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An original Hellenic civilization soon developed, later interacting with the native Italic and Latin civilisations. With this colonisation, Greek culture was exported to Italy, in its dialects of the Ancient Greek language, its religious rites and its traditions of the independent polis. The Romans used to call the area of Sicily and coastal Southern Italy Magna Graecia ("Great Greece") since it was so densely inhabited by the Greeks the ancient geographers differed on whether the term included Sicily or merely Apulia and Calabria- Strabo being the most prominent advocate of the wider definitions. The Hellenic influence eventually shaped their culture and way of life. The relationships between the Greek settlers and the native peoples were initially hostile (especially with the Iapygian tribes). The first Greek settlers found Italy inhabited by three major populations: Ausones, Oenotrians and Iapyges (these last ones were subdivided into three tribes: Daunians, Peucetians and Messapians). They included settlements in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula. Also during this period, Greek colonies were established in places as widely separated as the eastern coast of the Black Sea, Eastern Libya and Massalia ( Marseille). In the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, for various reasons, including demographic crisis (famine, overcrowding, etc.), the search for new commercial outlets and ports, and expulsion from their homeland, Greeks began to settle in Southern Italy. Bari, Taranto, Reggio Calabria, Foggia, and Salerno are the next largest cities in the area. The largest city of Southern Italy is Naples, an originally Greek name that it has historically maintained for millennia. The climate is mainly Mediterranean ( Köppen climate classification Csa), except at the highest elevations (Dsa, Dsb) and the semi-arid eastern stretches in Apulia and Molise, along the Ionian Sea in Calabria and the southern stretches of Sicily (BSw). Off the peninsula's tip is the isle of Capri. Along the northern coast of the Salernitan Gulf and on the south of the Sorrentine Peninsula runs the Amalfi Coast. On the Adriatic, south of the "spur" of the boot, the peninsula of Monte Gargano on the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Gulf of Salerno, the Gulf of Naples, the Gulf of Policastro and the Gulf of Gaeta are each named after a large coastal city. On the eastern coast is the Adriatic Sea, leading into the rest of the Mediterranean through the Strait of Otranto (named after the largest city on the tip of the heel). The island of Sardinia, situated to the west of the Italian peninsula and right below the French island of Corsica, may also often be included. Separating the "heel" and toe of the "boot" is the Gulf of Taranto, named after the city of Taranto, which is at an angle between the heel and the boot itself. Southern Italy forms the lower part of the Italian "boot", containing the ankle ( Campania), the toe ( Calabria), the arch ( Basilicata), and the heel ( Apulia), Molise (north of Apulia) and Abruzzo (north of Molise) along with Sicily, removed from Calabria by the narrow Strait of Messina. These same subdivisions are at the bottom of the Italian First level NUTS of the European Union and the Italian constituencies for the European Parliament.Ībruzzo's Gran Sasso d'Italia, the highest peak in Abruzzo The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) employs the term " South Italy" ( Italia meridionale or also just Sud) to identify one of the five statistical regions in its reportings without Sicily and Sardinia, which form a distinct statistical region denominated " Insular Italy" ( Italia insulare or simply Isole). The island of Sardinia, which had neither been part of said region nor of the aforementioned states and had once been under the rule of the Alpine House of Savoy that would eventually annex the Bourbon Kingdom altogether, is nonetheless often subsumed into the Mezzogiorno. Southern Italy covers the historical and cultural region that was once politically under the administration of the former Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and which later shared a common organization into Italy's largest pre-unitarian state, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Southern Italy ( Italian: Sud Italia or Italia meridionale) also known as Meridione or Mezzogiorno ( Italian pronunciation: ), is a macroregion of the Italian Republic consisting of its southern half.
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