Sicily

Before the Greeks, Sicily was home to the Sicani, the Elymians of Segesta and the Sicels, who gave the island its name. Phoenicians settled the west at Motya and Palermo, and from the 8th century BC Greek colonists founded Naxos, Syracuse, Akragas and Selinunte. Syracuse became one of the most powerful cities of the Greek world, destroying an Athenian invasion in 413 BC, until Rome took it in 212 BC, when Archimedes died in the siege. Sicily had already become Rome's first province after the First Punic War.

After the Vandals and Byzantines, Arabs conquered the island from 827 and made Palermo a great city of mosques, gardens and irrigated orchards. The Normans took it from 1061, and Roger II was crowned King of Sicily in 1130; his court blended Latin, Greek and Arab culture, and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II later ruled from Palermo. The Sicilian Vespers revolt of 1282 drove out the French and brought the Aragonese, beginning centuries of Spanish rule.

The earthquake of 1693 destroyed the south-east, which was rebuilt in baroque style. The Bourbons united Sicily with Naples as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, until Garibaldi landed at Marsala in 1860. Millions emigrated over the following century. The Allies invaded in July 1943, and in 1946 Sicily became an autonomous region. The Mafia's violence peaked with the murders of the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992, which provoked a lasting popular reaction.

Sicilians often speak of themselves as Sicilian first, and Sicilian, with words from Arabic, Greek, Norman French and Spanish, is widely spoken at home. The island has produced major writers — Giovanni Verga, the playwright Luigi Pirandello of Agrigento, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, whose novel The Leopard portrays the aristocracy at unification, and Andrea Camilleri.

Religion is festive and communal. Catania's feast of Sant'Agata in February draws huge crowds behind the saint's silver reliquary, Palermo honours Santa Rosalia, who is credited with ending a 17th-century plague, with a procession in July, and at Easter Trapani's day-long Misteri procession carries wooden groups of the Passion through the streets.

Traditional crafts include the Opera dei Pupi, the puppet theatre of armoured knights from the Charlemagne legends, recognised by UNESCO as intangible heritage; brightly painted wooden carts; and the ceramics of Caltagirone and Santo Stefano di Camastra. The Mafia's long shadow has provoked a strong civic answer, with organisations such as Addiopizzo backing businesses that refuse to pay protection.

About 4.8 million people live in Sicily. Palermo, with about 630,000, is the capital, Catania about 300,000 and Messina about 220,000, while Syracuse, Trapani, Ragusa and Agrigento are smaller provincial capitals. Inland towns have been losing people for decades.

Agriculture is central: citrus, especially the blood oranges of the Etna area, olives, almonds, wine, early vegetables grown in greenhouses around Ragusa and Pachino, and the pistachios of Bronte. Industry includes the petrochemical plants around Syracuse and Gela and the electronics industry of Catania. Tourism has grown fast, and public employment is important. Unemployment is well above the national average, and many young Sicilians leave for the north or abroad.

The day slows at lunch, and in summer life moves outdoors late into the evening. Current issues include water shortages after dry years, migrant arrivals at Lampedusa, and the long-debated bridge across the Strait of Messina.

Sicilian cooking reflects its conquerors. Arab influence shows in citrus, rice, saffron, sugar and couscous, eaten with fish soup around Trapani. Palermo's pasta con le sarde combines sardines, wild fennel, raisins and pine nuts, and Catania's pasta alla Norma is served with fried aubergine, tomato and salted ricotta. Caponata is a sweet-and-sour stew of aubergine, celery, olives and capers.

Street food is a culture of its own: arancine, fried rice balls filled with ragù or cheese; panelle, fritters of chickpea flour; pane con la milza, a bun filled with spleen and lung; and sfincione, a thick Palermo pizza with onion and anchovies. Cheeses include pecorino siciliano and Ragusano, a firm stretched-curd cow's-milk cheese.

The sweets are famous: cannoli, fried pastry tubes filled with sweetened ricotta; cassata, a sponge cake of ricotta, marzipan and candied fruit; almond pastries; and granita, a semi-frozen ice of lemon, coffee or fruit, often eaten with a brioche for breakfast. Modica makes a grainy chocolate worked at low temperature. Wines include fortified Marsala, the red Nero d'Avola, wines from the slopes of Etna, Malvasia from the Aeolian Islands and the sweet Passito di Pantelleria.

Palermo's Arab-Norman monuments, a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared with Cefalù and Monreale, include the mosaic-covered Palatine Chapel, the cathedral and San Giovanni degli Eremiti, alongside the Quattro Canti crossroads, the Teatro Massimo and the markets of Ballarò and the Vucciria; Monreale's cathedral above the city has vast golden mosaics. East along the coast, Cefalù sits under its great rock with a Norman cathedral. In the west are the Doric temple of Segesta, the hilltop town of Erice, the salt pans of Trapani and the Egadi Islands.

On the south coast, Agrigento's Valley of the Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, holds the Temple of Concordia among a row of Greek ruins, with the white cliffs of the Scala dei Turchi nearby; inland, the Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina has late Roman floor mosaics.

The south-east has Syracuse, with Ortigia's cathedral built into a Greek temple, the Greek theatre and the Ear of Dionysius cave, plus the baroque towns of Noto, Modica and Ragusa Ibla. To the north, Etna rises above Catania, with walks and a cable car on its southern slopes and the Alcantara gorge on its flank; Taormina has its Greek theatre and the islet of Isola Bella. Off the north coast, the Aeolian Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, include Lipari, Vulcano, green Salina and Stromboli, whose summit eruptions light the night sky.