Sardinia ( ; ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Sardinia,Italian and Sardinian: / is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea after Sicily, and one of the twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia, and south of the French island of Corsica. Sardinia is one of five Italian regions with statutory domestic autonomy. It is divided into six provinces and two metropolitan cities. Cagliari is the capital and largest city, followed by Sassari. Sardinia has over 1.5 million inhabitants as of 2026.
Sardinia's indigenous language, Sardinian, and the Algherese dialect of Catalan are recognized by both regional and national law as two of Italy's twelve officially protected minority languages, although both are gravely endangered; regional law provides some degree of protection and recognition of the island's other minority languages: the Corsican-influenced Sassarese and Gallurese, and Tabarchino Ligurian.
Owing to its varied ecosystems, which include mountains,Ignazio Camarda, Montagne di Sardegna, pp. 11, 75 woods, plains, streams, rocky coasts, and long sandy beaches, Sardinia has been metaphorically described as a micro-continent.Marcello Serra, Sardegna, quasi un continente, Cagliari,1958 In the modern era, many travelers and writers have extolled the beauty of its long-untouched landscapes, which retain vestiges of the prehistoric Nuragic civilization.
Etymology The name Sardinia has pre-Latin roots. It comes from the pre-Roman ethnonym *s(a)rd-, later romanised as (feminine ). It makes its first appearance on the Phoenician inscription on the Nora Stone, where the word , or *, testifies to the name's existence when the Phoenician merchants first arrived. There has been speculation that identifies the ancient Nuragic Sards with the Sherden, one of the Sea Peoples. It is suggested that the name had a religious connotation from its use also as the adjective for the ancient Sardinian mythological hero-god Sardus Pater ("Sardinian Father"; a common explanation that the term means "Father of the Sardinians" is incorrect, as that would be "Sardorum Pater"), as well as being the stem of the adjective "sardonic".
In classical antiquity, Sardinia was called a number of names besides Sardṓ () or Sardinia, like (the Latinised form of the Greek ), ()Hesychius: Σανδαλιῶτις; ἡ Σαρδὼ πάλαι. ("Sandaliotis; [this is the name by which] Sardinia used to be called in ancient times".) and ().For the historical toponymy of Sardinia, cf. An anonymous commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus suggests that Sardinia (referred to by most ancient Greek authors as ) was named after a legendary woman called Sardṓ (), born in Sardis, capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia.Platonis dialogi, scholia in Timaeum (edit. C. F. Hermann, Lipsia 1877), 25 B, pag. 368
History
Sardinia has been inhabited by humans since the end of the Paleolithic, around 20–10,000 years ago. The island's most notable historic culture is the Nuragic civilization, which flourished from the 18th century BC to either 238 BC or the 2nd century in some parts of the island, and to the 6th century in that part of the island known as Barbagia.Rowland, R. J. "When Did the Nuragic Period in Sardinia End." Sardinia Antiqua. Studi in Onore Di Piero Meloni in Occasione Del Suo Settantesimo Compleanno, 1992, 165–175."Da parte imperiale era dunque implicito il riconoscimento di una Sardegna barbaricina indomita se non libera e già in qualche modo statualmente conformata, dove continuava a esistere una civiltà o almeno una cultura d'origine nuragica, certo mutata ed evoluta per influenze esterne romane e vandaliche di cui nulla conosciamo tranne alcuni tardi effetti politici." Casula, Francesco Cèsare (2017). La storia di Sardegna, I, Evo Antico Sardo : Dalla Sardegna Medio-Nuragica (100 a.C. c.) alla Sardegna Bizantina (900 d.C. c.), p.281Gregory the Great, Epistula ad Hospitonem
After a period in which the island was ruled by a political and economic alliance between the Nuragic Sardinians and the Phoenicians, parts of it were conquered by Carthage in the late 6th century BC, and by Rome in 238 BC. The Roman occupation lasted for 700 years.
Beginning in the Early Middle Ages, the island was ruled by the Vandals and the Byzantines. In practice, the island was disconnected from Byzantium's territorial influence, which allowed the Sardinians to provide themselves with a self-ruling political organization, the four kingdoms known as judicates. The maritime republics of the Republic of Pisa and the Republic of Genoa struggled to impose political control over these indigenous kingdoms, but it was the Iberian Crown of Aragon which, in 1324, succeeded in bringing the island under its control, consolidating it into the Kingdom of Sardinia.
This Iberian kingdom endured until 1713 and, for the last time, in 1718, when it was ceded to the Alpine House of Savoy; the Savoyards would politically merge their insular possession with their domains on the Italian Mainland which, during the period of Italian unification, they would go on to expand to include the whole Italian peninsula; their territory was so renamed into the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, and it was reconstituted as the present-day Italian Republic in 1946.
Prehistory
Sardinia is one of the most geologically ancient bodies of land in Europe. The island was populated in various waves of immigration from prehistory until recent times.
Remains from Corbeddu Cave in eastern Sardinia have been suggested by some authors to represent the earliest evidence of human presence on Sardinia, around 20,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum. However, other authors contend that there is no solid evidence for the occupation of the island until the early Mesolithic, around 10,000 years ago.
The Neolithic began on Sardinia during the 6th millennium BC resulting from the migration of Early European Farmers, replacing the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer populations, with a material culture including the widespread Cardium pottery style. In the mid-Neolithic period, the Ozieri culture, probably of Aegean origin, flourished on the island spreading the hypogeum tombs known as domus de Janas, while the Arzachena culture of Gallura built the first megaliths: circular tombs. In the early 3rd millennium BC, the metallurgy of copper and silver began to develop.
During the late Chalcolithic the so-called Beaker culture, coming from various parts of Continental Europe, appeared in Sardinia. These new people predominantly settled on the west coast, where the majority of the sites attributed to them had been found.Giovanni Ugas, L'alba dei Nuraghi p.22-23-24-25-29-30-31-32 The Beaker culture was followed in the early Bronze Age by the Bonnanaro culture which showed both reminiscences of the Beaker and influences by the Polada culture.
As time passed the different Sardinian populations appear to have become united in customs, yet remained politically divided into various small, tribal groupings, at times banding together against invading forces from the sea, and at others waging war against each other. Habitations consisted of round thatched stone huts.
Nuragic civilization
From about 1500 BC onwards, villages were built around a kind of round tower-fortress called nuragheNuraghes in North-central Sardinian, nuraxis in South-central Sardinian, the plural forms being nuraghe and nuraxi respectively. (usually pluralized as nuraghes in English and as in Italian). These towers were often reinforced and enlarged with battlements. Tribal boundaries were guarded by smaller lookout Nuraghes erected on strategic hills commanding a view of other territories.
Today, some 7,000 Nuraghes dot the Sardinian landscape. While initially these Nuraghes had a relatively simple structure, with time they became extremely complex and monumental (see for example the Nuraghe Santu Antine, Su Nuraxi, or Nuraghe Arrubiu). The scale, complexity and territorial spread of these buildings attest to the level of wealth accumulated by the Nuragic Sardinians, their advances in technology and the complexity of their society, which was able to coordinate large numbers of people with different roles for the purpose of building the monumental Nuraghes.
The Nuraghes are not the only Nuragic buildings that stand in place, as there are several sacred wells around Sardinia and other buildings with religious purposes such as the Giants' grave (monumental collective tombs) and collections of religious buildings that probably served as destinations for pilgrimage and mass religious rites (e.g. Su Romanzesu near Bitti).
At the time, Sardinia was at the centre of several commercial routes and it was an important provider of raw materials such as copper and lead, which were pivotal for the manufacture of the time. By controlling the extraction of these raw materials and by trading them with other countries, the ancient Sardinians were able to accumulate wealth and reach a level of sophistication that is not only reflected in the complexity of its surviving buildings, but also in its artworks (e.g. the votive bronze statuettes found across Sardinia or the statues of Mont'e Prama).
According to some scholars, the Nuragic people(s) are identifiable with the Sherden, a tribe of the Sea Peoples.
The Nuragic civilization was linked with other contemporaneous megalithic civilizations of the western Mediterranean, such as the Talaiotic culture of the Balearic Islands and the Torrean civilization of Southern Corsica. Evidence of trade with the other civilizations of the time is attested by several artefacts (e.g. pots), coming from as far as Cyprus, Crete, Mainland Greece, Spain and Italy, that have been found in Nuragic sites, bearing witness to the scope of commercial relations between the Nuragic people and other peoples in Europe and beyond.
Ancient history
Around the 9th century BC the Phoenicians began visiting Sardinia with increasing frequency, presumably initially needing safe overnight and all-weather anchorages along their trade routes from the coast of modern-day Lebanon as far afield as the African and European Atlantic coasts and beyond. The most common ports of call were Caralis, Nora, Bithia, Sulci, and Tharros. Claudian, a 4th-century Latin poet, in his poem De bello Gildonico, stated that Caralis was founded by people from Tyre, probably in the same time of the foundation of Carthage, in the 9th or 8th century BC.Claudian, De Bello Gildonico, IV A.D.: city located in front of Libya (Africa), founded by the powerful Tyro, Karalis extends in length, between the waves, with a small bumpy hill, disperses headwinds. It follows a port in the mid of the sea, and all strong winds are softened in the shelter of the pond.(521.Urbs Lybiam contra Tyrio fundata potenti 521. Tenditur in longum Caralis, tenuemque per undas 522. Obvia dimittit fracturum flamina collem. 523. Efficitur portus medium mare: tutaque ventis 524. Omnibus, ingenti mansuescunt stagna recessu) In the 6th century BC, after the conquest of western Sicily, the Carthaginians planned to annex Sardinia. A first invasion attempt led by Malchus was foiled by the victorious Nuraghic resistance. However, from 510 BC, the southern and west-central part of the island were invaded a second time and came under Carthaginian rule.Piero Meloni, La Sardegna romana, Sassari, Chiarella, 1975, p. 4.