Piedmont

Piedmont (Italian: Piemonte) is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,399 km2 and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys. Franco-Provençal is also spoken by another minority in the alpine heights of the Province of Turin. The name Piedmont comes from medieval Latin Pedemontium, i. e. "ad pedem montium", meaning "at the foot of the mountain".

The population density in Piemonte is lower than the national average. In 2008 it was equal to 174 inhabitants per km2, compared to a national figure of about 200. It rises however to 335 inhabitants per km2 when just the province of Turin is considered, whereas Verbano-Cusio-Ossola is the less densely populated province (72 inhabitants per km2). The population of Piedmont followed a downward trend throughout the 1980s. This drop is the result of the natural negative balance (of some 3 to 4% per year), while the migratory balance since 1986 has again become positive because of an excess of new immigration over a stable figure for emigration. The population as a whole has remained stable in the 1990s, although this is the result of a negative natural balance and a positive net migration.

The Turin metro area grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s due to an increase of immigrants from Southern Italy, and today it has a population of approximately two million. As of 2008, the Italian national institute of statistics (ISTAT) estimated that 310,543 foreign-born immigrants live in Piedmont, equal to 7.0% of the total regional population.