Minimize Venice, Italy

Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is sited on a group of 117 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by bridges. These are located in the marshy Venetian Lagoon which stretches along the shoreline, between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, and artwork. The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site.

In 2009, 270,098 people resided in Venice's comune (the population estimate of 272,000 inhabitants includes the population of the whole Comune of Venezia; of whom around 60,000 live in the historic city of Venice; 176,000 in Terraferma (the mainland), mostly in the large frazioni (roughly equivalent to "parishes" or "wards" in other countries) of Mestre and Marghera; and 31,000 on other islands in the lagoon. Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), with a total population of 2,600,000. PATREVE is only a statistical metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy.

The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC. The city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the "La Dominante", "Serenissima", "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", and "City of Canals".

The Republic of Venice was a major maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as a very important centre of commerce (especially silk, grain, and spice) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Republic was annexed by the Austrian Empire, until it became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, following a referendum held as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence. Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.

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Venice
Venice
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Our tour today stops over Venice (Italian Venezia), a city and seaport in north-east Italy, Venice is situated on 120 islands formed by 177 canals in the lagoon between the mouths of the Po and Piave rivers, at the northern extremity of the Adriatic Sea. Because of its historic role as a naval power and commercial centre, the city is known as the "Queen of the Adriatic". A rail and road causeway connects Venice with the mainland. Long sand bars, or barrier beaches, on the outer side of the lagoon serve as protection against the sea. The islands on which the city is built are connected by more than 400 bridges. The Grand Canal, about 3 km (2 mi) long, winds through Venice from north-west to south-east, dividing the city into two nearly equal portions. The Giudecca Canal, about 400 m wide, separates Giudecca Island, on the extreme south, from Venice proper. No motor vehicles are permitted on the narrow, winding lanes and streets that penetrate the old city, and the bridges are for pedestrians only. For centuries the most common method of transport was by gondola, a flat-bottomed boat propelled by a single oar. Today, the gondolas are used mainly by tourists; motor launches carry almost all the freight and passenger traffic in Venice.

The purpose of this comparision made from Sentinel-1 (Radar7 SAR instrument) and Sentinel-2 (Optical Sensor) images, aims to show to the scientific community the field of application of these satellites of the Copernicus family.

Venice - Sentinel-2Venice - Sentinel-1

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Technical Information of original image
Product: Geo Tiff format
Satellite/Sensor: Sentinel-1A (ASAR) and Sentinel-2A (Optical)
Resolution: 5 metres and 10 metres
Acq. Date: 10 May 2016 and 29 April 2016
Band Combination used to create this images: Grayscale and 4, 3, 2 (R-G-B) Visible colour layers
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