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| INFORMATION ABOUT THE REGION:
Sardinia (Sardigna, Sardinna or Sardinnia in the Sardinian language, Sardegna in Italian, Sardenya in Catalan), is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy, France and Tunisia, south of Corsica.
Sardinia has an area of 24,090 km2 and a population of 1.65 million. It was called "Ichnusa" by the Phoenicians and "Sandalyon" by the Greeks because of its shape, recalling a footprint.
Sardinia is an autonomous region of Italy. The regional capital is Cagliari. The region is divided into four provinces: Cagliari, Sassari, Nuoro and Oristano.
The island contains numerous extraordinary tourist areas, including the Costa Smeralda and Gennargentu. Mostly famous for its beaches, its land is rich in other interesting places.
The climate is mainly Mediterranean, with a warm spring and fall, hot summer, and mild winter. Sardinia is suffering from a multi-year drought, thought by some to be due to global warming.
The language of Sardinia is Sardinian, a Romance language with obscure origins in Phoenician, Etruscan, and Near Eastern roots. While it has been significantly supplanted by Italian for official purposes, and it is completely unknown among some sections of Sardinian youth, specially in Cagliari, Sardinian is still the main national language (Sardinians identify themselves as a people and as a nation) in fact. In the northern regions of Gallura and Sassari, the dialect spoken is not Sardinian but a variety of Corsican (as in Corsica), an Italian dialect. In the island of San Pietro, the dialect spoken is Ligurian, from Genoa. In the city of Alghero, a mediaeval dialect of Catalan is still spoken (the name of the city in Catalan is L'Alguer) as the city was a Catalan colony in the past. |
