Metropolitan City of Messina Metropolitan City of Messina The Metropolitan City of Messina () is a metropolitan city in Sicily, Italy. Its capital is the city of Messina. It replaced the Province of Messina and comprises the city of Messina and other 107 municipalities ("comuni"). According to Eurostat the FUA of the metropolitan area of Messina had in 2014 277,584 inhabitants. It was first created by the reform of local authorities (Law 142/1990) and then established by the regional law 15 August 2015. The metropolitan city borders with the Metropolitan City of Palermo (the former Province of Palermo), the Metropolitan City of Catania (the
Sicily in 552. In 535, Emperor Justinian I made Sicily a Byzantine province and, as in Roman times, Greek continued to be the predominate language spoken on the island. After the advent of Islam, Sicily was invaded by the Arab forces of Caliph Uthman in 652, but the Arabs failed to make any permanent gains and returned to Syria after gathering some booty. Raids seeking loot continued until the mid-8th century. Byzantine Emperor Constans II decided to move from the capital Constantinople to Syracuse in Sicily during 660. The following year, he launched an assault from Sicily against the Lombard Duchy