Tarquinia Geography, Climate & Nature

Tarquinia stands at 133 metres on a hill that dominates, from the left, the lower course of the river Marta, near the Via Aurelia, in the Lazio Maremma and not far from Tuscany.

Two other watercourses run through the comune: the Arrone, which marks the boundary with the territory of Montalto di Castro, and the river Mignone.

The defining feature is the three-plateau arrangement. The ancient city occupied the Civita, north-east of the modern town; between the two lies the Monterozzi, carrying the necropolis; and the modern town sits on its own hill. They are separate places, within sight of one another.

The territory runs down to the Tyrrhenian coast, where the emporium of Gravisca stood, and in antiquity it reached far inland. At its greatest extent, between the fourth and third centuries BC, Tarquinian territory stretched from Lake Bolsena to the Tolfa mountains, taking in inland centres such as Tuscania, Norchia and Castel d'Asso.

Those Tolfa hills to the south are not incidental: control of the mineral resources there is what made the city a trading power as early as the eighth century BC.

Tarquinia has the climate of the Lazio Maremma — Mediterranean, with hot dry summers and mild, damper winters — moderated a little by its position at 133 metres and a few kilometres from the Tyrrhenian coast.

Italy's national heating classification places the comune in zone D, with 1,658 degree-days, which puts it between the warm coastal strip and the colder interior of the province of Viterbo.

For visitors the practical issue is exposure rather than extremes. The Monterozzi plateau has almost no shade, and the tombs are entered by open stairways; a summer afternoon on the necropolis is genuinely hard going, while the chambers themselves stay cool.

Spring and autumn are the right seasons, with the Maremma green in spring and the light at its best in October.

Winters are mild and wet rather than cold, and the coast nearby keeps frost uncommon.

Tarquinia's territory runs from the Tyrrhenian shore up onto the plateaux of the Maremma, and that gradient carries several habitats within one comune.

Three watercourses shape it: the Marta, whose lower course the town overlooks from its hill; the Arrone, which marks the boundary with Montalto di Castro; and the Mignone. River corridors through farmland are the main continuous habitat in an otherwise cultivated landscape.

The coastal strip is the other system. This is the Maremma, historically marshy and malarial before drainage, and the surviving coastal wetlands and dune are the most ecologically significant ground in the area.

Inland, the Tolfa hills rise to the south — the mineral-bearing uplands that made the Etruscan city rich — and they carry the wooded habitat that the plateaux themselves have largely lost to agriculture.

The necropolis plateau is an odd case: open grassland over six thousand tombs, kept free of building precisely because of what lies beneath it.

The wildlife here is that of the Maremma — a coastal farming landscape with wooded hills behind it.

The coastal strip and its wetlands are the richest part, and this stretch of Tyrrhenian shore sits on a migration route, so the birdlife changes sharply with the season.

The Tolfa hills to the south are the main block of wooded habitat in reach, and they hold the raptors and woodland species that the open plateaux do not.

The rivers — the Marta, the Arrone and the Mignone — are the connecting threads, carrying habitat down from the interior to the sea through farmed country.

On the Monterozzi itself, the practical conservation issue is not wildlife but microclimate: the painted tombs are humidity-sensitive, which is why access to them is limited and rotated.