Overview of milan

Milan (Italian: Milano; Western Lombard: Milan (listen) is the second largest city in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. Milan is the capital in the Province of Milan, as well as the regional capital of Lombardy. The city has a population of about 1.3 million, while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.08 million. The Milan metropolitan area, by far the largest in Italy, is estimated by OECD to have a population of 7.4 million.

Milan is renowned as one of the world capitals of design and fashion. The English word millinery, referring to women's hats, is derived from the name of the city. The Lombard metropolis is famous for its fashion houses and shops (such as along via Montenapoleone) and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the Piazza Duomo (reputed to be the world's oldest shopping mall). The city hosted the World Exposition in 1906 and will host the Universal Expo in 2015. Inhabitants of Milan are referred to as "Milanese" (Italian: Milanesi or informally Meneghini or Ambrosiani).

Etymology

The word Milan derives from the ancient Latin name of the city, Mediolanum. This name is born by a number of Gallo-Roman sites in France, such as Mediolanum Santonum (Saintes) and Mediolanum Aulercorum (Evreux) and appears to contain the Celtic element -lan, signifying an enclosure or demarcated territory (source of the Welsh word 'llan', meaning a sanctuary or church). Hence, Mediolanum could signify the central town or sanctuary of a particular Celtic tribe.

The origin of the name and of a boar as a symbol of the city are fancifully accounted for in Andrea Alciato's Emblemata (1584), beneath a woodcut of the first raising of the city walls, where a boar is seen lifted from the excavation, and the etymology of Mediolanum given as "half-wool", explained in Latin and in French. The foundation of Milan is credited to two Celtic peoples, the Bituriges and the Aedui, having as their emblems a ram and a boar; therefore "The city's symbol is a wool-bearing boar, an animal of double form, here with sharp bristles, there with sleek wool." Alciato credits the most saintly and learned Ambrose for his account.

The German name for the city is Mailand, while in the local Western Lombard dialect, the city's name is Milán.