The Nurra is a geographical region in the northwest of Sardinia, Italy. It is the second largest plain of the island, located between the towns of Sassari, Porto Torres and Alghero. It covers a surface of 700 km² and is bounded by the Sardinian Sea on the west and by the Gulf of Asinara on the north.
Nurra was once an important mining center, with Argentiera being the principal village, though today it is a ghost town. The Nurra, before the works of land reclamation initiated under Fascism (which were also continued in after World War II by the ETFAS, Ente Trasformazione Fondiaria Agricola Sarda), and despite being next to one of the most populated areas of Sardinia, has one of the lowest population densities in Italy, with 5 inhabitants per km², primarily, due to the drought and to the presence of malaria, eliminated only in the 20th century.
In the Middle Ages Nurra was a curatoria in the Giudicato di Torres, rich with salt mills and silver mines. From the 12th century it was owned by the Branca branch of the Doria family of Genoa, who had acquired it at the extinction of the giudicato family and kept it until the end between the Republic of Genoa and the Crown of Aragon in the 14th century. This was depopulated the area, and in 1347 many of the villages were reduced to ghost towns, and the remaining ones suffered equally in the subsequent war between Aragon and the Giudicato of Arborea.
In 1391 it was again invaded by Brancaleone Doria. In 1427 it was formally given to the free commune of Sassari, but was still subject to raids from North-African corsairs.
There is an example of industrial archaeology included in the Geological-Mining Park of Sardinia and preserved from UNESCO.
Today economy is based on agriculture, animal husbandry and tourism.
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia and immediately south of the French island of Corsica.
Cagliari is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu means castle. It has about 155,000 inhabitants, while its metropolitan city has more than 431,000 inhabitants. According to Eurostat, the population of the Functional urban area, the commuting zone of Cagliari, rises to 476,975. Cagliari is the 26th largest city in Italy and the largest city on the island of Sardinia.
Sassari is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 127,525 inhabitants, and a Functional Urban Area of about 260,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, it contains a considerable collection of art.
Porto Torres is a comune and a city of the Province of Sassari in north-west of Sardinia, Italy. Founded during the 1st century BC as Colonia Iulia Turris Libisonis, it was the first Roman colony of the entire island. It is situated on the coast at about 25 kilometres (16 mi) east of Capo del Falcone and in the center of the Gulf of Asinara. The port of Porto Torres is the second biggest seaport of the island, followed by the port of Olbia. The town is very close to the main city of Sassari, where the local university takes office.
Alghero, is a town of about 45,000 inhabitants in the Italian insular province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the Mediterranean Sea. The city's name comes from Aleguerium, which is a mediaeval Latin word meaning "stagnation of algae".
Archaeological evidence of prehistoric human settlement on the island of Sardinia is present in the form of nuraghes and other prehistoric monuments, which dot the land. The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various people who sought to dominate western Mediterranean trade in Classical Antiquity: Phoenicians, Punics and Romans. Initially under the political and economic alliance with the Phoenician cities, it was partly conquered by Carthage in the late 6th century BC and then entirely by Rome after the First Punic War. The island was included for centuries in the Roman province of Sardinia and Corsica, which would be incorporated into the diocese of Italia suburbicaria in 3rd and 4th centuries.
Eleanora or Eleanor of Arborea was one of the most powerful and important, and one of the last, judges of the Judicate of Arborea in Sardinia, and Sardinia's most famous heroine.
The Judicates, in English also referred to as Sardinian Kingdoms, Sardinian Judgedoms or Judicatures, were independent states that took power in Sardinia in the Middle Ages, between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. They were sovereign states with summa potestas, each with a ruler called judge, with the powers of a king.
The province of Sassari is a province in the autonomous island region of Sardinia in Italy. Its capital is the city of Sassari. As of 2017, the province had a population of 493,357 inhabitants.
The Judicate of Arborea was one of the four independent judicates into which the island of Sardinia was divided in the Middle Ages. It occupied the central-west portion of the island, wedged between Logudoro to the north and east, Cagliari to the south and east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. To the north east and beyond Logudoro was located Gallura, with which Arborea had far less interaction. Arborea outlasted her neighbours, surviving well into the 15th century. The earliest known judicial seat was Tharros. The Kingdom of Arborea at the times of its maximum expansion occupied the whole island's territory, except the cities of Alghero and Cagliari.
Marianus II was the Giudice of Arborea from 1241 to his death. With skilled military action, he came to control more than half of the island of Sardinia. By his control of the vast central plains and the rich deposits of precious metals, he increased the riches of his giudicato and staved off the general economic decline affecting the rest of Europe at the time.
The Kingdom of Sardinia, also referred to as Kingdom ofSavoy-Sardinia, Piedmont-Sardinia, or Savoy-Piedmont-Sardinia during the Savoyard period, was a state in Southern Europe from the early 14th until the mid-19th century.
Argentiera is a small town and a frazione (hamlet) in the comune of Sassari, in Sardinia, Italy. It is located 43 km from Sassari, in a narrow valley, on the coast of the Sardinian Sea.
The Sardinians, or Sards, are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group native to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy derives its name.
Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and an autonomous region of Italy. Tourism in Sardinia is one of the fastest growing sectors of the regional economy. The island attracts more than a million tourists from both Italy, from the rest of Europe, and, to a lesser degree, from the rest of the world. According to statistics, tourist arrivals in 2016 were 2.9 million people.
This article presents a history of Cagliari, an Italian municipality and the capital city of the island of Sardinia.
The Aragonese conquest of Sardinia took place between 1323 and 1326. The island of Sardinia was at the time subject to the influence of the Republic of Pisa, the Pisan della Gherardesca family, Genoa and of the Genoese families of Doria and the Malaspina; the only native political entity survived was the Judicate of Arborea, allied with the Crown of Aragon. The financial difficulties due to the wars in Sicily, the conflict with the Crown of Castile in the land of Murcia and Alicante (1296-1304) and the failed attempt to conquer Almeria (1309) explain the delay of James II of Aragon in bringing the conquest of Sardinia, enfeoffed to him by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297.
The Marquisate of Oristano was a marquisate of Sardinia that lasted from 1410 until 1478
The Sardinian–Aragonese war was a late medieval conflict lasting from 1353 to 1420. The battle was over supremacy of the land and took place between the Judicate of Arborea -- allied with the Sardinian branch of the Doria family and Genoa -- and the Kingdom of Sardinia, the latter of which had been part of the Crown of Aragon since 1324.
The Free Municipality of Sassari or Republic of Sassari was a state in the region of Sassari in Sardinia during the 13th and 14th centuries, confederated first with the Republic of Pisa as a semi-autonomous subject and later with the Republic of Genoa as a nominally independent ally. It was the first and only independent city-state of Sardinia during the early renaissance.