Liguria

Liguria (lɪˈgjʊəɹiə; liˈɡuːrja; Ligûria liˈɡyːɾja) is a region of north-western Italy; its capital is Genoa. Its territory is crossed by the Alps and the Apennines mountain range and is roughly coextensive with the former territory of the Republic of Genoa. Liguria is bordered by France (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) to the west, Piedmont to the north, and Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany to the east. It rests on the Ligurian Sea, and has a population of 1,557,533. The region is part of the Alps–Mediterranean Euroregion. The name Liguria predates Latin and is of obscure origin. The Latin adjectives Ligusticum (as in Mare Ligusticum) and Liguscus reveal the original root of the name, ligusc-: in the Latin name -sc- was shortened to -s-, and later turned into the -r- of Liguria, according to rhotacism. Compare λίγυς whence Ligustikḗ λιγυστική . The name derives from the ancient Ligures people, although the territory of this people was much larger than the current administrative region; it included all of North-west Italy south to the Po river, and south-eastern France. Some scholars see a possible connection with Old European languages, as the formant -sc- (-sk-) is also present in names like Etruscan, Euskadi (the endonym of the Basques), and Gascon. Since these are all coastal regions, the shared formant may relate to a shared descent from pre-Indo-European, maritime peoples, and/or the hypothetical Tyrsenian and Vasconic language families respectively. This argument is weakened, however, by the fact that the name Etruscan is a relatively late exonym and the relevant endonym, used of the Etruscans themselves, was Rasenna or Raśna. (In Greek this mutated into Tursēnoi and Tyrrēnoi; in Latin it became Etruria and Tuscia, whence the name of the modern Tuscany or Toscana.) The narrow strip of land is bordered by the sea, the Alps and the Apennine Mountains. Some mountains rise above ; the watershed line runs at an average altitude of about . The highest point of the region is the summit of Monte Saccarello ().