Matera

Matera is a city of 61 thousand¹ located in a canyon associated with the Gravina River² within its own province in the Basilicata Region of Italia.³ Its cave dwellings (sassi) that were inhabited from several millenia BCE at least until modern slum clearance projects and its cave (rupestrian) churches are honored by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The caves are not naturally formed but rather carved out of the soft rock.⁴

External references

Sassi (rock cut dwellings) in Matera, Matera Province, Basilicata Region, Italia

Footnotes

1. 2011 figure from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Italy, accessed February 16, 2017.
2. The Gravina flows into the Bradano, which flows into the Gulf of Taranto.
3. Italy in English.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matera, accessed January 8, 2018, and UNESCO, World Heritage Sites (Firefly Books, 2010).