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 The Muslim conquest of Sicily was a see-saw affair and met with much resistance. It took over a century for Byzantine Sicily to be conquered; the largest city, Syracuse, held out until 878 and the Greek city of Taormina fell in 962. It was not until 965 that all of Sicily was conquered by the Arabs. In the 11th century Byzantine armies carried out a partial reconquest of the island under George Maniakes, but it was their Norman mercenaries who would eventually complete the island's reconquest at the end of the century. The Arabs initiated land reforms, which increased productivity