Palermo

Palermo (locally called Palermu; Panormus in Latin) is a city of 702 thousand¹ within its own province-level officially defined metropolitan area of 1.277 million² located in a sea-side basin on the north coast of the island of Sicilia,³ in Italia.⁴ The city rose to importance when it was the capital of the Sicilian Emirate within the ad-Dawlah al-Fātimiyyah (Fatimid Empire). The Normans took it by 1000 as the Regnum Siciliae (Kingdom of Sicily) and held it until the Germans gained it before 1200, and made it the capital of the Imperium Romanum Sacrum (Holy Roman Empire). By 1300 it had reverted to an independent kingdom, but it was absorbed into the Monarchie hispanica (Spanish Empire) by 1500. By 1800 it was ruled from the peninsula, although the island's historical prestige gave the name to the peninsular kingdom. It was part of Italia before 1900 and remains so.

The tallest conventional building is the Grattacielo Ina Assitalia (213 feet, 1955).⁵ UNESCO honors as a World Heritage Site nine buildings, seven in the city and two beyond it but within the metropolitan area, all of them Arab-Norman from the era of the Norman kingdom. Those within the city are: the Royal Palace or Palace of the Normans; the Palatine Chapel of the Royal Palace; La Ziza; the Cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary; the Church of Saint John of the Hermits; the Church of Martorana; the Church of Saint Cataldo and Admiral's Bridge. In the small town of Cefalù is its duomo,⁶ and in the city of Monreale (population 38 thousand in 2010⁷, locally called Murriali) is another duomo.⁸

Its airport is one of the nation's busiest.⁹

Historical maps

External references

Cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary, Palermo, Metropolitan City of Palermo, island of Sicilia, Italia

Footnotes

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Italy, accessed February 15, 2017.
2. 2014 figure from the side bar of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_City_of_Palermo, accessed December 18, 2017.
3. Sicily in English.
4. Italy in English.
5. The Monte Pellegrino Mediumwave Transmitter, a wired mast, is 338 feet. Emporis.com, accessed December 18, 2017.
6. A duomo is a former or present Christian cathedral.
7. Side bar of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monreale, accessed February 15, 2017.
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Norman_Palermo_and_the_Cathedral_Churches_of_Cefal%C3%B9_and_Monreale, accessed February, 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. Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987). Figures for 1000-1400 are from "Tables of the World's Largest Cities," and those from 1500 are from the 'Cities of Europe' tables. It was the eighth largest city in the world in 1200 CE and the largest in what is now Italia.
11. The kingdom was nominally part of the Corona d'Aragón (Aragon) but was de facto independent.