Turin

Turin is a city of 856,745 inhabitants (2025) within its municipal boundaries, sprawled across approximately 130 square kilometres on the western bank of the River Po in northern Italy, just below the Susa Valley and encircled by the western Alpine arch and Superga hill. Its broader urban area counts 1.7 million residents, while the metropolitan region extends to 2.2 million. Serving as the capital of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, it was Italy’s first national capital (1861–1865).

Turin’s origins trace to the Roman settlement of Augusta Taurinorum, founded amid the foothills of the Alps. Its strategic riverside site invited successive waves of significance: it became the Duchy of Savoy’s seat in 1563 and later the Kingdom of Sardinia’s heart, under the aegis of the House of Savoy. By the Risorgimento, Turin had earned its epithet as “cradle of Italian liberty,” nurturing figures such as Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour. The city briefly held national primacy once more upon Italy’s unification in 1861.

The Belle Époque cascaded architectural flourishes across Turin. Baroque churches, Rococo palaces and Neoclassical facades proliferated, among them the sumptuous Palazzo Madama and the Royal Palace on Piazza Castello. The Savoy court commissioned elegant arcades and piazzas which, centuries later, form a UNESCO World Heritage ensemble: the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy. Rationalist interventions arrived under Fascism, most visibly in Via Roma’s severe colonnades, conceived by Marcello Piacentini. That avenue links Piazza Carlo Felice—overlooked by Porta Nuova station’s grand foyer—and Piazza Castello, the locus of regal and civic power.

The urban core revolves around a constellation of emblematic squares. Piazza San Carlo, a pedestrian oasis, presents the equestrian monument to Emmanuel Philibert, known locally as Caval ëd Brons. Its venerable cafés—Caffé Torino and Caffé San Carlo—were witnesses to nineteenth-century discourse. Nearby, Piazza Vittorio Veneto, Europe’s largest Baroque square, throbs with nocturnal energy beneath its arcaded galleries fronting Via Po, itself intersecting the city center with riverside promenades.

A network of tributaries—Dora Riparia, Stura di Lanzo and Sangone—augments the Po’s flow through the city. These waterways shaped districts rich in distinct identities. The Quadrilatero Romano, once the medieval nucleus, has been revitalised into a labyrinth of intimate streets, animated by artisan workshops and aperitivo bars. Adjacent lies Via Garibaldi, flanked by the Egyptian Museum, home to one of the world’s most extensive collections of Egyptian antiquities beyond Cairo.

Southward, San Salvario has metamorphosed into a multicultural quarter, bounded by the railway and the Po. Its cast-iron façades and converted lofts now host low-cost bars that nourish a burgeoning nightlife. East of San Salvario, Parco del Valentino unfurls along the riverbank. The castle at its centre, vestige of the Savoy hunting grounds, accommodates the Polytechnic University of Turin’s architecture faculty. Within its confines stands the Borgo Medioevale, a faithful reconstruction of regional fortresses.

Residential districts attest to Turin’s stratified evolution. Crocetta, once a Savoy hunting preserve, offers eclectic and Art Nouveau palazzi along boulevards such as Corso Duca degli Abruzzi. Cit Turin, the city’s most diminutive quarter, boasts celebrated examples of Liberty style—Casa della Vittoria among them—and accommodates the soaring Torre Intesa Sanpaolo. San Donato preserves medieval roots in its narrow lanes; its zenith is the Chiesa di Nostra Signora del Suffragio e Santa Zita, Turin’s fifth-tallest edifice.

Aurora, the city’s oldest district, was born of agrarian hamlets. The Cascina Aurora gave its name to neighbourhoods now pulsing with adaptive-reuse projects: former textile mills house design schools, while planned towers such as Nuvola—designed by Norman Foster and lauded among the world’s top ten university edifices by CNN—signal an avant-garde ethos. Borgo Dora, known for its Mercatino del Balon flea market, preserves remnants of industrial heritage: the Arsenale della Pace and the Cavalli Barracks stand sentinel amid twisting alleys.

In Vanchiglia and Fetta di Polenta, the interplay of water and stone endows a cinematic air. The Mole Antonelliana, erected in the mid-nineteenth century and immortalised on the two-cent euro coin, soars to 167 metres as the world’s tallest museum, hosting the National Museum of Cinema. Nearby, the Shroud of Turin rests within the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, drawing pilgrims and scholars alike.

Academic prowess underpins Turin’s identity. The University of Turin, founded in the fifteenth century, and the Polytechnic University, with its sprawling 122,000 m² campus, educate over 30,000 students in disciplines from humanities to engineering. These institutions anchor research centres such as General Motors Global Propulsion Systems, housed within former railroad repair workshops in Cenisia.

Turin’s industrial ascendancy burgeoned in the early twentieth century through Fordist principles, pivoting from services to mass manufacturing. Fiat was established in 1899, soon followed by Lancia in 1906. The city weathered wartime bombardment yet emerged to forge the “industrial triangle” alongside Milan and Genoa. Though automotive production has tapered since the 1973 oil shock, Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) maintains a significant presence, and much of Turin’s export economy remains manufacturing-driven.

A subtropical humid climate prevails, modulated by Alpine proximity. Winters are cool and often fog-laden in the plains; snowfalls are intermittent but seldom blanket the city. Summers can bring afternoon thunderstorms. The föhn wind effect renders the eastern slopes drier than the western side of the Alps. Rainfall concentrates in spring and autumn, while summer downpours punctuate sultry days.

Turin’s culinary heritage is as rich as its fabric. Gianduiotto, the ingot-shaped chocolate born of Piedmontese hazelnuts, coexists with bicerin, a layered concoction of espresso, chocolate and milk. The biennial CioccolaTÒ festival celebrates these traditions. Caffè Mulassano claims invention of the tramezzino—its triangular tea-sandwich substitute—circa 1925. Local innovations include pizza al padellino, a thick-crust mini-pizza, and MoleCola, a homegrown cola introduced in 2012. The Slow Food movement, born nearby in Bra, and Terra Madre gatherings underscore the region’s gastronomic bounty.

Turin’s stage extends to global events. It co-hosted the FIFA World Cups in 1934 and 1990, welcomed the Winter Olympics in 2006 and hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022. From 2021 through 2025 it will be the venue for the ATP Finals, reinforcing its place on the international sporting calendar. On the pitch, Juventus and Torino contest the Derby della Mole, a rivalry as fierce as any in European football.

Even as it carries the weight of history, Turin surveys the Alps with an eye to the future. Its boulevards remain avenues of discourse, its squares amphitheatres of urban life. From Roman ramparts to contemporary skyscrapers, from palazzos to parco, the city weaves past and present into a coherent whole. It invites contemplation rather than mere observation, offering a milieu where culture, industry and quotidian rhythm converge seamlessly.