Lazio Geography

Lazio occupies a transitional strip of west-central Italy between the Tyrrhenian coast and the interior ridges of the Apennines. The region's core is the lower Tiber river valley, which the river follows from the Umbrian border down through Rome to its mouth at Ostia -- the same corridor that made the site of Rome a natural crossing point and, later, a natural capital.

North and south of the Tiber, the interior is broken by volcanic districts rather than a single mountain chain. The Alban Hills, immediately southeast of Rome, are the collapsed remnant of a large volcanic complex whose craters now hold Lake Albano and Lake Nemi; further north, the Volsini and Sabatini volcanic groups similarly hold Lake Bolsena and Lake Bracciano. These lakes sit on fertile volcanic soil that has supported vineyards and orchards for centuries and gave Rome much of its wine, notably from the Frascati area.

The coast itself is mostly low and sandy, backed by reclaimed marshland in the Pontine plain south of Rome, which was drained in a major 20th-century engineering project and remains largely agricultural. Toward the region's southern edge, the Aurunci Mountains push down almost to the sea near Gaeta, interrupting the coastal lowland with a rockier, more Mediterranean stretch of shoreline.

Inland and east, the Apennine ridges of Rieti and Frosinone provinces rise well above the coastal plain and see a genuinely different climate -- colder winters, occasional snow, and a slower, more agricultural pace of life that has little in common with the coast or the capital.