page_title: Lombardy
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Lombardy / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: Milan's skyline.
context_page_description: Lombardy is one of the twenty administrative regions of Italy, in the northwest of the country, with an area of 23,844 square kilometres. About 10 million people live in Lombardy, forming more than one-sixth of Italy's population, and more than a fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in the region, making it the most populous, richest and most productive region in the country. It is also one of the top regions in Europe for the same criteria. Milan's metropolitan area is the largest in Italy and the third most populated functional urban area in the EU. Lombardy is also the Italian region with most UNESCO World Heritage Sites—Italy having the highest number of World Heritage Sites in the world. The region is also famous for its historical figures such as Virgil, Pliny the Elder, Ambrose, Caravaggio, Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Stradivari, Cesare Beccaria, Alessandro Volta, Alessandro Manzoni, and popes John XXIII and Paul VI.
context_section_description: As of 2013, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Lombardy, equal to over €350 billion, accounts for about 21% of the total GDP of Italy. By inhabitant, this figure results in a value of €33,066, which is more than 25% higher than the national average of €25,729.
  Lombardy's development has been marked by the growth of the services sector since the 1980s, and in particular by the growth of innovative activities in the sector of services to enterprises and in credit and financial services. At the same time, the strong industrial vocation of the region has not suffered. Lombardy remains, in fact, the main industrial area of the country. The presence, and development, of a very high number of enterprises belonging to the services sector represents a favourable situation for the improvement of the efficiency of the productive process, as well as for the growth of the regional economy.
  Lombardy has cultural and economical relationships with many foreign countries including Azerbaijan, Austria, France, Hungary, Switzerland (especially the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden), Canada (the Province of Quebec), Germany (the States of Bavaria, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt), Kuwait, the Netherlands (Province of Zuid-Holland), and Russia. Lombardy is a member of the Four Motors of Europe, an intereuropean economical organization which includes Baden-Wurtenberg in Germany, Catalonia in Spain, and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in France. The Lombardy region is also part of the EUSALP, which promotes innovation, green sustainability, and economy in the Alpine regions of Austria, France, Liechtenstein, Northern Italy, Southern Germany, Switzerland, and Slovenia, and ARGE ALP, which gathers states located in the alpine regions of Austria, Northern Italy, Southern Germany, and Switzerland to discuss similar themes as in EUSALP. Economical and cultural relationship are also strong with neighboring Italian regions Friuli-Venezia Giulia, South Tyrol, Trentino, and Veneto. The European Union has developed the CENTRAL EUROPE program 2014–2020 to foster cooperation in several areas between the Lombardy Region along with other Northern Italian Regions and several states of Central Europe.
  The region can broadly be divided into three areas in regards to productive activity: Milan, where the services sector makes up for 65.3% of the employment; the provinces of Varese, Como, Lecco, Monza and Brianza, Bergamo and Brescia, where it is highly industrialised, although in the two latter provinces, there is also a rich agricultural sector in the plains;  the provinces of Sondrio, Pavia, Cremona, Mantova and Lodi, where there is a consistent agricultural activity, and at the same time an above average development of the services sector.
  The productivity of agriculture is enhanced by a well-developed use of fertilisers and the traditional abundance of water, boosted since the Middle Ages by the construction (partly designed by Leonardo da Vinci) of a wide net of irrigation systems. Lower plains are characterised by fodder crops, which are mowed up to eight times a year, cereals (rice, wheat and maize) and sugar beet. Productions of the higher plains include cereals, vegetables, fruit trees and mulberries. The higher areas, up to the Prealps and Alps sectors of the north, produce fruit and wine. Cattle (with the highest density in Italy), pigs, and sheep are also raised.
  The unemployment rate stood at 6.0% in 2018. Regional unemployment was one of the lowest in Italy.
caption: A view over the business district of Milan: with a metropolitan area of 7.4m people,[25] it is Italy's most important industrial, commercial and financial center.
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