Pisa

Sister cities

• Angers
• Kolding
• Kolding Municipality
• Santiago de Compostela
• Iglesias
• Jericho
• Hangzhou
• Unna
• Cagliari
• Ocala
• Niles
• Coral Gables

History

Most believe the hypothesis that the origin of the name Pisa comes from Etruscan and means 'mouth', as Pisa is at the mouth of the Arno river. Although throughout history there have been several uncertainties about the origin of the city of Pisa, excavations made in the 1980s and 1990s found numerous archaeological remains, including the fifth century BC tomb of an Etruscan prince, proving the Etruscan origin of the city, and its role as a maritime city, showing that it also maintained trade relations with other Mediterranean civilizations. Ancient Roman authors referred to Pisa as an old city. Virgil, the ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period, who lived from 15 October 70 BC – 21 September 19 BC, in his Aeneid epic poem, states that Pisa was already a great center by the times described; and gives the epithet of Alphēae to the city because it was said to have been founded by colonists from Pisa in Elis, the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece, near which the Alpheius river flowed. The Virgilian commentator Servius wrote that the Teuti founded the town 13 centuries before the start of the common era. The maritime role of Pisa should have been already prominent if the ancient authorities ascribed to it the invention of the naval ram. Pisa took advantage of being the only port along the western coast between Genoa (then a small village) and Ostia. Pisa served as a base for Roman naval expeditions against Ligurians and Gauls. In 180 BC, it became a Roman colony under Roman law, as . In 89 BC, became a municipium. Emperor Augustus fortified the colony into an important port and changed the name to . Pisa supposedly was founded on the shore, but due to the alluvial sediments from the Arno and the Serchio, whose mouth lies about north of the Arno's,…

Geography

Pisa has a borderline humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfa) and Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa). The city is characterized by cool to mild winters and hot summers. This transitional climate allows Pisa to have summers with moderate rainfall. Rainfall peaks in autumn. Snow is rare. The highest officially recorded temperature was on 22 August 2011 and the lowest was on 12 January 1985.

Most-observed species

• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,682
• Yellow-legged Gull

  Larus michahellis J.F.Naumann, 1840 · Aves
  1,333
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,259
• Little Egret/Western Reef-Heron

  Egretta garzetta (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,118
• Gray/Purple Heron

  Ardea cinerea Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,082
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,041
• Italian Sparrow

  Passer italiae (Vieillot, 1817) · Aves
  990
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  930

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2026-08-16
  0 km NE of Casano-Dogana-Isola, Italy
• M 4.2 — 2026-03-26
  6 km NNW of Montale, Italy
• M 4.1 — 2026-03-25
  1 km S of Santo Stefano di Magra, Italy
• M 2.5 — 2025-03-04
  2 km NNW of Carrara, Italy
• M 4.5 — 2022-09-22
  1 km SSW of Abetone, Italy
• M 3.5 — 2022-05-12
  1 km S of Impruneta, Italy