Cagliari. Mussolini's regime wanted to streamline the local administration by eliminating many small towns and at the same time show that Italy was a major power with many large cities. After the war these small municipalities gradually regained their autonomy, except for the former town of Pirri. The first table shows the inhabitants of the town in its present borders, the second one the commune population including the merged municipalities. Metropolitan City The Metropolitan City of Cagliari has been established in 2016 by a Sardinia Regional Law and totals about 420,000 inhabitants according to ISTAT. It is composed of 17 municipalities along the coast of the gulf and up to of the inner Campidano plain. It covers an area on the plain of Campidano between large basins (Santa Gilla lagoon and salt mills of about 30 km2 or 3200 acres), ponds (Molentargius, 16,22 km2 (40,10 acres) and the depopulated mountains up to above sea level. The mountains are largely covered by forests mostly managed by the Ente Foreste of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia. To the west these amount to on the Capoterra and Pula mountains. Monte Arcosu WWF Natural Reserve has another , and to the east on Mount Serpeddì and Sette Fratelli there are a total of of forest. The Metropolitan City is defined by municipalities where the population increased between the last two censuses, in a region where the population is otherwise generally decreasing. These municipalities welcome immigrants to the urban area whose main nucleus, the city of Cagliari, has a high number of elderly people. In the last century, the population of the municipalities of the metropolitan area increased by 354% and in the last 50 years by 158% (1911: 128,444; 1961: 288,683; 2011: 454,819). For the whole of Sardinia this increase was respectively 88% and 15% (1911: 868,181; 1961: 1,419,362; 2011: 1,639,362). The urbanisation towards the area of Cagliari was, in percentage terms, impressive, making the capital of the island a metropolis surrounded by rural areas increasingly depopulated. This urbanisation is also reflected in the concentration in Cagliari of most of the economic activities and wealth. Economy According to 2014 data from the Italian Ministry of Economic Affairs, the inhabitants of Cagliari benefited a per capita income of 23,220 euros (being the fifth Regional Capital), that is the 122% of the national average, while all of Sardinia benefited only 16,640 euros, being the 13th Region