Aosta

The site was settled in prehistoric times — a megalithic cult area and Neolithic tombs survive at Saint-Martin-de-Corléans — and later became a centre of the Salassi, a Celtic people who controlled the Alpine passes. In 25 BC the Romans defeated them, killing many or selling them into slavery, and Terentius Varro founded the colony of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum for 3,000 retired veterans. Laid out like a military camp at the junction of the Great and Little St Bernard routes, it became the capital of the Alpes Graiae province, and its walls, gates, theatre and street grid still define the centre.

After Rome the city passed to the Burgundians, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines and the Lombards before the Franks drove them out. Under Charlemagne it grew in importance as a post on the Via Francigena, the road from Aachen to Italy, and Sigeric of Canterbury recorded it as a stage in 990. After a period in the Kingdom of Burgundy it passed after 1032 to Humbert I of Savoy. Its people were granted the privilege of an assembly of the estates in 1189, and an executive council chosen from it governed from 1536 until 1802. Anselm, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, was born here.

In the 20th century heavy industry transformed the city. The Ansaldo steelworks drew workers from other parts of Italy, and the Quartiere Cogne was built to house them. After the Second World War the valley gained special autonomous status, with Aosta as its capital, and since 1946 Italian and French have been its official languages.

Aosta's identity is Alpine, bilingual and proud of its difference from the rest of Italy. Italian is the everyday language, French is co-official and taught in schools, and patois, the Valdôtain form of Franco-Provençal, is officially recognised and widely used. The main square is named after Émile Chanoux, and the town hall faces it.

The great event of the year is the Fiera di Sant'Orso, held on 30 and 31 January for about a thousand years, when craftspeople from across the valley fill the old streets with carved wooden utensils, toys and local food and wine. In October the Croix-Noire arena hosts the final of the Bataille des Reines, the cow fights of the mountain farming year, and from late November the Marché Vert Noël Christmas market fills Piazza Émile Chanoux.

Religious heritage is everywhere, from the cathedral beside the old forum to the collegiate church of Sant'Orso and its Romanesque cloister. The city also has its own university, the University of the Aosta Valley, and the Splendor theatre, opened in 2013 in a converted cinema. Sport follows the mountains — skiing at Pila on the city's doorstep — and the Tour de France has passed through Aosta.

Aosta had 33,127 inhabitants in 2026, the region's largest city, and seniors make up 29 per cent of residents. In 2025 about 88 per cent of residents whose country of birth was known had been born in Italy; the largest groups born abroad came from Morocco, Romania and Albania. At 583 metres above sea level, it is one of the highest regional capitals in mainland Italy.

As the capital of an autonomous region, the city is a centre of public-sector employment, alongside tourism, industry and the shops and services used by the surrounding valleys. The University of the Aosta Valley adds a student population.

Daily life follows the seasons. Winter weekends turn towards the slopes of Pila, reached by gondola from the edge of the city; summer brings walkers and through traffic heading for the tunnels into France and Switzerland. Rail links are limited: direct trains run only as far as Ivrea, and the branch line up the valley towards Courmayeur, as far as Pré-Saint-Didier, closed in 2015.

Aosta's cooking is Alpine rather than Mediterranean, built on cheese, cured meat, rye bread and maize polenta rather than wheat. Fontina, the cow's-milk cheese of the valley, is made locally and is melted into fonduta, fontina whipped with milk and eggs, and layered into seupa à la vapelenentse, a dish of bread, cabbage and fontina. Carbonade is beef cooked in red wine and eaten with polenta.

Cured meats include lard d'Arnad, cured pork fat brined in wooden tubs of chestnut, oak or larch; jambon de Bosses, a mountain ham; and mocetta, dried meat. Tegole are thin almond-paste wafers.

After dinner comes caffè alla valdostana, coffee with spirit, sugar and lemon peel, flamed so that the sugar caramelises on the rim of the shared cup, and génépy, a strong herbal liqueur of Alpine wormwood, usually drunk neat. The valley has the highest vineyards in Europe, and its wines include the white Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle and the reds Torrette and Fumin.