Anywhere Italy

Elevation

Italy's highest towns

The highest comuni in our catalogue, ranked by official ISTAT elevation. 60 towns shown, each above 800 m.

Above 800 meters the Italian town changes shape. Streets shorten, walls thicken, the piazza contracts to something you can cross in twenty steps. These are the highest comuni in the catalogue, ranked by the official elevation of the municipal seat.

The height is not scenery, it is history: most of these towns sit where they sit because someone needed to watch a pass, guard a border, or summer the herds. Pack for weather that ignores the season you left at sea level.

  1. 1.Livigno1,816 mSondrio · LombardyAt 1,816 meters in the Italian Alps near the Swiss border, a duty-free ski valley that drains north into the Black Sea, not the Mediterranean.
  2. 2.Ayas1,710 mAosta Valley · Aosta ValleyA scattered upper-valley commune of three villages under the Monte Rosa, where Walser settlers and Romance-speaking herders share the slopes below Castor and Pollux.
  3. 3.Corvara in Badia1,568 mBolzano · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolThe Ladin centre of Alta Badia at 1,568 metres, at the foot of the Sassongher, on the four-pass Sellaronda ski circuit.
  4. 4.Madesimo1,550 mSondrio · LombardyA ski village at 1,550 meters at the head of Valle Spluga, with lifts to 2,880 meters and the Canalone off-piste descent.
  5. 5.Cogne1,534 mAosta Valley · Aosta ValleyThe mining town turned capital of the Gran Paradiso, the Aosta Valley's largest commune with 95 percent of its land inside Italy's oldest park.

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  1. 6.Valtournenche1,524 mAosta Valley · Aosta ValleyThe valley under the Cervino, home of the guides who raced Whymper up the mountain in 1865 and the resort of Breuil-Cervinia at its head.
  2. 7.Canazei1,465 mTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolA Ladin village at 1,465 metres at the head of Val di Fassa, ringed by Marmolada, Sella and Sassolungo and the Sellaronda circuit.
  3. 8.La Thuile1,441 mAosta Valley · Aosta ValleyItaly's gateway to the Petit Saint-Bernard pass — a 1,441m alpine village under Mont Blanc with the Espace San Bernardo ski domain straddling the French border (152 km of pistes shared with La Rosière), the Rutor glacier and its tiered waterfalls behind it, and a Roman-Salassi history that goes back two millennia.
  4. 9.Capracotta1,421 mIsernia · MoliseAt 1,421 meters the second-highest commune in central Italy, holder of the world record for snowfall in 24 hours: 2.56 meters on 5 March 2015.
  5. 10.Usseaux1,416 mTorino · PiedmontA Val Chisone village at 1,416 meters with four scattered borgate and more than forty murals painted across the stone facades.
  6. 11.Pescocostanzo1,395 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoA planned Renaissance town at 1,395 meters on the Quarto Grande plateau, with bobbin lace, wrought iron, and the wood ceilings of a five-nave church.
  7. 12.Abetone CutiglianoAbetone Cutigliano1,388 mPistoia · TuscanyThe Apennine ski pass at 1,388 meters where the Granduca's two stone pyramids of 1778 mark the old Tuscan-Modenese border.
  8. 13.Gressoney-Saint-Jean1,385 mAosta Valley · Aosta ValleyA Walser village in the Lys valley where Titsch is still spoken, Queen Margherita summered, and the Lyskamm glacier closes the view.
  9. 14.Ovindoli1,375 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 1,375 meters on the Altopiano delle Rocche, the closest serious ski station to Rome, working since 1959 on the slopes of Monte Magnola.
  10. 15.Castel del Monte1,346 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 1,346 meters under Monte Bolza facing Rocca Calascio, the capital of shepherds, whose wool reached the Medici and whose witches return each August.
  11. 16.Luserna1,333 mTrento · 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.
  12. 17.Macugnaga1,327 mVerbano-Cusio-Ossola · PiedmontA Walser village at 1,327 meters at the foot of the east wall of Monte Rosa, founded in the 13th century by colonists from Valais.
  13. 18.Rivisondoli1,320 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 1,320 meters on the Cinque Miglia plateau, paired with Roccaraso in the Alto Sangro ski domain and known for its Epiphany living nativity.
  14. 19.Ostana1,280 mCuneo · PiedmontItaly's most spectacular Monviso belvedere — an 85-resident Occitan-speaking alpine borgo at 1,280m in the upper Po valley, with a direct frontal view of Monviso (3,841m), an architecturally celebrated mountain renaissance (60+ ruined stone houses rebuilt 2000-2024 by a regional master plan), and Borghi più belli d'Italia inscription despite the small population.
  15. 20.Etroubles1,280 mAosta Valley · Aosta ValleyA 478-person village at 1,280 metres on the Via Francigena, with an open-air contemporary art museum and the region's first dairy.
  16. 21.Ponte di Legno1,257 mBrescia · LombardyThe uppermost commune of Valle Camonica at 1,257 meters, where the two source streams of the Oglio meet under the Adamello range.
  17. 22.Toblach1,256 mBolzano · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolThe Val Pusteria gateway to the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, where Mahler wrote his last three symphonies in a cabin behind town.
  18. 23.Santo Stefano di Sessanio1,250 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoA Medici outpost at 1,250 meters on the southern edge of Campo Imperatore, restored building by building since 1999 into Italy's first scattered hotel.
  19. 24.Sappada1,250 mUdine · Friuli-Venezia GiuliaA German-speaking alpine village at 1,250 meters near the source of the Piave, settled from East Tyrol in the eleventh century and Italian since 1852.
  20. 25.Roccaraso1,236 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 1,236 meters in the Alto Sangro, the south of Italy's largest ski resort, leveled by the Gustav Line in 1943 and rebuilt from rubble.
  21. 26.St. Ulrich1,236 mBolzano · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolThe Ladin capital of Val Gardena, a wood-carving town at 1,236 metres between Seceda and the Alpe di Siusi.
  22. 27.Bormio1,225 mSondrio · LombardyAn Alpine spa town at 1,225 meters where three high passes meet and Roman thermal water has fed the baths for two thousand years.
  23. 28.Courmayeur1,224 mAosta Valley · Aosta ValleyThe Italian base of Mont Blanc, a Roman waystation on the Via delle Gallie that became the country's highest commune and its best-known ski address.
  24. 29.Cortina d'Ampezzo1,224 mBelluno · VenetoThe Queen of the Dolomites at 1,224 meters, host of the 1956 Winter Olympics and co-host of Milano-Cortina 2026.
  25. 30.Sauris1,212 mUdine · Friuli-Venezia GiuliaA 1,212-meter German-speaking island in the Carnic Alps, second-highest commune in Friuli, where Tyrolean settlers founded the village around the thirteenth century.
  26. 31.Calascio1,200 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 1,200 meters under the highest castle in the Apennines, a village of 125 people that played the monk's refuge in Ladyhawke.
  27. 32.Alagna Valsesia1,191 mVercelli · PiedmontA Walser village at 1,191 meters under Monte Rosa, settled from the Swiss Valais in the 13th century and known to off-piste skiers worldwide.
  28. 33.Pescopennataro1,190 mIsernia · MoliseAn Alto Molise stone village at 1,190 meters, the paese della pietra e degli abeti, above a rare high-altitude white-fir forest.
  29. 34.Moena1,184 mTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolThe largest village in Val di Fassa, Ladin-speaking, dressed in Ottoman costume for three days every August.
  30. 35.Innichen1,175 mBolzano · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolAn Alta Pusteria town at 1,175 metres on the Austrian border, with the most important Romanesque church in the Eastern Alps and the Drei Zinnen rising thirty kilometres south.
  31. 36.Lavarone1,172 mTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolA Cimbrian plateau at 1,172 metres above the Val d'Astico, with a karst lake, an Austro-Hungarian fort, and the woods where Freud walked.
  32. 37.Pescasseroli1,167 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 1,167 meters at the head of the Sangro valley, capital of Italy's oldest national park and birthplace of Benedetto Croce.
  33. 38.Fenestrelle1,154 mTorino · PiedmontA Val Chisone village at 1,154 meters below the largest alpine fortress in Europe, three kilometers of stone climbing 650 vertical meters up the ridge.
  34. 39.Falcade1,148 mBelluno · VenetoAn Agordino ski village at 1,148 meters under the Focobon spires, with the San Pellegrino pass to the Val di Fiemme.
  35. 40.Petralia Soprana1,147 mPalermo · SicilyThe highest village in the Madonie at 1,147 meters, RAI Borgo dei Borghi 2018 winner, sitting above 80 kilometers of salt tunnels.
  36. 41.Rocca Pietore1,143 mBelluno · VenetoAn Agordino borgo at 1,143 meters under the Marmolada, where the Pettorina cuts a two-kilometer gorge through 100-meter rock walls.
  37. 42.Civitella Alfedena1,123 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 1,123 meters above Lake Barrea, 285 residents, the trailhead for the Camosciara reserve and home of the Apennine Wolf Museum.
  38. 43.Troina1,121 mEnna · SicilyAt 1,121 meters on the Nebrodi ridge, the first capital and first bishopric the Normans set up in Sicily after taking it from the Arabs.
  39. 44.Cappadocia1,102 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoItaly's Cappadocia — a 575-resident Marsican borgo at 1,102m in Abruzzo's western mountains, with the spectacular Grotte di Pietrasecca karst cave system (the longest in the central Apennines), Borgo Autentico + Città delle Grotte signals, and a name that does cause genuine reservations for travellers expecting Turkey's hot-air balloon landscape.
  40. 45.Pietrapertosa1,088 mPotenza · BasilicataBasilicata's highest commune at 1,088 meters, built into the Lucanian Dolomites with a Saracen rock-cut fortress and a 1,400-meter zipline to Castelmezzano.
  41. 46.Geraci Siculo1,077 mPalermo · SicilyA Madonie ridge village at 1,077 meters, capital of the Ventimiglia marquisate from 1258 and the first marquisate granted in Sicily.
  42. 47.Castelvecchio Calvisio1,067 mL'Aquila · Abruzzo118 people at 1,067 meters on a ridge above the Tirino, inside a fortified ellipse of stone walls with alleys orthogonal to its perimeter.
  43. 48.Barrea1,066 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoA 1,066-meter spur above an artificial lake at the heart of the Abruzzo National Park, with a Samnite necropolis and an 11th-century di Sangro castle.
  44. 49.Campo di Giove1,064 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoAt 1,064 meters under the southwestern Maiella, the highest village in the park, named for a Roman temple to Jupiter.
  45. 50.Kastelruth1,060 mBolzano · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolSouth Tyrolean gateway to the Alpe di Siusi at 1,060 metres, eighty-two-metre bell tower over the square, home of the Kastelruther Spatzen.
  46. 51.Scanno1,057 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoA 1,057-meter Sagittario valley village photographed by Cartier-Bresson and Giacomelli, where women in black still walk the same alleys as the 1957 series.
  47. 52.San Giovanni in Fiore1,049 mCosenza · CalabriaThe capital of the Sila Grande at 1,049 meters, grown from the abbey Gioacchino da Fiore founded in 1188, Italy's most populated commune above a thousand.
  48. 53.Alessandria del Carretto1,043 mCosenza · CalabriaThe highest village in the Pollino at 1,043 meters, the only Italian commune carrying its founder's full name, with a fir-tree ritual every 3 May.
  49. 54.Andalo1,042 mTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolAn alpine pass at 1,042 metres on the Paganella plateau, with the Brenta Dolomites on one side and a periodic lake that empties and refills.
  50. 55.Scontrone1,038 mL'Aquila · AbruzzoA 1,038-meter borgo above the Sangro gorge in the Alto Sangro, with two dozen emigration-themed murals and a paleontological site of European importance.
  51. 56.Sestola1,020 mModena · Emilia-RomagnaA 1,020-meter Apennine town under Monte Cimone, with a Lombard-era castle above and the largest ski domain of central Italy on the slopes.
  52. 57.Santo Stefano d'Aveto1,012 mGenova · LiguriaLiguria's highest commune at 1,012 meters in the Ligurian-Emilian Apennines, with a Malaspina-Doria castle and the only ski resort in the region.
  53. 58.Gangi1,011 mPalermo · SicilyA Madonie hill town stacked down Monte Marone at 1,011 meters, RAI's Borgo dei Borghi 2014 and the launching pad for the one-euro-house programme.
  54. 59.San Vito di Cadore1,011 mBelluno · VenetoA Cadore valley village at 1,011 meters between the Antelao and the Pelmo, ten kilometers south of Cortina and built around a fifteenth-century frescoed chapel.
  55. 60.Pietracamela1,005 mTeramo · AbruzzoA village of 218 people clinging at 1,005 meters under the north wall of Corno Piccolo, birthplace of Italian Apennine climbing in 1925.

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