Milano

Milano (locally and in English called Milan) is a city of 1.242 million¹ within its own province-level officially defined metropolitan area of 3.229 million.² The urban area is larger than the Metropolitan City and had a population of 4.443 million.³ It is located on a plain between two tributaries of the Po, the Ticino (or Tisín) on the west and the Adda (or Ada) on the east, within its own province-level Metropolitan City, in the Lombardia (locally called Lumbardia)⁴ Region of Italia.⁵

The tallest building is the UniCredit Tower (714 feet, 2012). There are numerous famous buildings including a complex honored by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site: the 15th century Church and adjoining Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The convent's refectory has Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the 'Last Supper' (a Christian theme) on its wall. The 20th century's two most famous skyscrapers are the Pirelli Building (417 feet, 1958) and the Torre Velasco (348 feet, 1958), which, like a medieval Italian castle, is narrower at the bottom. The cathedral (14th to 19th centuries) is topped by the Madonnina, an iconic statue of the Christian's Virgin Mary. The Stadio Giuseppe Meazza or San Siro, an association football stadium, could in the 1940s host 150,000 specators; capacity has been reduced since. Other notable buildings are: the Sforzesco castle (16th century, with an early 20th century tower); the Arch of Peace; the Baroque Palazzo Brera; and the Neoclassic la Scala Opera House.⁶

The urban area is served by the Milano Malpensa Airport, and, at Segrate (35 thousand people⁷) and Peschiera Borromeo (23 thousand people⁸) by the Milano Linare Airport. Both are among the nation's busiest.⁹

Among the many who lived in Milano was the part time mathemetician Girolamo Cardano, who was the first to do calculations of probability and invented the encoding device called the Cardano grille.¹⁰

Historical maps

External references

Cathedral, Milano city, Milano province-level Metropolitan City, Lombardia, Italia

Footnotes

1. 2011 figure from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Italy, accessed January 29, 2018.
2. 2017 metropolitan figure from the side bar of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_City_of_Milan, accessed January 6, 2018.
3. 2012 calculation in world-gazetteer.com, accessed February 13, 2013.
4. Lombardy in English.
5. Italy in English.
6. Emporis.com, accessed January 30, 2018.
7. 2015 figure from the side bar of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segrate, accessed February 16, 2017. Its local name is Segraa.
8. 2015 figure from the side bar of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peschiera_Borromeo, accessed February 16, 2017.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_Italy, accessed February 16, 2017. My criterion for inclusion: above 3 million total passengers.
10. John Stillwell, Mathematics and its History (2nd ed., Springer, 2002).