Sardinia world (22 centenarians/100,000 inhabitants). Sardinia is the first discovered Blue Zone, a demographic and/or geographic area in the world with an oversize concentration of centenarians and supercentenarians. In 2016 there were 50,346 foreign national residents, forming 3% of the total Sardinian population. The most represented nationalities were: Sardinia's most populated cities are Cagliari and Sassari. The Metropolitan City of Cagliari has 431,302 inhabitants, or about ¼ of the population of the entire island. Eurostat has identified in Sardinia two Functional Urban Areas: Cagliari, with 477,000 inhabitants, and Sassari, with 222,000 inhabitants. Sardinia is one of the five Italian autonomous regions,
History of Sardinia History of Sardinia Archaeological evidence of prehistoric human settlement on the island of Sardinia is present in the form of nuraghes and others prehistoric monuments, which dot the land. The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various people who sought to dominate western Mediterranean trade in Classical Antiquity: Phoenicians, Punics and Romans. Initially under the political and economic alliance with the Phoenician cities, it was partly conquered by Carthage in the late 6th century BC and then entirely by Rome after the First Punic War (238 BC). The island was included for centuries in the Roman