Place 4 of 23Italy, Italy
Florence
The history
Where the Renaissance started — Brunelleschi's dome, the Uffizi, and the Medici money that paid for most of it, packed into a few walkable streets on the Arno.
In brief
Florence is the capital and most populous city of the Italian region of Tuscany, and, as of 2026, with a population of 361,625, the 8th most populous city in the country. It is also the capital of the eponymous metropolitan province, which counts 988,494 inhabitants, while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence. The Metropolitan Area of Florence, Prato and Pistoia, constituted in 2000 over an area of roughly 4,800 square kilometres (1,850 sq mi), is home to 1.5 million people.
Read more →Then & now
My photos