title: Provinces of Italy

text: Based on the most recent legislation, contained in the law of 7 April 2014 n. 56, the council and the presidents of the provinces of the regions with ordinary statute are elected by restricted suffrage by the mayors and councilors of the province's municipalities, while in the metropolitan cities the equivalent of the president of the province is the (elective) mayor of the capital, said "metropolitan mayor".


title: Provinces of Italy

text: The other types of entities similar to the provinces in the regions with special statutes, the free municipal consortia in Sicily and the Sardinian provinces are governed by extraordinary commissioners appointed by the respective regional administrations, the autonomous provinces of Trentino-Alto Adige each elect its own president, and finally in Aosta Valley the functions of the province are carried out by the regional administration (whose president is elected by the regional council).


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 1861, at the birth of the Kingdom of Italy, there were 59 provinces. However, at that time the national territory was smaller than the current one: regions of Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Lazio were not included in the kingdom.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 1866, following the Third Independence War, territories of Veneto, Friuli and Mantua were annexed. There were therefore nine more provinces: Belluno, Mantua, Padua, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza and Udine, all previously part of the Austrian Empire. Eventually, in 1870, following the union of Rome and its province from the Papal States, the provinces rose in number to 69.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: After the World War I, new territories were annexed to Italy. The province of Trento was created in 1923. Provinces of La Spezia and Trieste in 1923, while Ionio in 1924.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 1924 the new provinces of Fiume, Pola, and Zara were created, increasing the total number of provinces in Italy to 76.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 1927, following a Royal charter, a general province rearrangement took place. 17 new provinces were created: Aosta, Vercelli, Varese, Savona, Bolzano, Gorizia, Pistoia, Pescara, Rieti, Terni, Viterbo, Frosinone, Brindisi, Matera, Ragusa, Castrogiovanni, Nuoro. In the same year, the Province of Caserta was dissolved, Girgenti was renamed Agrigento, and the institution of "circondari", sub-provincial wards created before the unification, was abolished.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 1930 Spezia became La Spezia, while in 1931 Bari delle Puglie became Bari. Province of Littoria (Latina) was created in 1934, and the Province of Asti in 1935. n 1939 the Province of Aquila degli Abruzzi became the Province of L'Aquila, and in 1940 the Province of Friuli was renamed the Province of Udine.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: Following the annexation of a part of Yugoslavia in 1941, during the World War II, the province of Zara was enlarged and joined the Governorate of Dalmatia (comprising the province of Zara, and the new provinces of Spalato, and Cattaro), while in the occupied central part of the present-day Slovenia the new province of Ljubljana was created. This lasted only until 1945, when Yugoslavia regained the lost territories after the end of the World War II.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 1945, after the end of the World War II, the province of Aosta changed its name to Aosta Valley and Littoria to Latina; the new province of Caserta was recreated.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: With the Paris Peace Treaties, signed on 10 February 1947, Italy lost the provinces of Fiume, Pola and Zara, and part of the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: Moreover, the province of Trieste was occupied by United States and British forces. The Italian Republic therefore had 91 provinces at its birth. The province of Ionio was renamed as Taranto in 1951, and in 1954 the province of Trieste was returned to Italy.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: The Province of Pordenone was created in 1968, the province of Isernia in 1970, and the Province of Oristano in 1974.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In a reorganization in 1992 eight provinces were created: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Biella, Lecco, Lodi, Rimini, Prato, Crotone, and Vibo Valentia, while Forlì was renamed as Forlì-Cesena.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: Four new provinces were created in Sardinia in 2001, with effect from 2005: Olbia-Tempio, Ogliastra, Medio Campidano and Carbonia-Iglesias. In 2004 three further provinces were created: Monza and Brianza, Fermo, and Barletta-Andria-Trani, making a total of 110 provinces.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In May 2012, a referendum abolished the eight provinces of Sardinia, and this suppression was to take effect on 1 March 2013. On 6 July 2012, new plans were published to reduce the number of provinces by around half. In January 2014 the Sardinian Regional Administrative Court declared "unconstitutional" the abolition of the Sardinian provinces, which occurred in 2013.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 2014 the Delrio Law transformed the Provinces of Italy in a reduced number of broader administrative entities.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 2014 the Friuli Venezia Giulia of Debora Serracchiani was the first Italian region to pass a law for abolishing its provinces, while implementing the national reform in the local administrative level. The Friuli region has multiplied four provinces in 18 unions of the Italian administrative unit called "Comune". After rejection of the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum, the Provinces of Italy were still kept alive under provisions of the Delrio Constitutional Law to be merged in a smaller number of union of provinces.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: Provinces are often deemed useless, and many proposals have been made in recent years to eliminate them.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: However, the difficulty of changing the constitution and the opposition of groups of politicians and citizens halted any proposal of reform.


title: Provinces of Italy

text: In 2013, during his speech to the Chamber of Deputies, newly appointed Prime Minister Enrico Letta announced that a revision of the second part of the constitution was needed, in order to change the bicameral parliamentary system and to abolish the provinces. The proposal, presented during the Renzi premiership, was rejected in the constitutional referendum held in December 2016.


title: Foot

text: The foot (: feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws or nails.


title: Foot

text: The word "foot", in the sense of meaning the "terminal part of the leg of a vertebrate animal" comes from "Old English fot "foot," from Proto-Germanic *fot (source also of Old Frisian fot, Old Saxon fot, Old Norse fotr, Danish fod, Swedish fot, Dutch voet, Old High German fuoz, German Fuß, Gothic fotus "foot"), from PIE root *ped- "foot".


title: Foot

text: The human foot is a strong and complex mechanical structure containing 26 bones, 33 joints (20 of which are actively articulated), and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The joints of the foot are the ankle and subtalar joint and the interphalangeal joints of the foot. An anthropometric study of 1197 North American adult Caucasian males (mean age 35.5 years) found that a man's foot length was 26.3 cm with a standard deviation of 1.2 cm.


title: Foot

text: The "hindfoot" is composed of the talus (or ankle bone) and the calcaneus (or heel bone). The two long bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula, are connected to the top of the talus to form the ankle. Connected to the talus at the subtalar joint, the calcaneus, the largest bone of the foot, is cushioned underneath by a layer of fat.