Sicily is directly adjacent
to the region of Calabria via the Strait of Messina to the
east. In Latin, Sicily is Trinacria.
The volcano Etna, situated close to Catania, is 3,320 m (10,900
ft) high, making it the tallest volcano in Europe. It is also
one of the world's most active volcanoes.
The Aeolian islands to the north are administratively a part
of Sicily, as are the Aegadian Islands and Pantelleria Island
to the west, Ustica Island to the north-west, and the Pelagian
Islands to the south-west.
Sicily has been noted for two millennia as a grain-producing
territory. Oranges, olives, and wine are among its other agricultural
products. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta district
became a leading sulfur-producing area in the 19th century
but have declined since the 1950s.
Sicily is well known as a region of art: many poets and writers
were born here, starting from the Sicilian School in the early
13th century, which inspired much subsequent Italian poetry
and created the first Italian standard.
The original inhabitants of Sicily, long absorbed into the
population, were tribes known to Greek writers as the Elymians,
the Sicani and the Siculi or Sicels. Of these, the last were
clearly the latest to arrive on this land and were related
to other Italic peoples of southern Italy. It's possible,
however, that the Sicani were originally an Iberian tribe.
The Elymi, too, may have distant origins outside of Italy,
in the Aegean Sea area.
Sicily was colonized by Phoenicians and Punic settlers from
Carthage and by Greeks, starting in the 8th Century BCE. The
most important colony was established at Syracuse in 734 BC.
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