Palermo
Palermo is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is in northwestern Sicily, by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The city was founded in Isla Palermo 734 BC by the Phoenicians as . Palermo then became a possession of Carthage. Two Greek Greek colonization|colonies] were established, known collectively as ; the Carthaginians used this name on their coins after the 5th centuryBC. As Panormus, the town became part of the Roman Republic and Empire for over a thousand years. From 831 to 1072 the city was under Arab rule in the Emirate of Sicily when the city became the capital of Sicily for the first time. During this time the city was known as. Following the Norman conquest, Palermo became the capital of a new kingdom, the Kingdom of Sicily, that lasted from 1130 to 1816.
The municipality of Palermo has a population of 625,956 as of 2025. The population of its urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 855,285, while its metropolitan city is the fifth most populated in Italy, with around 1.2 million people. The inhabitants are known as Palermitani or, poetically, panormiti. The languages they speak are the Italian language and the Palermitano dialect of the Sicilian language.
Palermo is Sicily's cultural, economic and tourism capital. It is a city rich in history, culture, art, music and food. Many tourists are attracted by the Mediterranean climate, renowned gastronomy and restaurants, Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau churches, palaces and buildings, and the nightlife and music. Palermo is the main Sicilian industrial and commercial center: the main industrial sectors include tourism, services, commerce and agriculture. Palermo has an international airport and a significant underground economy. For cultural, artistic and economic reasons, Palermo is one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean and among the top tourist destinations in both Italy and Europe. It is the main seat of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of [Cefalù and Monreale]. The city is also undergoing careful redevelopment, preparing to become one of the major cities of the Euro-Mediterranean area.
Roman Catholicism is highly important in Palermitan culture. The Patron Saint of Palermo is Santa Rosalia, whose Feast Day is celebrated on 15 July. The area attracts significant numbers of tourists and is widely known for its colourful fruit, vegetable and fish markets at the heart of Palermo, known as Vucciria, Ballarò and Capo.
History
Early history
Evidence of human settlement in the area now known as Palermo goes back to at least the Mesolithic period, perhaps around 8000 BC, where a group of cave drawings at nearby Addaura from that period have been found. The original inhabitants were Sicani people who, according to Thucydides, arrived from the Iberian Peninsula.Antiquity
In the 8th c. BC the Phoenicians built a small settlement on the natural harbour of Palermo, which became known as . It became one of the three main Phoenician colonies of Sicily, along with Motya and Soluntum.The first settlement was later known as Paleapolis meaning "Old City". The site chosen by the Phoenicians was connected to the mountains with two roads that today have become Via Cappuccini and Corso Pisani.
The Neapolis or "New City", the nucleus of the subsequent expansion of the colony, soon developed in the area between the Paleapolis and the port. The new district expanded rapidly, exceeding the size of the old quarter, and soon became the site of markets, artisan and commercial activities. The walls were extended to embrace the new urban perimeter and two new gates were made, while the old gate at the port was moved to make room for the new buildings. In total there were 4 gates, one on each side of the city. The walls followed the course of the two rivers that surround the city, the Kemonia and the Papireto, creating a natural moat and improving the military security of the city. During the Roman era they were reinforced.
The Cassaro district was probably named after the walls themselves; the word Cassaro deriving from the Arab al-qaṣr. The colony developed around a central street now the Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
Carthage was Palermo's major trading partner under the Phoenicians and the city enjoyed a prolonged peace during this period. Palermo came into contact with the Ancient Greeks between the 6th and the 5th centuries BC which preceded the Sicilian Wars, a conflict fought between the Greeks of Syracuse and the Carthaginians for control over the island of Sicily. During this war the Greeks named the settlement Pánormos or 'wide haven' due to its large anchorage, from which the present name of the city developed. The Carthaginians began using the Greek name on the city's coinage from the 5th centuryBC. It was from Palermo that Hamilcar I's fleet was launched. In 409 BC the city was looted by Hermocrates of Syracuse. The Sicilian Wars ended in 265 BC when Syracuse allied with the Romans of Italy and pushed the Carthaginians off of the island during the First Punic War. In 276 BC, during the Pyrrhic War, Panormos briefly became a Greek colony after being conquered by Pyrrhus of Epirus, but returned to Punic Carthage in 275 BC. In 254 BC Panormos was besieged and conquered by the Romans. Carthage attempted to reconquer Panormus in the Battle of Panormus 250 BC but failed.
In Roman times luxurious residences were built and have been found in several locations.
Middle Ages
As the Roman Empire was falling apart, Palermo fell under the control of several Germanic tribes. The first were the Vandals in 440 AD under the rule of their king Geiseric. The Vandals had occupied all the Roman provinces in North Africa by 455 establishing themselves as a significant force. They acquired Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily shortly afterwards. However, they soon lost these newly acquired possessions to the Ostrogoths. The Ostrogothic conquest under Theodoric the Great began in 488; Theodoric supported Roman culture and government unlike the Germanic Goths. The Gothic War took place between the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. Sicily was the first part of Italy to be taken under control of General Belisarius who was commissioned by the Eastern Emperor. In late 535 his Byzantine army of 7,500–9,000 and a fleet laid siege to the city in the Siege of Panormus, which had refused to surrender unlike all the other Ostrogothic-held cities in Sicily, and eventually prevailed.Justinian I solidified his rule in the following years.
The Arabs took control of Palermo and most of Sicily in 831, and the Emirate of Sicily was established, though other cities persisted as Byzantine holdouts until as late as 965. Muslim rule in Palermo lasted for about 240 years. Palermo displaced Syracuse as the capital of Sicily. It was said to have then begun to compete with Córdoba and Cairo in terms of importance and splendor. For more than a hundred years Palermo was the capital of a flourishing emirate. The Arabs also introduced many agricultural crops which remain a mainstay of Sicilian cuisine.
File:Muqarnas à lintérieur de la Cuba .jpg|left|thumb|Arabesque on a wall of the Cuba Palace
After dynastic quarrels however, there was a Norman conquest in 1072. Normans conquered Palermo after a long siege. Indeed, the feat proved difficult because the Normans had never besieged such a populous city with such powerful walls. After 5 months siege, Normans built numerous stairs and war machines and finally conquered the city. The family who returned the city to Christianity were called the Hautevilles, including Robert Guiscard and his army, who is regarded as a hero by the natives. It was under his nephew Roger II of Sicily that Norman holdings in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula were promoted from the County of Sicily into the Kingdom of Sicily. The kingdom's capital was Palermo, with the King's Court held at the Palazzo dei Normanni. Much construction was undertaken during this period, such as the building of Palermo Cathedral. The Kingdom of Sicily became one of the wealthiest states in Europe.
Thanks to the marriage between Constance, Queen of Sicily, and Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Palermo and the whole Sicily was inherited by their son Frederick II, who became King of Sicily in 1198 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1220. Palermo was the capital of Emperor Frederick II's vast empire and also his favorite city. Muslims of Palermo emigrated or were expelled during Frederick's rule. After an interval of Angevin rule, Sicily came under control of the Aragon and Barcelona dynasties. By 1330, Palermo's population had declined to 51,000.
Early modern era
From 1479 until 1713 Palermo was ruled by the Kingdom of Spain, and again between 1717 and 1718. Palermo was also under Savoy control between 1713 and 1717 and 1718–1720 as a result of the Treaty of Utrecht. It was ruled by Austria between 1720 and 1734.Two Sicilies
After the Treaty of Utrecht, Sicily was handed over to the House of Savoy, but by 1734 it was in Bourbon possession. Charles III chose Palermo for his coronation as King of Sicily. Charles had new houses built for the growing population, while trade and industry grew as well. However, Palermo had become just another provincial city as the Royal Court resided in Naples. Charles' son Ferdinand, though disliked by the population, took refuge in Palermo after the French Revolution in 1798. His son Alberto of Naples and Sicily|Alberto] died on the way to Palermo and is buried in the city.When the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was founded, the original capital city was Palermo but a year later moved to Naples.
From 1820 to 1848 Sicily was shaken by upheavals, which culminated on 12 January 1848, with a popular insurrection, the first one in Europe that year, led by Giuseppe La Masa. A parliament and constitution were proclaimed. The first president was Ruggero Settimo. The Bourbons reconquered Palermo in 1849, and it remained under their rule until the Expedition of the Thousand, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, conquered the city after the Siege of Palermo in May 1860. After the plebiscite later that year Palermo, along with the rest of Sicily, became part of the new Kingdom of Italy.
Italian unification
The majority of Sicilians preferred independence to annexation by the Savoy kingdom; in 1866, Palermo became the seat of a week-long popular rebellion, which was finally crushed after martial law was declared. The Italian government blamed anarchists and the Church, specifically the Archbishop of Palermo, for the rebellion and began enacting anti-Sicilian and anti-clerical policies. A new cultural, economic and industrial growth was spurred by several families, like the Florio, the Ducrot, the Rutelli, the Sandron, the Whitaker, the Utveggio, and others. In the early twentieth century, Palermo expanded outside the old city walls, mostly to the north along the new boulevards Via Roma, Via Dante, Via Notarbartolo, and Viale della Libertà. These roads soon had a huge number of villas in the Art Nouveau style. Many of these were designed by the architect Ernesto Basile. The Grand Hotel Villa Igiea, designed by Basile for the Florio family, is a good example of Palermitan Art Nouveau. The huge Teatro Massimo was designed in the same period by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile, Ernesto's father, and built by the Rutelli & Machì building firm of the industrial and old Rutelli Italian family in Palermo. It opened in 1897.World War II
During the Second World War, Palermo was heavily bombed by the Allied air forces in 1942 and 1943 until its capture during the Allied invasion of Sicily on 22 July 1943. The harbour and the surrounding quarters were effectively destroyed, as was much of the city, with heavy civilian casualties. When U.S. troops entered Palermo in 1943 they were greeted with "a thunderous welcome by what seemed the entire population demonstrating their feelings about Fascist rule." The two captured Italian generals claimed that they were happy because in their view "the Sicilians were not human beings but animals". Anti-Sicilian prejudice was part of the fascist regime's worldview, promoted by pro-fascist newspapers, particularly in the north of Italy.Italian Republic and today
In 1946, the city was declared the seat of the Regional Parliament, as capital of a Special Status Region whose seat is in the Palazzo dei Normanni.In 1948, the element technetium was discovered in the University of Palermo.
A theme in the city's modern age has been the struggle against the Sicilian Mafia, Red Brigades and outlaws such as Salvatore Giuliano, who controlled the neighbouring area of Montelepre. The Italian state effectively has had to share control of the territory, economically and administratively, with the Mafia.
The "Sack of Palermo" was one of the dramatic consequences of this problem. This popular term refers to the speculative building practices that resulted in the destruction of a great number of historical buildings and green areas in favour of poor buildings, mainly between the 1950s and the 1980s. The reduced importance of agriculture in the Sicilian economy has led to massive migration to the cities, especially Palermo, which swelled in size, leading to rapid northward expansion. The regulatory plans for expansion were largely ignored in the boom. New parts of town appeared almost out of nowhere, but without parks, schools, public buildings, proper roads, or the other amenities that characterise a modern city.
The Cosa Nostra has traditionally been the most powerful group in Palermo. A 2019 CNN article reported that Sicilian Mafia activity in Palermo was particularly notorious in one area, Passo Rigano. "According to Italian police, the Mafia not only engages in extortion there, but also has a large role in the town's legal economy—with its involvement in business such as wholesale food supplies, online betting and gambling." The police investigation at the time also confirmed strong links between the Palermo area mafia and American organized crime, particularly the Gambino crime family. According to La Repubblica, "Off they go, through the streets of Passo di Rigano, Boccadifalco, Torretta and at the same time, Brooklyn, Staten Island, New Jersey. Because from Sicily to the US, the old mafia has returned".
Geography
Palermo lies in a basin formed by the Papireto, Kemonia and Oreto rivers. The basin was named the Conca d'Oro by the Arabs in the 9th century. The city is surrounded by a mountain range named after the city. These mountains face the Tyrrhenian Sea. Palermo is home to a natural port and offers views of the sea, especially from Monte Pellegrino.Climate
Palermo experiences a hot-summer subtropical Mediterranean climate with moderate seasonality. Summers are very long, hot and dry due to the domination of subtropical high pressure system, while winters are mild and changeable, with rainy weather due to the polar front. Temperatures in autumn and spring are typically warm. Palermo is one of the warmest cities in Europe, with an average annual air temperature of ; it is one of Italy's warmest cities. It receives about 2,530 hours of sunshine per year. Snow is rare, having occurred about a dozen times since 1945. Since the 1940s, considerable snowfall has occurred at least five times. In 1949 and in 1956, when the minimum temperature went down to, the city was blanketed by centimetres of snow. Snowfall also occurred in 1981, 1986, 1999 and 2014. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Palermo was in February 1967. The average annual temperature of the sea is above ; from in February to in August. From November to May, the average sea temperature exceeds and from June to October, the average sea temperature exceeds.Topography
Palermo is surrounded by mountains, which form a cirque around the city. Some of the city's districts are divided by the mountains. Historically, it was relatively difficult to reach the inner part of Sicily from the city because of the mountains. The range's tallest peak is La Pizzuta, about high. Historically, the most important mountain is Monte Pellegrino, which is geographically separated from the rest of the range by a plain and lies right in front of the Tyrrhenian Sea. In his essay Italian Journey, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called Monte Pellegrino's cliff "the most beautiful promontory in the world".Rivers
Today both the river and the are covered up by buildings, but their shape can still be recognised because the streets that were built on them follow their shapes. The only waterway not drained yet is the Oreto river, which divides the downtown of the city from the western uptown and the industrial districts. In the basins were many seasonal torrents that helped formed swampy plains, reclaimed during history; a good example can be found in the borough of Mondello.Districts
| Municipality | Quarters |
| I | Kalsa, Albergheria, Seralcadio & La Loggia |
| II | Settecannoli, Brancaccio & Ciaculli-Oreto |
| III | Villagrazia-Falsomiele & Stazione-Oreto |
| IV | Montegrappa, Santa Rosalia, Palermo|S. Rosalia], Cuba, Calatafimi, Mezzomonreale, Villa Tasca-Altarello & Boccadifalco |
| V | Zisa, Noce, Uditore-Passo di Rigano & Borgo Nuovo |
| VI | Cruillas, S. Giovanni Apostolo, Resuttana & San Lorenzo |
| VII | Pallavicino, Tommaso Natale, Sferracavallo, Partanna, Mondello, Arenella, Vergine Maria & San Filippo Neri |
| VIII | Politeama, Palermo|Politeama], Malaspina-Palagonia, Libertà & Monte Pellegrino |
Shown above are the thirty five quarters of Palermo: these thirty five neighbourhoods or "quartiere" as they are known, are further divided into eight governmental community boards.
Demographics
As of 2025, there are 1,194,439 people living in the metropolitan city of Palermo, 625,956 of which resided in the city itself, of whom 47.8% are male and 52.2% are female, compared to the nationwide average of 49.0% and 51.0% respectively. Minors make up 16.5% of the population, and seniors make up 23.6%, compared to the nationwide average of 14.9% and 24.7% respectively.In the ten years between 2001 and 2011, the population of Palermo declined by 3.4%, compared to the entirety of Italy, which declined only by 0.7%. The reason for Palermo's decline is a population flight to the suburbs, and to Northern Italy.
Immigration
As of 2024, the foreign-born population is 30,168, equal to 4.8% of the population. The 5 largest foreign nationalities are Bangladeshis, Romanians, Sri Lankans, Ghanaians and Tunisians.| Country of birth | Population | |||||||||||
 BangladeshCultureReligionPatron saintsThe patron saint of Palermo is Saint Rosalia, who is widely revered.On 14 July, people in Palermo celebrate the annual Festino, the most important religious event of the year. The Festino is a procession that goes through the main street of Palermo to commemorate the miracle attributed to Saint Rosalia who, it is believed, freed the city from the Black Death in 1624. Her remains were discovered in a cave on Monte Pellegrino, and her remains were carried around the city three times, banishing the plague. There is a sanctuary marking the spot where her remains were found which can be reached via a scenic bus ride from the. Before 1624 Palermo had four patron saints, one for each of the four major parts of the city. They were Saint Agatha, Saint Christina, Saint Nympha and Saint Olivia. Saint Lucy is also honoured with a celebration on 13 December, during which the inhabitants of Palermo do not eat anything made with flour, but boil wheat in its natural state and use it to prepare a special dish called cuccìa. This commemorates the saving of the city from famine due to a miracle attributed to Saint Lucy; A ship full of grain mysteriously arrived in the city's harbour and the hungry population wasted no time in making flour but ate the grain as it arrived. Saint Benedict the Moor is the heavenly protector of the city of Palermo. The ancient patron of the city was the Genius of Palermo, genius loci and numen protector of the place, that became the secular patron of the modern Palermo. SportsPalermo hosts a professional football team, Palermo Football Club, commonly called simply Palermo, that competes in Serie B as of 2022, having been excluded from Serie B after the 2018–2019 season. After it went bankrupt in 2019, a new club was formed by the company Hera Hora Srl.The Targa Florio was an open road endurance car race held near Palermo. Founded in 1906, it was one of the oldest sports car racing events until its discontinuation in 1977 due to safety concerns, but it has since run as a rallying event. Palermo was home to the grand depart of the 2008 Giro d'Italia. The initial stage was a TTT. The Internazionali Femminili di Palermo is an annual ladies professional tennis event held in the city, which is part of the WTA Tour. The American football team is Eagles United Palermo and it plays in stadium of Carini. City emblemsFlagThe flag of Palermo is similar to that of the autonomous region of Sicily, but with a different arrangement of colours. The flag displayed on the Palazzo Pretorio, the town hall, has no coat of arms. However, versions with coats of arms of variable appearance in the center have been observed; for example, around the 1950s or 1960s the flag bore the civic coat of arms form Il Blasone in Sicilia.Coat of armsThe coat of arms consists of a shield with a red background, stamped by the crown of the city, in the center of which there is a gold-colored eagle with open wings holding in its claws the legend bearing the initials "S.P.Q.P.".MonumentsUNESCO World Heritage SitesPalermo has a large architectural heritage and is notable for its many Arab-Norman buildings. UNESCO World Heritage Sites include the Palazzo Reale with the Cappella Palatina, the Chiesa di San Giovanni degli Eremiti, the Chiesa di Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, the Chiesa di San Cataldo, the Cattedrale di Palermo, the Palazzo della Zisa and the, adding to the list that makes Italy the country with most UNESCO world heritage sites.Palaces and museums
Churches
Squares and public monuments
City wallsPalermo had two rings of city walls, many parts of which still survive. The first ring surrounded the ancient core of the Phoenician city, the Palaeopolis or Paleapolis and the Neapolis. Vittorio Emanuele, Palermo|Via Vittorio Emanuele] was the main road east–west through this early walled city. The eastern edge of the walled city was on Via Roma and the ancient port in the vicinity of Piazza Marina. The wall circuit was approximately Porto Nuovo, Corso Alberti, Piazza Peranni, Via Isodoro, Via Candela, Via Venezia, Via Roma, Piazza Paninni, Via Biscottari, Via Del Bastione, Palazzo dei Normanni and back to Porto Nuovo.The walls followed the course of the two rivers that surround the city, the Kemonia and the Papireto, creating a natural moat and improving the military security of the city. During the Roman era, they were certainly implemented, as deducible from the subsequent account of Procopius of Caesarea about the capture of Palermo. In the medieval period the city was expanded with a second wall. Via Vittorio Emanuele continued to be the main road east–west through the walled city. The west gate was still Porta Nuova, the walls continued to Corso Alberti, to Piazza Vittorio Emanuele Orlando where it turned east along Via Volturno to Piazza Verdi and along the line of Via Cavour. At this northeast corner the Castello a Mare protected the port at La Cala. A huge chain was used to block La Cala with the other end at Santa Maria della Catena. The sea-side wall was along the western side of Foro Italico Umberto. The wall turns west along the northern side of Via Abramo Lincoln, continues along Corso Tukory. The wall turns north approximately on Via Benedetto, to Palazzo dei Normanni and back to Porta Nuova. Several gates in the city wall survive. Opera housesUntil the beginning of the 20th century there were hundreds of small opera theatres known as magazzeni in Palermo.
Other sightsThe Wall of Legality depicts 38 important persons who helped in fighting the mafia. The street art project was inaugurated in July 2022 and is a joint effort by 19 artists. It can be found at Piazza degli Aragonesi.The cathedral has a heliometer dating to 1690, one of a number built in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The device itself is quite simple: a tiny hole in one of the minor domes acts as pinhole camera, projecting an image of the sun onto the floor at solar noon. There is a bronze line, la Meridiana, on the floor, running precisely north–south. The ends of the line mark the positions as at the summer and winter solstices; signs of the zodiac show the various other dates throughout the year. The purpose of the instrument was to standardise the measurement of time and the calendar. The convention in Sicily had been that the day was measured from the moment of dawn, which meant that no two locations had the same time and, more importantly, did not have the same time as in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It was also important to know when the vernal equinox occurred, to provide the correct date for Easter. File:Antico Stabilimento Balneare di Mondello.jpg|thumb|280px|The Antico Stabilimento Balneare located in Mondello, a seaside borough north of Palermo, is an Art Nouveau or Liberty-style building atop piers of the beach in the town The Orto botanico di Palermo, founded in 1785, is Italy's largest, with a surface of. One site of interest is the Capuchin Catacombs, with many mummified corpses in varying degrees of preservation. Close to the city is the Monte Pellegrino, offering a panorama of the city, its surrounding mountains and the sea. Another good panoramic viewpoint is the promontory of Monte Gallo, near Mondello Beach. A Moreton Bay fig of >30 m girth and of 32 m height can be found on the Piazza Marina. This Ficus macrophylla is most probably the thickest tree in Europe. On the boulevard Via Roma is the Palazzo delle Poste, a government building created during the Mussolini era in the stripped classicism style. It was designed by the rationalist and later fascist government architect Angiolo Mazzoni. Perhaps its most famous feature is the five-mural cycle in the Futurist style by the artist Benedetta Cappa, Sintesi delle Comunicazioni. EconomyAs Sicily's administrative capital, Palermo is a centre for much of the region's finance, tourism and commerce. It has an international airport, and Palermo's economic growth over the years has brought the opening of many new businesses. The economy mainly relies on tourism and services, but also has commerce, shipbuilding and agriculture. But Palermo still has high unemployment, high corruption, and a significant black market.TransportPublic transportPalermo has a local railway, the Palermo metropolitan railway service.The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Palermo, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 63 min. 14.% of public transit riders, ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 23 min, while 48% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 4.4 km, while 3% travel for over 12 km in a single direction. BusesPalermo's public bus system is operated by AMAT and covers an area of. About 90 different routes reach every part of the city.TramsPalermo has a public tram system finalized in 2015 and operated by AMAT. There are four lines:
CoachesThe local coach company, AST, with its coaches totalling 35 lines, links Palermo to all of the main cities in Sicily.RoadsPalermo is a key intersection on the Sicilian road network, being the junction between the eastern A19 (Italy)|A19] motorway to Trapani, the southeastern A29 (Italy)|A29] to airport and Mazara del Vallo and the southwestern A19 to Catania and A20 (Italy)|A20] to Messina. Palermo is one of the main cities on European route E90. The three main national roads starting from Palermo are the SS113, SS121, SS186 and the SS624.Airports, known as Falcone-Borsellino Airport, is a few kilometres west of Palermo, in Cinisi. It is dedicated to Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two anti-mafia judges killed by the Mafia in the early 1990s.The airport's rail facility, known as Punta Raisi railway station, can be reached from Palermo Centrale, Palermo Notarbartolo and Palermo Francia railway stations. Palermo-Boccadifalco Airport is the city's other airport. National railThe main railway station of Palermo is Palermo Centrale which links to the other cities of Sicily, including Agrigento, Trapani and Catania, and through Messina and the strait to the rest of Italy. The railways also connect to the Palermo airport with departures every thirty minutes.PortThe port of Palermo, founded by the Phoenicians over 2,700 years ago, is, together with the port of Messina, Sicily's main port. From there, ferries link Palermo to Cagliari, Genoa, Livorno, Naples, Tunis, and other cities, and carry almost two million passengers annually. It is also an important port for cruise ships. Traffic includes also almost of cargo and 80,000 TEUs yearly. The port also has links to minor Sicilian islands such as Ustica and the Aeolian Islands. Inside the Port of Palermo there is a section known as "tourist marina" for sailing yachts and catamarans.EducationThe local university is the University of Palermo, the island's second oldest university. It was officially founded in 1806, although historical records indicate that medicine and law have been taught there since the late 15th century. The Orto botanico di Palermo is home to the university's Department of Botany and is also open to visitors.International relationsTwin towns – sister citiesPalermo is twinned with:
Notable people
Honorary citizensPeople awarded the honorary citizenship of Palermo are:
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