Lombardy (Lombardia; Lombardia) is an administrative region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Over a fifth of the Italian gross domestic product (GDP) is produced in the region.
The Lombardy region is located between the Alps mountain range and tributaries of the river Po, and includes Milan, the largest metropolitan area in the country, and among the largest in the European Union (EU). Of the fifty-eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Italy, eleven are in Lombardy. Virgil, Pliny the Elder, Ambrose, Gerolamo Cardano, Caravaggio, Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Stradivari, Cesare Beccaria, Alessandro Volta and Alessandro Manzoni; and popes John XXIII and Paul VI originated in the area of modern-day Lombardy region.
The name Lombardy comes from Lombard, which is derived from Late Latin Longobardus, Langobardus ("a Lombard"), which derived from the Proto-Germanic elements *langaz + *bardaz; equivalent to long beard. According to some scholars, the second element derives from Proto-Germanic *bardǭ, *barduz ("axe"), related to German Barte, or the whole word comes from the Proto-Albanian *Lum bardhi "white river" (Compare modern Albanian lum i bardhë).
The name of the region derives from the name of the people of the Lombards who arrived in Italy in 568 and made Pavia their capital. During the Early Middle Ages, "Lombardy" referred to the Kingdom of the Lombards (Regnum Langobardorum), which was ruled by the Germanic Lombard raiders who had controlled most of early Christian Italy since their invasion of Byzantine Italy in CE 568 until the fall of Pavia on the river Ticino, in CE 774 by the Frankish Charlemagne on the Pope's behalf. As such, "Lombardy" and "Italy" were almost interchangeable; by the mid-8th century, the Lombards ruled everywhere except the Papal possessions around Rome—roughly modern Lazio and northern Umbria—Venice and some Byzantine possessions in the south—southern Apulia and Calabria; some coastal settlements including Amalfi, Gaeta, Naples and Sorrento; Sicily and Sardinia; their culture is foundational to Italy in the Middle Ages.