Map of Italy showing La Spezia in the northwest
La Spezia is a city in the Liguria region of northern Italy, at the head of La Spezia Gulf . It is one of the major Italian military and commercial harbours, located between Genoa and Pisa on the Tyrrhenian Sea. La Spezia also hosts one of the biggest military industries of Italy, OTO Melara.
It has no truly remarkable historic or architectural features, apart from the modern (circa 1960) Cristo Re alla Spezia Cathedral and the Lia Art Museum . The post office preserves some Futurist mosaics by Prampolini .
Although La Spezia, peculiar in Italy by being a modern city (almost all buildings date after 1920), has few attractions, its province includes beautiful places like Lerici, Portovenere and the Cinque Terre, all lying on the La Spezia Gulf, on the Tyrrhenian Sea.
During the Second World War, the city's port was used by the Kriegsmarine as the main base for U-boats operating in the Mediterranean Sea.
Famous people from La Spezia
- Dario Vergassola , actor
- Alexia, pop music singer
- Paolo Bertolani , poet
Statistics
- Area of the commune: 51.39 kmē
- Population of the commune: 91,391 (2001 census)
- Geographic coordinates:
- Area of the province: 882 kmē
- Population of the province: 215,935 (2001 census)
- Number of communes in the province: 32
