Elba

The island was first inhabited by the Ligures Ilvates and was known in antiquity for its iron. The Greeks called it Aethalia, "smoky", after the fumes of its furnaces, and told how the Argonauts had rested here. The Etruscans mined its iron, and after 480 BC the Romans held it as Ilva; the remains of two Roman seaside villas lie at Portoferraio. In the Middle Ages Elba passed to Pisa, then to the Appiani, lords of Piombino, and in 1544 Barbary pirates devastated it.

Portoferraio was founded in 1548 by Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, as Cosmopoli, "Cosimo's city", to balance the Spanish citadel at Porto Azzurro, and was ringed with walls and forts that still stand. Medici edicts drew Jewish settlers, who built a synagogue in 1631–32 and were confined to a ghetto from 1702. A British garrison held the town through a siege in 1801, but the Peace of Amiens gave it to France in 1802. In 1814, after his abdication, Napoleon was made sovereign of the island; he landed at Portoferraio on 4 May, carried out economic and social reforms, and escaped to France with about 1,000 men on 26 February 1815. Elba then returned to Tuscany and joined Italy in 1860.

In the 19th century the town grew as the shipping port for the iron ore of Rio Marina, which gave it its present name, "iron port". German forces occupied the island in the Second World War until a mainly French Allied force liberated it in June 1944, after fighting and bombing that damaged Portoferraio. Mining ended from the 1970s, and tourism has since made the island an international seaside destination.

Napoleon's ten months remain the island's best-known story. Both of his homes, the Palazzina dei Mulini in town and the Villa San Martino in the countryside, can be visited, and the flag he gave Elba on his arrival, raised on the highest point of Portoferraio on the day he landed, is kept at the Palazzina. The Medici forts and bastions that frame Portoferraio are the town's other emblem.

The island's identity is local and maritime. In the Elban dialect Portoferraio is "Ferajo" or "Feraja", and the island has its own football team, which joined the ConIFA federation of teams outside FIFA in 2020 and played its first match in 2021. In January 2023 the town placed memorial panels at the old Jewish cemetery wall and in the street of the former ghetto, recalling a community that lived here from the 17th century.

Cycling has a following: the champion Fausto Coppi trained on Elba's roads late in his career, and a fountain on the road from Rio nell'Elba to Porto Azzurro is named after him. Walking routes lead past Etruscan furnace sites, Roman granite quarries and old stone villages, and the evening stroll along the seafronts of Portoferraio and Marciana Marina is part of every summer.

About 31,000 people lived on Elba in 2026, divided among seven municipalities, and the population rises considerably in summer. Portoferraio, the largest, had about 11,700 residents. Seniors make up more than a quarter of residents, and immigrants about an eighth; in Portoferraio the largest groups were born in Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Morocco and Albania.

Iron mining sustained the island for centuries until it wound down from the 1970s; today tourism dominates, from hotels and campsites to boat hire, restaurants and diving. Life follows the seasons: the population swells in summer, when the ferries from Piombino bring a steady stream of visitors and the coastal roads fill. The central part of the island narrows to about four kilometres, and the main towns, Portoferraio and Campo nell'Elba, lie there.

The interior is wild by comparison: the granite massif of Monte Capanne in the west is home to mouflon and wild boar, and the iron hills of Monte Calamita lie in the east.

Elba's best-known product is its wine, above all Aleatico, a sweet, fortified red dessert wine that has become famous beyond Italy and is protected as Elba Aleatico DOCG; the grape is best known for the cult wine Aleatico di Portoferraio. It is traditionally drunk with schiaccia briaca, the island's typical cake. Elba Ansonica is the island's white wine, and limoncino, a lemon liqueur, is another local speciality.

At the table the island eats fresh fish and seafood, alongside good bread and Tuscan staples such as the bread-and-tomato salad, panzanella, and the thick steak, bistecca. Tuscan cooking grew out of a habit of not throwing anything away, which turned leftover bread into dishes like panzanella and ribollita.

Restaurants and bars cluster around Portoferraio's old harbour and along the seafront at Marciana Marina, and in summer every beach and village has its places to eat. Local wines and limoncino are sold in shops in Portoferraio to take home, and the island's spring water is also prized: the Fonte Napoleone, at the foot of Monte Capanne, is known for its quality.