a humid subtropical climate which has sunny hot summers and cool damp winters. July is the driest month of the year. Demographics Chinese immigration The city of Prato has the second largest Chinese immigrant population in Italy (after Milan with Italy's largest Chinatown). The number of legal Chinese residents in Prato on 31 December 2008 was 9,927; the number raised to 27,829 on 31 December 2021. Local authorities estimate the overall number of Chinese citizens living in Prato to be as high as 50,000, illegal immigrants included, although such number may be inflated for political reasons. Most overseas Chinese come from the city of Wenzhou in the province of Zhejiang, some of them having moved from Chinatown in Paris. The first Chinese people came to Prato in the early 1990s. The majority of Chinese work in 3,500 workshops in the garment industry and ready-to-wear. Chinatown, known as Santo Beijing, is located in the west part of the city, spreading to Porta Pistoiese in the historical centre. The local Chamber of Commerce registered over 3,100 Chinese businesses by September 2008. Most of them are located in an industrial park named Macrolotto di Iolo. Raids on factories employing illegal immigrants in 2010 highlighted problems with the growth of an apparel industry in Prato based on cheap, and sometimes illegal, labor. In spite of all these blames, the local unemployment rate was around 7% in 2013, which was significantly lower than the national average 11%, even after 4,000 enterprises which employed 20,000 people were closed in the past two decades. The president of the Industrial Association of Prato, Andrea Cavicchi, pointed out that the local economic performance was much better than the rest of Italy due to those Chinese textile business. , the Italian and Chinese populations did not socially mix. As of that year, there were 30,000 legal Chinese immigrants, and authorities believed there was a similar number of illegal Chinese immigrants. Dialect The dialect from Prato is very similar to that of Florence, but it has its own peculiarities. The pronunciation of the city name in the dialect was traditionally but now or are more common. Government Culture Corteggio Storico On 8 September each year, to pay homage to the Sacra Cintola, on the day of the birth of the Madonna, there is the Corteggio Storico. The costume parade takes place along the streets of the center, in which the armies