Naples, Italy
Naples is the capital of the Italian region Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy, after Rome and Milan. As of 2012, around 960,000 people live within the city's administrative limits. The Naples urban area has a population of between 3 million and 3.7 million, and is the ninth-most populous urban area in the European Union. Around 4 million people live in the Naples metropolitan area, one of the largest metropolises on the Mediterranean Sea. Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Bronze Age Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC. A larger colony, developed on the Island of Megaride around the Ninth Century BC, at the end of the Greek Dark Ages. The city was refounded as Neápolis in the Sixth Century BC and became a lynchpin of Magna Graecia, playing a key role in the merging of Greek culture into Roman society and eventually becoming a cultural centre of the Roman Republic. Naples remained influential after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, serving as the capital city of the Kingdom of Naples between 1282 and 1816. Thereafter, in union with Sicily, it became the capital of the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861. During the Neapolitan War of 1815, Naples strongly promoted Italian unification. Naples has the fourth-largest urban economy in Italy, after Milan, Rome and Turin. It is the world's 103rd-richest city by purchasing power, with an estimated 2011 GDP of US$83.6 billion. The port of Naples is one of the most important in Europe, and has the world's second-highest level of passenger flow, after the port of Hong Kong. Numerous major Italian companies, such as MSC Cruises Italy S.p.A, are headquartered in Naples. The city also hosts NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Naples, the SRM Institution for Economic Research and the OPE Company and Study Centre. Naples is a full member of the Eurocities network of European cities. The city was selected to become the headquarters of the European institution ACP/UE and was named a City of Literature by UNESCO's Creative Cities Network. The Villa Rosebery, one of the three official residences of the President of Italy, is located in the city's Posillipo district. Naples' historic city centre is the largest in Europe, covering 1,700 hectares and enclosing 27 centuries of history, and is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Naples has long been a major cultural centre with a global sphere of influence, particularly during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras. In the immediate vicinity of Naples are numerous culturally and historically significant sites, including the Palace of Caserta and the Roman ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Culinarily, Naples is synonymous with pizza, which originated in the city. Neapolitan music has furthermore been highly influential, credited with the invention of the romantic guitar and the mandolin, as well as notable contributions to opera and folk standards. Popular characters and historical figures who have come to symbolise the city include Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, the comic figure Pulcinella, and the Sirens from the Greek epic poem the Odyssey. According to CNN, the metro stop "Toledo" is the most beautiful in Europe and it also won the LEAF Award '2013 as "Public building of the year". More information is available on Wikipedia
Today we feature the city of Naples, located in southern Italy, it is the capital of Naples Province and of the Campania Region. Naples is built on the slopes and at the base of a range of hills bordering the Bay of Naples, an inlet of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Visible from the city is the Mount Vesuvius Volcano. These images acquired by the Landsat 5 and 8 satellites have a temporal window of acquisition (before / after) of 29 years and aim to show the urban changes in the city and surrounding area during that period of time and also monitor the state of Mount Vesuvius Volcano. The images demonstrate urban expansion in the city since 1984. Another aim of these images is to promote the opportunity to download Landsat data through the ESA portals, where images captured every day are made available in near real time to the users and the scientific community. Landsat full resolution data products are freely available for immediate download at:  View Landsat 5 TM high resolution image (JPG 2.7 MB) View Landsat 8 OLI high resolution image (JPG 3.9 MB)
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