City of San Marino

By tradition the city was founded in 301 by Marinus, a stonemason from the island of Rab, and a group of Christians fleeing Roman persecution, who settled on Monte Titano. The community became a self-governing commune, and its heart was protected by three towers: the Guaita in the 11th century, reputed so strong that it discouraged attack; the Cesta in the 13th century, as tensions with neighbouring powers grew; and finally the small Montale in the 14th century on the last summit. As the population grew, the republic added the eight other castelli that now make up the country — by purchase and treaty, never by war. In 1243 the council named the first two Captains Regent, an office still filled every six months.

The city survived by caution and luck. In 1543 an attacking force got lost in thick fog, which the townspeople credited to Saint Quirinus, whose feast day it was. In 1739 Cardinal Giulio Alberoni occupied the republic, but the Pope restored its independence in February 1740, and Saint Agatha, on whose feast it happened, became a patron saint. The republic sheltered Giuseppe Garibaldi and other Italian republicans, and Garibaldi allowed San Marino to remain independent.

From 1932 an electric railway climbed from Rimini to the city. During the Second World War it was bombed and closed, and its tunnels sheltered refugees during the battles of Rimini and San Marino in 1944, when German forces briefly occupied the republic. In 2008 the historic centre and Monte Titano became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The City of San Marino — "Città" to locals — is one of the smallest national capitals in the world, and its culture is a blend of central Italian life and fierce civic pride in the republic's long independence. The Palazzo Pubblico is the stage for that pride: twice a year, on 1 April and 1 October, two new Captains Regent are installed as heads of state there, and the medieval-uniformed Crossbow Corps, once the heart of the army and now about 80 volunteers, gives shooting demonstrations at festivals.

The high point of the religious year is 3 September, the national holiday, when Mass at the basilica is followed by a procession carrying the relics of Saint Marinus through the streets, the Palio delle Balestre crossbow competition, a military band concert and fireworks.

Italian is the language of daily life, and the traditional local speech, Sammarinese, is a dialect of Romagnol. Football is followed keenly: the city has three clubs of its own — S.S. Murata, S.P. Tre Penne and the San Marino Academy — and the national team plays down the mountain at the stadium in Serravalle. The Olympic flame passed through the city on its way to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

About 4,100 people live in the City of San Marino, the fifth-least-populated national capital in the world; the whole republic had 34,132 residents in July 2025. Within the republic it is only the third-largest settlement, after Borgo Maggiore and Dogana.

For centuries the city's main work was quarrying and carving stone. Today its economy is tourism, commerce and the sale of postage stamps, with a small and shrinking farming sector. More than three million people visit each year, 85 per cent of them Italian, and the old town has more than a thousand shops — so many that the historic lanes are largely given over to visitors by day.

The city is also the seat of the republic's government and of one of its main governing parties, the Sammarinese Christian Democratic Party. Life outside the walls is closely tied to the car: San Marino has more vehicles than people, and the towns below the mountain are linked by one main road, the superstrada to Rimini. In the evening, after the coaches leave, the squares and buildings of the old town are lit up and quiet.

San Marino's food is very similar to Italian cooking, especially that of neighbouring Emilia-Romagna and Marche. Local dishes include fagioli con le cotiche, a bean and bacon soup eaten at Christmas; pasta e ceci, a chickpea and noodle soup with garlic and rosemary; nidi di rondine, baked pasta with smoked ham, beef, cheese and tomato sauce; and roast rabbit with fennel.

Piada, a flatbread with various fillings similar to the piadina of Emilia-Romagna, is found mostly in Borgo Maggiore. Cheesemaking is one of the republic's main agricultural activities. The best-known sweet is the Torta Tre Monti, layers of thin wafer joined with chocolate or hazelnut cream and covered in chocolate, made commercially by the La Serenissima bakery since 1942; the Torta Titano is a layered biscuit, hazelnut, chocolate, cream and coffee dessert inspired by the mountain.

San Marino makes its own wines, among them the cask-aged reds Brugneto and Tessano and the still whites Biancale and Roncale, and its own liqueurs: the aniseed Mistrà, the truffle-flavoured Tilus and the herbal Tamir Shachar.