A new digital mapping for the villages of the inland areas

Abstract

Villages and inland areas of Italy are the subject of some strategic interventions of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Nevertheless, the focus is mainly on the territories included in the tourist circuits, without considering the specificities, fragility, accessibility conditions, relations with the surrounding area, the identity, and cultural vocations of numerous other "minor" centers.

Starting from these assumptions, research was undertaken aimed at redefining the village entity (called borgo in Italian) based on the relationships between urban aggregates and surrounding territories. The starting point was to circumscribe the concept of village in anthropic ecosystems delimited within 5,000 inhabitants, in which the constituent elements contribute to defining the identities of local communities. According to this approach, more than 5,500 villages have been surveyed in the Peninsula, of which relations with the territories of reference have been analyzed.

With a view to validating the starting assumption, a digital platform of regional maps has been created which, presenting the specificities of each territory through many indicators, provide data and information useful for framing the identities and relationships between local communities, cultural heritage, landscape, services, etc. with the different territorial areas.