City Europe
Milan
Milan is a big city in the north of Italy. It has a giant cathedral with many pointy spires. People also make beautiful clothes there!
Milan is the second city of Italy, a center of business, fashion and design on the flat Po plain in the north. It began about 600 BCE and was a Roman city called Mediolanum. Italy's statistics office counted 1,365,698 residents on January 1, 2025.
Milan, capital of Lombardy, lies in the Po Basin between the Ticino and Adda rivers with the Alps to the north. Founded by Gauls about 600 BCE, Roman Mediolanum became an imperial residence; the medieval commune, the Visconti and Sforza courts and foreign rulers followed. Today it is Italy's leading financial center. ISTAT: 1,365,698 residents on January 1, 2025.
Photo: © Steffen Schmitz (Carschten) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover Milan
Milan is a big, busy city in the north of Italy.
It sits on wide, flat land. Tall mountains called the Alps rise to the north. Milan has a huge marble cathedral, a famous opera house and lots of shops.
Milan is a city in northern Italy and the capital of the region of Lombardy. It stands in the middle of a huge, flat plain, the Po Basin, with the Alps to the north. Rome is Italy's capital, but Milan is its leading center of banking and business.
Italy's statistics office, ISTAT, counted 1,365,698 residents in Milan on January 1, 2025. The city covers about 182 square kilometers, and many more people live in the towns that have grown all around it.
Milan, capital of the province of Milano and of the region of Lombardy, is set in the heart of the Po Basin, halfway across the plain between the Ticino and Adda rivers, at about 122 m above sea level, with the arc of the Alps to the north. Britannica calls it Italy's leading financial center and its most prosperous manufacturing and commercial city.
ISTAT's register-based count gave 1,365,698 residents on January 1, 2025, in a city of about 182 km². The city forms part of a huge built-up area that stretches across the Po Basin toward Turin in the west and Venice in the east. Although Rome is the political capital, Milan has long called itself Italy's "moral capital", a claim rooted in its economic and cultural role since unification.
- Country
- Italy (capital of the Lombardy region)
- Residents of the city (ISTAT, January 1, 2025)
- 1,365,698
- Area of the city
- about 182 km²
- Height above sea level
- about 122 m
Famous places
Milan's cathedral is called the Duomo.
It is made of pinkish marble and has many pointy spires. It took hundreds of years to build! Nearby is La Scala, a famous theater where singers perform operas.
The Duomo, Milan's cathedral, is a giant Gothic church begun in 1386. It took five centuries to finish and can hold more than 20,000 people. On the same square, a great arch opens into the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a shopping arcade with a glass roof.
A short walk away is La Scala, an opera house built in 1776–78. In a room of the former monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie is The Last Supper, a famous wall painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The Sforzesco Castle dates from the 1400s, when dukes ruled Milan.
The Duomo, a triumph of Gothic architecture begun in 1386, took five centuries to complete; its facade was finished under Napoleon, it is clad in pink-tinged Italian marble, and it holds more than 20,000 people. Opening onto its piazza, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a shopping arcade under a glass roof.
La Scala (Teatro alla Scala, "theater at the stairway"), designed by the Neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini and built in 1776–78, was damaged by bombing in World War II and reopened with a concert by Arturo Toscanini in 1946. In the former refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie is Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper (1495–98), fully reopened in 1999 after a long, controversial restoration. The Sforzesco Castle, a product of the 15th-century dynastic struggles reinforced by the Spanish, and the Palazzo di Brera (from 1651), with the Pinacoteca di Brera art gallery founded by Napoleon in 1809, complete the center.
- Duomo (Milan Cathedral)
- begun 1386; holds more than 20,000 people
- La Scala opera house
- built 1776–78
- The Last Supper
- Leonardo da Vinci, 1495–98, Santa Maria delle Grazie
- Sforzesco Castle
- 15th century
From Mediolanum to Milan
Milan is a very old city.
Long ago, the Romans ruled here. The city was called Mediolanum. Later, dukes ruled the city from a big castle. Today Milan is a city of offices, shops and fashion.
The first town here was founded by the Gauls about 600 BCE. The Romans took it in 222 BCE, when it was already called Mediolanum, and it grew into one of the most important cities of the Western Roman Empire.
In the Middle Ages, Milan governed itself as a commune. Powerful families, the Visconti and then the Sforza, later ruled it as dukes, and under the Sforza the silk industry arrived. Spain, Austria and France each ruled Milan for a time. After World War II, factories boomed and many people moved here from other parts of Italy.
Gauls founded the first settlement about 600 BCE; it became the capital of the Insubres, and by the Roman conquest in 222 BCE Mediolanum was among the most powerful cities of Cisalpine Gaul. It grew into the second city of the Western Roman Empire and, after Diocletian's reforms in the 3rd century CE, an imperial residence. The city was devastated in 452 and 539 but revived; in 1045 it became a self-governing commune, and in 1162 Frederick I Barbarossa razed it. Rebuilt in 1167 with the Lombard League, it shared in the victory at Legnano in 1176.
The Visconti ruled from 1311 (dukes from 1395); Francesco Sforza took power in 1450, and silk and the Renaissance court flourished. France (1499), Spain (1540–1706) and Austria followed. Napoleon entered in 1796 and was crowned king of Italy here in 1805; Austrian rule returned in 1815, and the city rose against it in the Five Days of March 1848. In World War II the city was occupied from 1943 and liberated by Italian partisans in April 1945. The "economic miracle" of 1958–63 drew thousands of migrants from the south, and in 2026 Milan co-hosted the Winter Olympic Games.
Getting around Milan
People in Milan ride trams, buses and underground trains.
Big trains go from Milan to other cities in Italy and Europe. Long ago, boats used canals in the city. Some canals are still there.
Milan has a big network of buses, trams and subway lines. Its first subway line opened in 1964. Some of Italy's busiest railway lines pass through the city, and tunnels through the Alps link it with the rest of Europe. Several airports serve Milan.
The Navigli are old canals, dug in the 1500s to carry people and goods. Parts of them are still there, especially in the south of the city, now lined with shops and restaurants.
Milan is a national transport hub: some of the most heavily traveled lines of the Italian State Railways pass through it, and main lines and transalpine tunnels connect it with the rest of Italy and Europe; several airports, including Linate, serve the city. Inside the city, buses, trams and subways run throughout the urban area; the first subway line opened in 1964, and work on a light-rail system began in the late 20th century.
Despite mass transit, car ownership is high, causing traffic, parking problems and pollution; officials have at times banned private traffic to cut smog. Sections of the Navigli, a 16th-century network of transport canals, survive in the south of the city; once among its poorest districts, they became centers of small fashion businesses and nightlife from the 1980s.
- First subway line
- 1964
- City transport
- buses, trams and subway
- Navigli
- canals from the 16th century
Foggy winters, hot summers
Winters in Milan are cold and damp.
Sometimes thick fog covers the city. Snow can fall in winter. Summers are hot and sticky.
Milan has damp, chilly winters and hot, humid summers. At the World Meteorological Organization's Milan station, January days averaged about 6 °C and nights about −1 °C between 1971 and 2000. Snow falls between December and February, and fog often covers the city in winter.
In July, days averaged about 29 °C and nights about 18 °C. Rain and snow add up to about 920 millimeters a year, and October is the wettest month.
Britannica describes Milan's climate as continental, with damp, chilly winters, rainy springs and hot, humid summers; snow falls between December and February, and fog, characteristic of the Po Basin, often shrouds the city in winter. Removing rice fields from the southern districts and closing heavy industry have reduced the fog, but the surrounding built-up area and traffic smog offset some of the gain.
WMO normals for Milan (1971–2000, Italian Air Force Meteorological Service) give average daily highs and lows of about 6 °C and −1 °C in January and about 29 °C and 18 °C in July. The monthly averages add up to about 920 mm; October is the wettest month, at about 122 mm, and February the driest, at about 49 mm.
- January, average daily high and low (WMO Milan station, 1971–2000)
- about 6 °C and −1 °C
- July, average daily high and low (same station and period)
- about 29 °C and 18 °C
- Rain and snow in a year (sum of the monthly averages)
- about 920 mm
Living in Milan
Milan is famous for fashion.
Some of the world's best-known fashion designers work there. Two big soccer teams play in Milan's huge stadium.
Milan is a world center of fashion and design. Many famous fashion designers have their salons here, and fashion and design fairs are held every year. The city is also home to Italy's stock market and many banks.
Milan loves sports. Two soccer clubs, AC Milan and Inter Milan, play at the San Siro stadium, which holds up to 80,000 people. In 2026 the city hosted figure skating, ice hockey and speed skating at the Winter Olympics. Students come to universities such as Milan Polytechnic, founded in 1863.
Since the late 1970s, as most traditional industries closed or moved out, Milan has become Italy's first and most successful "postindustrial" city, built on services such as advertising, trade and fashion, supported by its banks and the Borsa Italiana stock exchange in Piazza degli Affari. Fashion houses have made the city prominent since the early 1980s, and specialized trade fairs, for fashion, design and electronics, run through the year.
Universities include Milan Polytechnic (1863), Bocconi University (1902) and the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart (1920). AC Milan and Inter Milan share the San Siro stadium, rebuilt for the 1990 World Cup. Since the mid-1970s, people have come from many countries, among them Morocco, Egypt, Senegal, the Philippines and Ecuador, and after 1990 Albania; a Chinese community has lived in the city since the 1930s, and in 2026 Milan became an Olympic host city for the first time, staging figure skating, ice hockey and speed skating.
- Stock market
- Borsa Italiana, Piazza degli Affari
- San Siro stadium
- up to 80,000 people
- Milan Polytechnic
- founded 1863
Milan on the map
Find Milan on the globe.
It is in Italy, in Europe. Italy is shaped like a boot. Milan is near the top of the boot, below the tall Alps.
Milan is in the north of Italy, on the wide plain of the Po River. The Alps rise to the north, and the Po flows to the south. Two rivers, the Ticino and the Adda, run on either side of the city.
Milan sits on the main route between Italy and the rest of Europe. Turin lies to the west and Venice to the east, across the same plain.
Milan lies at about 45.5° N and 9.2° E, halfway across the Po plain between the Ticino and Adda rivers, on the line where the drier ground to the north meets the marshy land toward the Po. To the north sweeps the southern flank of the Alps.
This position, at a nexus of the Po valley's traffic routes and on the main route connecting Italy with the rest of Europe, has always given Milan advantages as a market center; the city now anchors a conurbation that stretches across the basin toward Turin and Venice.
- Latitude
- about 45.5° north
- Longitude
- about 9.2° east
- Rivers on either side
- the Ticino and the Adda
Amazing facts
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Milan's cathedral took hundreds of years to build.
Work on Milan's cathedral, the Duomo, began in 1386, and it took five centuries to complete.
Begun in 1386, the Duomo took five centuries to complete; its Gothic facade was finished under Napoleon I.
-
A very famous painting is on a wall in Milan.
Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper on a wall of a monastery's dining hall in Milan in 1495–98.
Leonardo's The Last Supper (1495–98), in the former refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, was fully reopened to view in 1999 after a lengthy, controversial restoration.
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La Scala means the stairway in Italian.
Teatro alla Scala means theater at the stairway. People just call it La Scala.
Teatro alla Scala, "theatre at the stairway", was designed by Giuseppe Piermarini and built in 1776–78.
-
Two big soccer teams share one stadium in Milan.
AC Milan and Inter Milan both play their home games at the San Siro stadium, which holds up to 80,000 people.
AC Milan and Inter Milan share the San Siro, rebuilt for the 1990 World Cup and holding up to 80,000 spectators.
Words to know
- cathedral
- the main church of an area led by a bishop
- Gothic
- a style of building from the Middle Ages with pointed arches, tall windows and spires
- opera
- a play in which the story is sung, with an orchestra
- fashion
- the styles of clothes that are popular, and the business of designing them
- plain
- a large area of flat land
- duke
- a nobleman who ruled a territory called a duchy
- canal
- a waterway dug by people for boats to travel along
Discovery challenge
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Milan is a big city in which country?
Milan is a city in which country?
Milan, capital of Lombardy, is the leading financial center of which country?
- Spain
- Italy
- Greece
Show the answer
Italy
Italy! Milan is in the north of Italy.
Italy. Milan is in the north, on the plain of the Po River.
Italy; Rome is the capital, but Milan is the country's leading financial center.
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What do people call Milan's giant cathedral?
What is Milan's Gothic cathedral, begun in 1386, usually called?
Which Milan building, begun in 1386, took five centuries to complete?
- The Duomo
- The Colosseum
- The Louvre
Show the answer
The Duomo
The Duomo! It has many pointy spires.
The Duomo. It can hold more than 20,000 people.
The Duomo; its facade was completed under Napoleon.
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What do singers do at La Scala?
What kind of performance is La Scala famous for?
La Scala, built in 1776–78, is one of the world's great houses for which art form?
- Opera
- Car racing
- Swimming
Show the answer
Opera
They sing in operas! The story is sung.
Opera: plays in which the story is sung, with an orchestra.
Opera; La Scala reopened with a Toscanini concert in 1946 after wartime bombing.
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What did the Romans call Milan?
What was Milan called in Roman times?
By what name was Milan already one of the most powerful cities of Cisalpine Gaul in 222 BCE?
- Londinium
- Mediolanum
- Lutetia
Show the answer
Mediolanum
Mediolanum! That was its old name.
Mediolanum. It became one of the most important cities of the Western Roman Empire.
Mediolanum, which later became the second city of the Western Roman Empire.
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Which month is colder in Milan?
In which month is Milan colder, on average?
In which month do nights at the WMO Milan station average about −1 °C (1971–2000)?
- January
- July
Show the answer
January
January! It is chilly and foggy.
January days average about 6 °C, while July days average about 29 °C.
January; July nights average about 18 °C.
Nearby places
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Watch
Landmark
La Scala
La Scala is an opera house in Milan, Italy, where singers, musicians and dancers perform. It was designed by the architect Giuseppe Piermarini and opened on 3 August 1778. Many operas, including works by Giuseppe Verdi, were performed here, and today it seats 2,015 people.
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Landmark
Milan Cathedral
Milan Cathedral, called the Duomo, is a giant Gothic cathedral made of pink-and-white marble. Building began in 1386, and the last details of its front were finished only in 1965. It has more statues than any other building in the world, over 3,000 of them.
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Natural wonder
Alps
The Alps are Europe's great mountain range, an arc about 1,200 kilometers long that runs from the Mediterranean coast near Nice, in France, to Vienna, in Austria. Their highest peak is Mont Blanc, which Britannica gives as 4,807 meters. The Alps rose when the plate carrying Africa pushed north into Europe, and Ice Age glaciers carved their sharp peaks and deep valleys.
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Natural wonder
Matterhorn
The Matterhorn is a 4,478-meter mountain in the Alps, on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its rock was pushed up when Africa moved toward Europe, and glaciers later carved its steep sides into a pyramid shape. Climbers first reached its top on 14 July 1865.
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Natural wonder
Rhine
The Rhine begins as two small streams high in the Swiss Alps and flows about 1,230 kilometers north and west to the North Sea, through Switzerland, Germany, France and the Netherlands. It tumbles over the Rhine Falls and winds through a gorge lined with castles. After a chemical spill in 1986, the countries along it worked together to clean it, and salmon came back.
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Natural wonder
Aletsch Glacier
The Great Aletsch Glacier, in the Swiss Alps, is Europe's largest glacier, UNESCO says. It is part of the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage Site, and like many glaciers in the Alps, it is shrinking.
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Natural wonder
Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc is the highest peak in the Alps, on the border of France and Italy. Its snowy top changes height a little from year to year: in September 2026, French surveyors measured it at 4,807.47 meters. People first climbed it in 1786, and today a long tunnel runs right underneath it.
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City
Vaduz
Vaduz is the capital of Liechtenstein. It lies on the edge of the Rhine valley, below a steep mountainside, with Vaduz Castle, the home of the country's prince, on a ledge above the town. About 6,100 people lived in Vaduz at the end of 2025, and the town has never had a railway.
Explore next
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Country
Italy
Italy is a country in southern Europe on a long peninsula that reaches into the Mediterranean Sea, often described as shaped like a boot. The Alps rise in the north, the Apennine mountains run down its length, and about 58.9 million people (2026) live there. Its capital is Rome.
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Landmark
Milan Cathedral
Milan Cathedral, called the Duomo, is a giant Gothic cathedral made of pink-and-white marble. Building began in 1386, and the last details of its front were finished only in 1965. It has more statues than any other building in the world, over 3,000 of them.
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Watch
Landmark
La Scala
La Scala is an opera house in Milan, Italy, where singers, musicians and dancers perform. It was designed by the architect Giuseppe Piermarini and opened on 3 August 1778. Many operas, including works by Giuseppe Verdi, were performed here, and today it seats 2,015 people.
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City
Rome
Rome, the capital of Italy, grew from huts on a hill beside the Tiber River into the center of a huge ancient empire. About 2.7 million people live there today (2023), among ruins such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon.
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City
Venice
Venice, in northern Italy, is spread over 118 small islands in a shallow lagoon off the Adriatic Sea. There are no cars in the old city: people walk or travel by boat along its canals, past palaces and over about 400 bridges. High tides sometimes flood its squares, so giant gates now protect the lagoon.
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City
Paris
Paris is the capital of France. It grew from an island in the Seine River into a city of about 2.1 million people (2023), with the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, the Louvre and a subway that has run since 1900.
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City
Lyon
Lyon is a city in France where two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône, meet below two hills. The Romans founded it more than 2,000 years ago, and its old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Lumière brothers worked on their movie camera, the Cinematograph, in Lyon. About 519,000 people lived in the city in 2023.
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City
Florence
Florence is the capital of Tuscany, a region of Italy, on the Arno River. It began as a Roman town in 59 BC and became the heart of the Renaissance, a time of new ideas in art and building. Its old center, with a famous dome and a bridge lined with shops, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Locate Milan on the Po plain in northern Italy, south of the Alps.
- Describe how a city can change from Roman town to factory city to a center of services and fashion.
- Name some of Milan's landmarks: the Duomo, La Scala and The Last Supper.
- Read temperature averages to describe a climate with chilly winters and hot summers.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Milan's cathedral took five centuries to finish. What would it be like to work on a building you would never see completed?
- Milan is famous for designing clothes. If you designed an outfit, what would it look like and why?
- Many people moved to Milan from other places to find work. What brings people to a new city?
Try at home or in class
- Design a fashion sketch: draw an outfit on paper, then add notes on the colors and materials you would use.
- Build a spire tower: stack paper cones and tubes on a box to make a cathedral roof with as many spires as you can.
Key vocabulary: cathedral, Gothic, opera, fashion, plain, duke, canal
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Natural Earth vector data , Natural Earth (NACIS) (Public domain)
- Milan , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Milan: Landscape , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Milan: Finance and other services , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Milan: History , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Milan: Evolution of the modern city , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Milan: Milan since 1915 , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Resident population by age, sex and marital status on 1 January 2025 (municipalities) , ISTAT, Italian National Institute of Statistics
- Milan: climatological information , World Meteorological Organization, World Weather Information Service
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated November 1, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.