Anywhere Italy

Population

10 comuni under 1,000 people within an hour of a major city

Comuni under 1,000 residents within a 60 minute drive of their nearest major city. 10 towns shown, smallest first.

The assumption is that emptiness requires remoteness. These comuni disprove it: under a thousand residents each, within an hour's drive of a major city.

They survived the century by being overlooked rather than isolated. For the traveler that means city flights and country silence on the same tank of fuel.

  1. 1.Cornello dei Tasso50 residentsBergamo · LombardyA car-free medieval frazione of Camerata Cornello in the Val Brembana, accessible only on foot, anchored by the Museo dei Tasso e della Storia Postale — birthplace of the family that ran the European postal network from the 16th century onward.
  2. 2.Celle di San Vito148 residentsFoggia · ApuliaThe smallest commune in Puglia, 148 residents at 726 meters in the Monti Dauni, one of two Franco-Provençal-speaking villages in the south.
  3. 3.Percile219 residentsRoma · LazioA 219-person medieval borgo at 575 meters in the Monti Lucretili park, with two karst lakes called Lagustelli hidden in the beech woods above.
  4. 4.Castellaro Lagusello250 residentsMantova · LombardyA walled medieval borgo south of Lake Garda, ringed by 13th-century stone walls and overlooking a small heart-shaped natural lake that gives the village its second name and most-photographed silhouette.
  5. 5.Luserna267 residentsTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolA Cimbrian island at 1,333 metres on the Alpe Cimbra plateau, the last village in Italy where the medieval Bavarian dialect is still spoken at home.

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  1. 6.Vallo di Nera345 residentsPerugia · UmbriaCastle village of 345 people at 467 meters in the upper Valnerina, granted by Spoleto in 1217 and barely changed since.
  2. 7.Labro355 residentsRieti · LazioA 355-person stone borgo at 628 meters above Lake Piediluco, restored since the 1960s by a Belgian architect and his descendants.
  3. 8.Orvinio396 residentsRieti · LazioThe highest borgo in the Monti Lucretili park at 840 meters, called Canemorto until 1863 and dominated by the Castello Malvezzi-Campeggi.
  4. 9.Ofena420 residentsL'Aquila · AbruzzoA 531-meter Vestian basin called the Forno d'Abruzzo, sealed by the Gran Sasso wall, where Montepulciano ripens on what may be the oldest of its slopes.
  5. 10.Scheggino446 residentsPerugia · UmbriaTriangular castle village on the banks of the Nera at 280 meters, where the first commercial Italian truffle company was founded in 1928.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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