Naples (town)

Industrial port and capital of Campania, Italy, on the Tyrrhenian Sea; population (2001 est) 993,400. Industries include shipbuilding, food-processing, and the manufacture of cars, textiles, and paper. An important commercial and tourist centre, to the south is the Isle of Capri, and behind the city is Mount Vesuvius, with the ruins of Pompeii at its foot.

Naples is the third-largest city of Italy, and as a port second in importance only to Genoa. Buildings include the royal palace (17th–19th centuries), the San Carlo opera house (1737), the Castel Nuovo (1283), and the university (1224).

The city began as the Greek colony Neapolis in the 6th century BC and was taken over by Romans in 326 BC; it became part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1140 and capital of the Kingdom of Naples in 1282.