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
History of Sicily Lombards in the middle of the 6th century, Syracuse became Byzantium's main western outpost. Latin was gradually supplanted by Greek as the national language and the Greek rites of the Eastern Church were adopted. The Byzantine Emperor Constans II decided to move from the capital Constantinople to Syracuse in Sicily in 663, the following year he launched an assault from Sicily against the Lombard Duchy of Benevento, which then occupied most of Southern Italy. The rumours that the capital of the empire was to be moved to Syracuse, along with small raids probably cost Constans his life as he was