Italy's seismic zones, municipality by municipality
Every Italian municipality is classified into one of four seismic zones, from 1 (high hazard) to 4 (very low). Of the 7,896 municipalities, 796 are in zone 1 — 3.3 million residents — and 45% of Italians live in zone 1 or 2. The source is the classification in force, published by the Italian Civil Protection Department and updated in May 2025.
Is Italy in an earthquake zone?
All of it is classified, but the hazard is not spread evenly: it runs along the Apennine spine and concentrates in Calabria, Sicily, Abruzzo and Friuli. 8 regions have no zone-1 municipality at all — Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont, Sardinia, Tuscany, Trentino-South Tyrol, Aosta Valley — while in the regions below almost everyone lives in the two most severe zones.
| Region | Residents in zone 1 or 2 |
|---|---|
| Marche | 100.0% |
| Calabria | 100.0% |
| Umbria | 93.8% |
| Sicily | 92.9% |
| Campania | 91.1% |
| Abruzzo | 88.1% |
| Basilicata | 83.3% |
| Molise | 82.6% |
| Lazio | 81.2% |
| Friuli Venezia Giulia | 52.8% |
The map most people are looking at is out of date
Seismic zoning in Italy is a regional competence. Most maps online still show annex A of the 2003 national ordinance (OPCM 3274/2003), but the regions have reclassified since. Comparing the 2003 sheet with the classification in force, row by row: 2,332 of the 7,534 comparable municipalities (31%) are in a different zone today, and 21.0 million people live in them. In 88% of those cases the 2003 sheet is less severe than the classification in force.
| Municipality | Zone in 2003 | Zone in force |
|---|---|---|
| Rome | 3 | 2 |
| Milan | 4 | 3 |
| Turin | 4 | 3 |
| Genoa | 4 | 3 |
| Florence | 2 | 3 |
| Verona | 3 | 2 |
The largest cities, and their zone
| City | Region | Seismic zone | Residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rome | Lazio | 2 (medium) | 2,751,747 |
| Milan | Lombardy | 3 (low) | 1,371,499 |
| Naples | Campania | 2 (medium) | 913,704 |
| Turin | Piedmont | 3 (low) | 851,199 |
| Palermo | Sicily | 2 (medium) | 630,427 |
| Genoa | Liguria | 3 (low) | 562,422 |
| Bologna | Emilia-Romagna | 3 (low) | 390,098 |
| Florence | Tuscany | 3 (low) | 362,613 |
| Bari | Puglia | 3 (low) | 316,226 |
| Catania | Sicily | 2 (medium) | 298,680 |
| Verona | Veneto | 2 (medium) | 255,298 |
| Venice | Veneto | 3 (low) | 250,290 |
| Messina | Sicily | 1 (high) | 217,959 |
| Padua | Veneto | 3 (low) | 207,502 |
| Trieste | Friuli Venezia Giulia | 3 (low) | 198,843 |
| Brescia | Lombardy | 2 (medium) | 198,259 |
| Parma | Emilia-Romagna | 3 (low) | 198,121 |
| Prato | Tuscany | 3 (low) | 197,088 |
| Taranto | Puglia | 3 (low) | 187,025 |
| Modena | Emilia-Romagna | 3 (low) | 184,597 |
| Reggio nell'Emilia | Emilia-Romagna | 3 (low) | 171,207 |
| Reggio di Calabria | Calabria | 1 (high) | 169,679 |
| Perugia | Umbria | 2 (medium) | 162,099 |
| Ravenna | Emilia-Romagna | 3 (low) | 156,304 |
| Livorno | Tuscany | 3 (low) | 153,418 |
Cities above 50,000 residents in zone 1
Zone 1 is where Italian law expects the strongest shaking.
| City | Region | Residents |
|---|---|---|
| Messina | Sicily | 217,959 |
| Reggio di Calabria | Calabria | 169,679 |
| Syracuse | Sicily | 116,247 |
| Ragusa | Sicily | 73,736 |
| L'Aquila | Abruzzo | 69,717 |
| Lamezia Terme | Calabria | 67,246 |
| Cosenza | Calabria | 63,701 |
| Benevento | Campania | 56,048 |
| Foligno | Umbria | 55,265 |
| Modica | Sicily | 53,485 |
Where in Italy is safest from earthquakes
No part of Italy is unclassified, so the honest answer is comparative, not absolute: zone 4 is the lowest hazard class Italian law defines, and 8.2 million people live in one. These are the regions where the largest share of residents is in zone 4.
| Region | Residents in zone 4 |
|---|---|
| Sardinia | 100.0% |
| Trentino-South Tyrol | 51.7% |
| Puglia | 39.1% |
| Piedmont | 31.8% |
| Lombardy | 28.3% |
| Tuscany | 6.6% |
| Liguria | 5.9% |
| Sicily | 0.3% |
The largest cities in zone 4:
| City | Region | Residents |
|---|---|---|
| Cagliari | Sardinia | 147,411 |
| Sassari | Sardinia | 121,085 |
| Bolzano | Trentino-South Tyrol | 106,357 |
| Novara | Piedmont | 102,187 |
Two cautions before using this as a shortlist. The zone is a building-code class, not a forecast: it sets how a new building must be designed, and most of the housing stock predates the rule. And it is the zone of the whole municipality — the ground under one address can shake more than the town average, which is what local microzonation measures.
How to read the four zones
Zone 1: high hazard. Zone 2: medium. Zone 3: low. Zone 4: very low. The words are the Civil Protection Department's, not ours. Some regions add a sub-zone letter (3S, 2B, 1a): it specifies the zone, it does not change it, and the full official string is in the CSV below. Six municipalities — Rome among them — contain more than one zone: the most severe one is published and the file flags it as an estimate.
This is the zone of the municipality. How much a single address shakes also depends on the ground beneath it, which is what local seismic microzonation measures.
The data
All 7,896 municipalities, with the seismic zone, house prices, rents and flood and landslide exposure, are in one free file: comuni-italia-evitalya.csv (CC BY 4.0). The interactive map is at evitalya.com/it/mappa-comuni/ (in Italian).
How this is measured
Purchase prices and rents are OMI property valuations published by the Agenzia delle Entrate (Italian Revenue Agency), H2 2025: the midpoint of the published min/max range for standard residential units, averaged over the OMI zones of each municipality. Landslide and flood exposure are ISPRA IdroGEO figures — the share of residents living in a P3+P4 landslide hazard area and in a P3 (high probability) flood area. Population is the ISTAT 2023 census. Prices and exposure are measured per municipality; nothing on this page is measured street by street.
The same data as an open file: CSV of all 7,896 municipalities (CC BY 4.0). Interactive version: map of Italian municipalities.
Score one address, not one town
An average tells you about a municipality. If you are looking at a specific address, Evitalya scores that address on 111 metrics — safety, services, mobility, environment, real estate and natural risk — in English: search an Italian address.