Caltanissetta

Once nicknamed the "world sulfur capital," Caltanissetta is a central Sicilian city whose 19th-century mining wealth left behind a layered historic centre, including the 17th-century Baroque Palazzo Moncada. The city hosts elaborate Easter rituals running from Palm Sunday to Easter Monday — a tradition close enough to Seville's that the two cities are twinned. Writer Leonardo Sciascia called it a "little Athens" for its cultural vitality in the 1930s, and Italy's first mining institute, the Sebastiano Mottura Institute, opened here in 1862.

• Population62,797
• Nearest water from center0.4 km
• Nearest mountain from center10.6 km
• UNESCO within 50 km3