Internal migration in Italy is a human migration within the Italian geographical region that occurred for similar reasons to emigration, primarily socioeconomic. [1] Its largest wave consisted of 4 million people moving from Southern Italy to Northern Italy (and mostly to Northern or Central Italian industrial cities like Rome or Milan, etc.), between the 1950s and 1970s. [2]
The oldest migration goes back to the 11th century when soldiers and settlers from Northern Italy (at the time collectively called "Lombardy" [3] ), settled the central and eastern part of Sicily during the Norman conquest of southern Italy. After the marriage between the Norman king Roger I of Sicily with Adelaide del Vasto, member of Aleramici family, many Lombard colonisers left their homeland, in the Aleramici's possessions in Piedmont and Liguria, to settle on the island of Sicily. [4] [5] The migration of people from Northern Italy to Sicily continued until the end of the 13th century. [6] In the same period people from Northern Italy also emigrated to Basilicata. [7] It is believed that the population of Northern Italy who immigrated to Sicily during these centuries was altogether about 200,000 people. [8] Their descendants, who are still present in Sicily today, are called Lombards of Sicily. Following these ancient migrations, in some municipalities of Sicily and Basilicata, dialects of northern origin are still spoken today, the Gallo-Italic of Sicily and the Gallo-Italic of Basilicata.
An important internal migration involved Italian speakers from France to Italy. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles, while Savoy and the area around Nice passed from the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia to France in 1860 as a consequence of the Plombières Agreement; Francization occurred in both cases and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. [9] [10] Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about the referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards) took refuge in Italy in the following years. As for Nice, the emigration phenomenon of the Niçard Italians towards Italy is known as the "Niçard exodus". [11] Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. [12] Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the "Corsican Italians" within Italy when Rome was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it.
Another important internal migration took place between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It was the one that involved the transfer of seasonal migrants from the "irredent" territories, not yet annexed to the mother country (Trentino-Alto Adige and Julian March), to the nearby Kingdom of Italy. Men generally worked as mill workers, moléti (grinders) and charcuterie; women instead worked in the cities or as service personnel in wealthy families. This emigration was usually seasonal (especially for men) and characterized the winter period during which the peasants could not work the land. This migratory context at the end of the 19th century was studied by the Trentino and Giudicarian priest Don Lorenzo Guetti, [13] father of Trentino cooperation, who wrote in one of his articles, "If there were no Italy, we Giudicarians would have to die of hunger". [14]
During the Fascist era from the 1920s to the 1940s, limited internal emigration occurred. [2] The regime led by Benito Mussolini, however, was opposed to these migratory movements, so much so that it implemented legislative measures that hindered, but did not stop, these movements. [2] An example was a 1939 law that allowed the transfer to another Italian municipality only if the migrant was in possession of an employment contract from a company based in the destination municipality. [15] At the time, internal migratory flows also involved transfers from the countryside to the cities, movements that are more properly defined as internal "mobility" rather than "emigration" that occurs between one Italian region to another. [2]
After World War II, under the Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947, the territories of the Kingdom of Italy (Istria, Kvarner, most of the Julian March as well as the Dalmatian city of Zara) first occupied by the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia of Marshal Josip Broz Tito and subsequently annexed by Yugoslavia, caused the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus. This led to the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), the others being ethnic Slovenians, ethnic Croatians, and ethnic Istro-Romanians, choosing to maintain Italian citizenship. [16] Most went to Italy, and in smaller numbers, towards the Americas, Australia and South Africa. [17] [18] In this context there was also the exodus of the Monfalconese shipyards where approximately 2,000 workers of Friuli-Venezia Giulia who, between 1946 and 1948, emigrated to Yugoslavia to offer their professional skills at the shipyards of Fiume and Pola. [19]
With the fall of Fascist regime in 1943, and the end of World War II in 1945, a large internal migratory flow began from one Italian region to another. This internal emigration was sustained and constantly increased by the economic growth that Italy experienced between the 1950s and 1960s. [2] Given that this economic growth mostly concerned Northwest Italy, which was involved in the birth of many industrial activities, migratory phenomena affected the peasants of the Triveneto and southern Italy, who began to move in large numbers. [2] Other areas of northern Italy were also affected by emigration such as the rural areas of Mantua and Cremona. The destinations of these emigrants were mainly Milan, Turin, Varese, Como, Lecco, and Brianza. [15] The rural population of the aforementioned areas began to emigrate to the large industrial centers of the north-west, especially in the so-called "industrial triangle, or the area corresponding to the three-sided polygon with vertices in the cities of Turin, Milan and Genoa. [2] [1] Even some cities in central and southern Italy (such as Rome, which was the object of immigration due to employment in the administrative and tertiary sectors) experienced a conspicuous immigration flow. [2] These migratory movements were accompanied by other flows of lesser intensity, such as transfers from the countryside to smaller cities and travel from mountainous areas to the plains. [2]
The main reasons that gave rise to this massive migratory flow were linked to the living conditions in the places of origin of the emigrants (which were very harsh), the absence of stable work, [1] [15] the high rate of poverty, the poor fertility of many agricultural areas, the fragmentation of land properties, [20] which characterized southern Italy above all, and the insecurity caused by organized crime. [15] Added to this was the economic gap between northern and southern Italy, which widened during the economic boom; this was a further stimulus for southern Italians to emigrate to the north of the country. [15] The reasons were therefore the same as those that pushed millions of Italians to emigrate abroad. [1]
The peak of internal migratory movements was reached in the mid-1960s, [2] between 1955 and 1963. [1] In the five years from 1958 to 1963, 1.3 million people moved from southern Italy. [1] Registrations at city registry offices in the industrial triangle tripled, from 69,000 new arrivals in 1958 to 183,000 in 1963, and to 200,000 in 1964. [1] Turin, which experienced a conspicuous immigration phenomenon, recorded 64,745 new arrivals in 1960, 84,426 in 1961 and 79,742 in 1962. [1] The migratory flow was so large that the Ferrovie dello Stato set up a special convoy, called the Treno del Sole (Train of the Sun), which departed from Palermo and arrived in Turin after having crossed the entire Italian peninsula. [15]
Then began the slow decline of emigration, with the migratory flows from Veneto which, already at the end of the 1960s, stopped [2] due to the improved living conditions in these places. [1] Migrations from southern Italy, although slowed down, did not end, [2] increasing their percentage compared to total internal migrations; between 1952 and 1957 they represented 17% of the total, and between 1958 and 1963 they represented 30% of the total. [1]
The last peak of arrivals from the south to the north of Italy occurred between 1968 and 1970. [1] In 1969, 60,000 arrivals were recorded in Turin, half of which came from southern Italy, while 70,000 immigrants arrived in Lombardy that same year. [1] In Turin this migratory peak was exacerbated by FIAT, which carried out a recruitment campaign where 15,000 migrants from the south were hired. [1] These numbers gave rise to many problems in the Turin capital, above all, housing. [1] This constant flow of people made Turin's population grow from 719,000 inhabitants in 1951 to 1,168,000 in 1971. [1] After 1970 there was a strong contraction in arrivals, which occurred during the 1973 oil crisis, and many of the migrants returned to their places of origin. [2]
Overall, the Italians who moved from southern to northern Italy amounted to 4 million. [2] The migratory flow from the countryside to the big cities also contracted and then stopped in the 1980s. [2] At the same time, migratory movements towards medium-sized cities and those destined for small-sized villages increased. [2]
In the 1990s, migratory flows from the south to the north of the country restarted with a certain consistency, although not at the same level of the 1960s. [2] The phenomenon was recorded by the Svimez institute (acronym for "Association for the development of industry in the South"). Migratory flows continue to come from the regions of southern Italy, with the main destinations being the north-east of the country and central Italy. The regions most active in receiving internal immigrants are Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, and Umbria.
A diaspora is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently reside elsewhere.
Demographic features of the population of Italy include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects.
Basilicata, also known by its ancient name Lucania, is an administrative region in Southern Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south. It has two coastlines: a 30-km stretch on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania and Calabria, and a longer coastline along the Gulf of Taranto between Calabria and Apulia. The region can be thought of as the "arch" of the "boot" of Italy, with Calabria functioning as the "toe" and Apulia the "heel".
Italians are an ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. Their predecessors differ regionally, but generally include native populations such as the Etruscans, the Rhaetians, the Ligurians, the Adriatic Veneti, and the Italic peoples, including the Latins, from which the Romans emerged and helped create and evolve the modern Italian identity. Foreign influences include the ancient Greeks in Magna Graecia, and the Phoenicians, who had a presence in Sicily and Sardinia, the Celts, who settled in parts of the north, the Germanics and the Slavs. Legally, Italian nationals are citizens of Italy, regardless of ancestry or nation of residence and may be distinguished from ethnic Italians in general or from people of Italian descent without Italian citizenship and ethnic Italians living in territories adjacent to the Italian peninsula without Italian citizenship. The Latin equivalent of the term Italian had been in use for natives of the geographical region since antiquity.
Italian irredentism was a political movement during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Italy with irredentist goals which promoted the unification of geographic areas in which indigenous peoples were considered to be ethnic Italians. At the beginning, the movement promoted the annexation to Italy of territories where Italians formed the absolute majority of the population, but retained by the Austrian Empire after the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866.
Southern Italy, also known as Meridione or Mezzogiorno, is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern regions.
The languages of Italy include Italian, which serves as the country's national language, in its standard and regional forms, as well as numerous local and regional languages, most of which, like Italian, belong to the broader Romance group. The majority of languages often labeled as regional are distributed in a continuum across the regions' administrative boundaries, with speakers from one locale within a single region being typically aware of the features distinguishing their own variety from others spoken nearby.
The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy: Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. In central Italy they are spoken in the northern Marches ; in southern Italy in some language islands in Basilicata and Sicily.
Northern Italy is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four northwestern regions of Piedmont, Aosta Valley, Liguria and Lombardy in addition to the four northeastern regions of Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Emilia-Romagna.
Italo-Western is, in some classifications, the largest branch of the Romance languages. It comprises two of the branches of Romance languages: Italo-Dalmatian and Western Romance. It excludes the Sardinian language and Eastern Romance.
The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy.
Gallo-Italic of Sicily, also known as the Siculo-Lombard dialects, is a group of Gallo-Italic languages found in about 15 isolated communities of central eastern Sicily. Forming a language island in the otherwise Sicilian language area, it dates back to migrations from northern Italy during the reign of Norman Roger I of Sicily and his successors.
The Third Italian War of Independence was a war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austrian Empire fought between June and August 1866. The conflict paralleled the Austro-Prussian War and resulted in Austria conceding the region of Venetia to France, which was later annexed by Italy after a plebiscite. Italy's acquisition of this wealthy and populous territory represented a major step in the Unification of Italy.
The prehistory of Italy began in the Paleolithic period, when species of Homo inhabited the Italian territory for the first time, and ended in the Iron Age, when the first written records appeared in Italy.
Italian immigration to Switzerland is related to the Italian diaspora in Switzerland. Italian emigration to Switzerland took place mainly from the end of the 19th century.
Italian Brazilians are Brazilians of full or partial Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Brazil during the Italian diaspora, or more recent Italian-born people who've settled in Brazil. Italian Brazilians are the largest number of people with full or partial Italian ancestry outside Italy, with São Paulo being the most populous city with Italian ancestry in the world. Nowadays, it is possible to find millions of descendants of Italians, from the southeastern state of Minas Gerais to the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, with the majority living in São Paulo state. Small southern Brazilian towns, such as Nova Veneza, have as much as 95% of their population of Italian descent.
The Lombards of Sicily are an ethnolinguistic minority living in Sicily, southern Italy, speaking an isolated variety of Gallo-Italic languages, the so-called Gallo-Italic of Sicily.
The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France), and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia).
The Gallo-Italic of Basilicata is a group of Gallo-Italic dialects found in Basilicata in southern Italy, that could date back to migrations from Northern Italy during the time of the Normans.
Internal migration in Brazil occurs mainly for economic reasons and ecological disasters. Internal migration involves the movement of people within the same territory, which can be between regions, states or municipalities. It does not affect the total number of inhabitants in a country, but it does change the regions involved in this process. In Brazil, economic factors exert the greatest influence on migratory flows, as the capitalist production model creates privileged areas for industries, forcing people to move from one place to another in search of better living conditions and jobs to meet their basic survival needs.
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