Carbonia (Carbónia or Crabónia in Sardinian) is an Italian town
of 27 611 inhabitants, the provisional capital of the province of
Southern Sardinia.
Main inhabited center of Sulcis, Carbonia
is the ninth city in Sardinia by number of inhabitants, as well as
the most populous in the province and in general in the entire
Sardinian south-west. The center was born in the thirties of the
twentieth century to accommodate the workers employed in the coal
mines that were started in those same years in the territory by the
fascist regime to meet the energy needs of Italy in the years of
autarchy. In particular Carbonia, whose name literally indicates the
place or land of coal as evidence of its mining vocation, was built
close to the Serbarìu mine, replacing the nineteenth-century
municipality of the same name, whose village is now completely
incorporated as a southern district. eastern city.
After the
mining epic, Carbonia became a service center for the territory,
basing its economy mainly on the tertiary sector and industry,
thanks to the nearby industrial area of Portovesme, in the
municipality of Portoscuso.
Carbonia is one of the main urban centers in the south-west of Sardinia. The city is located in the historic region of Sulcis, precisely in the northern part, called Alto Sulcis, in the past a mining vocation. Carbonia is located about 65 km west of Cagliari.
The morphology of the territory is
largely of low hills and plains, with reliefs of modest altitude
(between almost 500 meters of the highest hill in the municipality
to ten meters of the lowest point of the municipal area), which
despite this they are improperly called mountains, including Mount
Sirai (from which you can admire a view of the Sant'Antioco lagoon
and the Sulcis archipelago (islands of Sant'Antioco and San Pietro),
Mount Tàsua, Mount Crobu, Mount San Giovanni , Monte Leone and Monte
Rosmarino. The highest hill in the municipality is Monte San Michele
Arenas (in Sardinian Santu Miali), 492 m above sea level. On this
hill, where you can admire a vast and remarkable panorama of most of
the coastal and mountain territory of the Sulcis area, near the
ruins of the church of San Michele (now disappeared and perhaps of
Byzantine origin), the researcher and general Alberto La Marmora in
1839 placed a central and main geodetic point for southern Sardinia-
occiden such with major connections (to the north with Mount Linas,
to the south-east with Punta Sebera, to the south with Capo Teulada,
to the south-west with the island of Toro and to the west with
Guardia dei Mori on the island of San Pietro) and other minor
connections with other points of the territory.
Among the
reliefs present in the municipal area of Carboniense we remember:
Monte San Michele Arenas (in Sardinian Santu Miali mountains) m. 492
Monte Tàsua (ie alaterno, yew tree) m. 455
Monte Cuccu Marrocu m.
408
Monte San Giovanni (in Sardinian monti Santuani) m. 332
(partly in the territory of San Giovanni Suergiu)
Monte Onixeddu
(or Donixeddu, i.e. donicello) m. 329
Monte Corona Sa Craba (ie
stone goat enclosure) m. 328
Monte Leone, also known as Monte
Lurdagu Mannu (i.e. large marsh or swamp) m. 280
Monte Crobu
(formerly known as Monte Corvo) m. 271
From
the hydrographic point of view, the municipality basically includes
two main basins and other minor courses, with the inhabited area
crossed to the south by the Rio Santu Milanu and to the east by its
tributary Rio Cannas (or "Rio delle canne"), two courses of
torrential water such as the prevalence of watercourses in the
Carboniense area, whose beds (canalized in the inhabited center) are
dry for most of the year and end in the Sant'Antioco lagoon. The Rio
Santu Milanu or Santu Millanu (which means Rio "San Gemiliano", a
saint of the 1st or 2nd century AD originally from Cagliari) was
called riu Bau Baccas ("ford of the cows") in the nineteenth century
cadastral maps. To them is added the Flumentepido river (which means
warm river, from the proximity of its course to the hypothermal
springs of Aquas Callentis, or "hot waters" in Sardinian), which
flows a little further north outside the urban center of Carbonia
and which it crosses some of the hamlets of the municipality. The
Rio Cixerri (hydronym that derives from "sicherru", dry), one of the
main watercourses of southern Sardinia with its mouth in the
Cagliari pond, also flows for a short stretch in the municipal
territory. Among the minor watercourses, the Gutturu Nieddu and Is
Ulmus rivers are worthy of note, near the hills of the same name.
Seismic classification: zone 4 (irrelevant seismicity), PCM Ordinance n. 3274 of 20/03/2003
The climate is Mediterranean, with temperatures ranging from an average 10 ° in January to peaks of 36 ° in July and rainfall normally contained and included between autumn and spring, while in summer there are frequent phenomena of drought. In general the territory is influenced by the winds which are almost always present; in particular the mistral predominates which has the effect of mitigating the summer heat but which in the other seasons often causes a lot of damage due to its strong gusts, which can easily exceed 100 km / h.