blocks and recreational areas were erected in new residential districts. Coats of Arms of Cagliari Geography The city of Cagliari is situated in the south of Sardinia, overlooking the centre of the eponymous gulf, also called Golfo degli Angeli ("Bay of Angels") after an ancient legend. The city is spread over and around the hill of the historic district of Castello and nine other limestone hills of the middle-to-late Miocene, unique heights of a little more than above sea level on the long plains of Campidano. The plain is actually a Graben formed during the Alpine orogeny of the Cenozoic, which separated Sardinia from the European continent, roughly where the Gulf of Lion is now. The Graben filled in the course of tectonic movements associated with the breakup of the ancient island Paleozoic skeleton. The repeated intrusion of the sea left calcareous sediments that formed a series of hills that mark the territory of Cagliari. Castello is where the fortified town arose in the Middle Age near the harbour of the port, other hills are those of Mount Urpinu, the St. Elias hill, also known as the Sella del Diavolo ("Saddle of the Devil") for its shape, Tuvumannu and Tuvixeddu, the site of the ancient Punic and Roman necropolis, the small Bonaria hill, where the basilica stands, and the San Michele hill, with the eponymous castle on top. The modern city occupies the flat spaces between the hills and the sea to the south and southeast, along the Poetto beach, the lagoons and ponds of Santa Gilla and Molentargius, and the remains of more recent marine intrusions, in an articulate landscape with many landmarks and panoramas of the bay, the plain, and the mountains that surround it on the east (The Seven Brothers and Serpeddì) and west (the mountains of Capoterra). On the cold, clear days of winter, the snowy peaks of Gennargentu can be seen from the highest points of the city. The city has four historic neighbourhoods: Castello, Marina, Stampace and Villanova and several modern districts (such as San Benedetto, Monte Urpinu and Genneruxi at the east, Sant'Avendrace at the west, Is Mirrionis/San Michele at north and Bonaria, La Palma and Poetto at the south), grown when part of the ancient walls had been demolished in the middle of the 19th century. Pirri The comune of Cagliari has one circoscrizione, the town of Pirri (about 30.000 inhabitants), former