Provinces of Italy

In Italy, a province (provincia) is an administrative division of intermediate level between a municipality (comune) and a region (regione).

On 3 April 2014 the Italian Chamber of Deputies gave its final approval to the Law n.56/2014 which involves the transformation of the Italian provinces into "institutional bodies of second level" and the birth of 10 special Metropolitan cities. The reorganization of the Italian provinces became operative by January 2015.

The new law which transforms the provinces is preliminary to their abolition, as a revision of the second part of the Italian Constitution is needed in order to change the current bicameral parliamentary system and to abolish.

Overview

A province of the Italian Republic is composed of many municipalities (comune). Usually several provinces together form a region; the region of Aosta Valley is the sole exception – it is not subdivided into provinces, and provincial functions are exercised by the region.

The three main functions devolved to provinces are: