Learn about Emilia Romagna

Emilia-Romagna is a region of northern Italy, stretching from the Po River valley and the northern slopes of the Apennines to the Adriatic coast. It occupies the land between two of Italy's historically distinct halves -- Emilia, the western portion along the Via Emilia toward Piacenza, and Romagna, the eastern portion reaching to Ravenna and Rimini -- joined administratively in 1948 into the region as it exists today.

Bologna, the regional capital, is home to the University of Bologna, founded in 1088 and generally recognized as the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world. That institution shaped the city's long identity as a center of learning, distinct from the courtly and commercial power that concentrated in Parma, Modena, and Ferrara under separate ruling families for much of the region's history.

Before Italian unification in the 19th century, the territory now called Emilia-Romagna was politically fragmented: the Duchy of Modena and the Duchy of Parma were ruled by the Este and Bourbon-Parma families, while Romagna, further east, formed part of the Papal States as one of the Papal Legations administered from Rome. That fragmentation left each city with its own dialect, cuisine, and civic architecture, which is one reason Bologna, Parma, Modena, Ferrara, and Ravenna still feel like distinct places rather than satellites of a single regional identity.

The region is also one of Italy's principal food-producing areas, with a cluster of protected-designation products -- Parmigiano Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma, traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena -- tied to specific towns and production rules, alongside Bologna's egg pasta and Ravenna's Byzantine-era mosaics, recognized by UNESCO for monuments built between the 5th and 6th centuries.