<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The essay analyses the relationship between administration and territory at the birth of the Italian unitary state. Following the discussions of the time involving scholars of diverse disciplinary provenance, politicians, and administrators, the essay highlights the main problems encountered by the design of the administrative districts of the new Kingdom of Italy: the territorial contradictions and the imbalances that conditioned their initial structure and subsequent history; the legacy of the boundaries and internal territorial divisions of the former states of the peninsula; the various proposals put forward for the country’s regional organization by geographers, statisticians and politicians, even before the completion of unification; the territorial and administrative problems of the new state: natural or artificial districts, small or large provinces, the weight of municipalities, projects of regionalization; the contribution of new sciences, such as geography and statistics; the choice of administrative centralization, with its inevitable consequences on the boundaries of territorial partitions, linked to the ›exceptionality‹ of the historical moment.</p></abstract>

The essay analyses the relationship between administration and territory at the birth of the Italian unitary state. Following the discussions of the time involving scholars of diverse disciplinary provenance, politicians, and administrators, the essay highlights the main problems encountered by the design of the administrative districts of the new Kingdom of Italy: the territorial contradictions and the imbalances that conditioned their initial structure and subsequent history; the legacy of the boundaries and internal territorial divisions of the former states of the peninsula; the various proposals put forward for the country’s regional organization by geographers, statisticians and politicians, even before the completion of unification; the territorial and administrative problems of the new state: natural or artificial districts, small or large provinces, the weight of municipalities, projects of regionalization; the contribution of new sciences, such as geography and statistics; the choice of administrative centralization, with its inevitable consequences on the boundaries of territorial partitions, linked to the ›exceptionality‹ of the historical moment.

Space and Administrative Boundaries at the Birth of the Italian Kingdom

Administory

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.

{"article-title":"Space and Administrative Boundaries at the Birth of the Italian Kingdom"}

The essay analyses the relationship between administration and territory at the birth of the Italian unitary state. Following the discussions of the time...

Space and Administrative Boundaries at the Birth of the Italian Kingdom

Published Online: Aug 08, 2018

Page range: 278 - 302

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ADHI-2018-0025

© 2017 Luigi Blanco. published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.