until 1945, when Yugoslavia regained the lost territories after the end of the World War II.
In 1945, after the end of the World War II, the province of Aosta changed its name to Aosta Valley and Littoria to Latina; the new province of Caserta was recreated.
With the Paris Peace Treaties, signed on 10 February 1947, Italy lost the provinces of Fiume, Pola, and Zara, and part of the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia.
Moreover, the province of Trieste was occupied by United States and British forces. The Italian Republic therefore had 91 provinces at its birth. The province of Ionio was renamed as Taranto in 1951, and in 1954 the province of Trieste was returned to Italy.
The province of Pordenone was created in 1968, the province of Isernia in 1970, and the province of Oristano in 1974. In a reorganization in 1992 eight provinces were created: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Biella, Lecco, Lodi, Rimini, Prato, Crotone, and Vibo Valentia, while Forlì was renamed as Forlì-Cesena.
Four new provinces were created in Sardinia in 2001, with effect from 2005: Olbia-Tempio, Ogliastra, Medio Campidano, and Carbonia-Iglesias. In 2004 three further provinces were created: Monza and Brianza, Fermo, and Barletta-Andria-Trani, making a total of 110 provinces.
In May 2012, a referendum abolished the eight provinces of Sardinia, and this suppression was to take effect on 1 March 2013. On 6 July 2012, new plans were published to reduce the number of provinces by around half. In January 2014 the Sardinian Regional Administrative Court declared "unconstitutional" the abolition of the Sardinian provinces.
In 2014 the Delrio Law transformed the provinces of Italy in a reduced number of broader administrative entities.
In 2014 the Friuli-Venezia Giulia of Debora Serracchiani was the first Italian region to pass a law for abolishing its provinces, while implementing the national reform in the local administrative level. The Friuli region has multiplied four provinces in 18 unions of the Italian administrative unit called comune. After rejection of the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum, the provinces of Italy were still kept alive under provisions of the Delrio Constitutional Law to be merged in a smaller number of union of provinces.
Provinces are often deemed useless by their critics, and many proposals were made in the 2010s to eliminate them. The difficulty of changing the Constitution of Italy and the opposition of groups of politicians and citizens halted any proposal of reform.
In 2013, during his speech to the Chamber of Deputies, Enrico Letta, the newly appointed Prime Minister of Italy, announced that a revision of the second part of the constitution was needed, in order to change the bicameral parliamentary system and to abolish the provinces. The proposal, presented during the Renzi government, was rejected in the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum held on 4 December.
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