The municipality of Imperia, in the Liguria region, is the city with the best climate in the world. Italy, according to the new edition of the Climate Habitability Index, prepared by iLMeteo.it, a website that provides the peninsula's climatic conditions, in partnership with the newspaper “Corriere della Sera”.
The Italian city returns to the top after two years, thanks mainly to the boost of the Riviera di Ponente and places like San Remo and Bordighera.
Biella, considered a real surprise in the 3rd edition of the report after being penalized by a serious drought in recent years, appears in second position, while Agrigento completes the podium.
In last place in the ranking, however, is Terni, mainly because the flat cities in the central regions are actually very affected by the combination of high summer temperatures and humidity.
Almost all major cities are also poorly placed in the survey: Milan drops two positions and now occupies 77th place; Rome rose 50 places and reached 93rd; and Naples fell from 19th to 79th place. Venice (35th) and Bari (53rd) also lost points.
The only municipalities that improved among the regional capitals are Turin, which went from 86th place to 51st, and Bologna, which gained 50 positions and reached 44th.
Among this year's negative surprises is Florence, second to last in the ranking, as it has the worst extreme heat, recording temperatures exceeding 35ºC on some days.
In turn, last year's winning city, Macerata, fell to fifth place - preceded by Cuneo -, due to the greater number of rainy days recorded in 2023.
“Also this year, from the analysis of the data, it appears that global warming has a strong impact on our climate habitability index”, explained Lorenzo Tedici, meteorologist responsible for the media at iLMeteo.it.
This year, the report added three new indicators to the 14 already present, designed to assess and analyze climate change in an even more in-depth way: extreme events, extreme heat and frosty days.
“All cities in the plain are affected by the strong increase in heat in the 21st century and are losing many positions. People live much better in the hills and mountains or on the coasts softened by the sea breeze”, concluded Tedici. (HANDLE)
