Ancona

Picene communities lived here before Greek settlers from Syracuse founded the city in about 387 BC, part of Dionysius I's plan to extend Syracusan influence in the Adriatic. They named it Ankon, the "elbow", after the curved headland that sheltered the harbour, and the city is still called the "Doric city". Under Rome it kept the Greek language and its own coins for about a century, served as a naval station, and grew into Rome's main port facing Dalmatia; Trajan enlarged the harbour with his architect Apollodorus of Damascus, and the Senate raised his marble arch on the quay in 115.

After 1000 Ancona became an independent maritime republic, governed by six Elders from its three districts, allied with Ragusa and Byzantium and often clashing with Venice. Greek, Ottoman and Jewish merchants made it a centre of trade with the Levant, and the city's Jewish community grew as refugees arrived from Germany, Spain, Sicily and Portugal. In 1532 Ancona lost its independence to the Papal States under Clement VII; a ghetto was established in 1556. In the 1730s Clement XII extended the quay and had Vanvitelli build the Lazzaretto.

From 1797, when the French took it, the city was an important fortress, and it joined Italy in 1860 after a siege. Austro-Hungarian warships bombarded it in 1915, and in 1944 Polish troops took it in the battle of Ancona. The city's population peaked in 1971; then came an earthquake in 1972 and a landslide in the Posatora district in 1982, after an earlier flood in 1959. The Teatro delle Muse reopened in 2002 and the large Cardeto park in 2005, and traffic with the Balkans and Greece has grown steadily through the port.

Ancona's identity is maritime. The Greek past survives in the nickname Dorici and in the cathedral on the old acropolis, and the city's monuments line the waterfront: Trajan's arch, the pentagonal Lazzaretto and the Loggia dei Mercanti, where the Dalmatian Giorgio da Sebenico left a facade that, with his portals for San Francesco alle Scale and Sant'Agostino, marks the city's Adriatic Renaissance. The Lazzaretto now holds exhibitions and the Museo Omero, a museum designed to be explored by touch.

A distinctly local custom is the caves of the Passetto: about five hundred small caves cut into the base of the cliffs since the mid-19th century to shelter boats and serve as summer retreats, kept by families known as grottaroli. The Monument to the Fallen above them, with its stairway to the sea, has become one of the symbols of the city, and the walk "from sea to sea" across the promontory is a favourite stroll. Because the city looks onto the Adriatic both east and west, both sunrise and sunset can be seen over the sea.

The Teatro delle Muse, with a neoclassical facade carved with the nine Muses, Apollo and Palaemon, god of harbours, is the city's main stage. The Jewish cemetery on Monte Cardeto, with tombstones from 1552 onwards, is one of the largest in Europe.

About 99,500 people lived in Ancona in 2025. Ancona is the regional capital, with the regional government, a university, hospitals and the port at the core of its economy. The port is one of the busiest in Italy for international passenger traffic, with ferries to Croatia, Albania and Greece.

The population fell from its 1971 peak after the 1972 earthquake and the 1982 landslide, reached a low of about 98,000 in 1999, and has since recovered with immigration. Most residents live in the districts that spread over the hills behind the centre and along the coast; the Adriatico district and Viale della Vittoria date from the expansion of the 1920s and 1930s.

Life is that of a working city rather than a tourist town: commuters on the corsi in the morning, long lunches, and an evening walk towards the Passetto or along Corso Garibaldi. In summer the city empties towards the Conero beaches and the Passetto rocks.

Ancona's cooking comes from the sea. Brodetto is the Adriatic fish stew, made in different styles in different ports, Ancona's among them. Stoccafisso all'anconitana, Ancona-style stockfish, is the recognised symbol of the city's cooking, and moscioli are wild mussels gathered from the natural rocks rather than farmed. Fish trattorias cluster around the port and the Mole.

From the wider Marche come olive all'ascolana, green olives stuffed with meat and fried; vincisgrassi, a pasta dish similar to lasagna; and crescia, a thin flatbread. The Mercato delle Erbe, an early 20th-century market hall of cast iron and glass in the Liberty style, sells the fish, vegetables and cheese of the province.

Rosso Conero, the red wine named after the promontory, is the city's own wine, and Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi, made inland in the province, is the local white. Cafés on Corso Garibaldi and Corso Mazzini serve coffee by day and aperitifs in the evening.