Cities and inner areas: the geography of the vote

In the general election of 25 September 2022 the vote was distributed deeply unevenly along the peninsula. The Five Star Movement, written off by many, obtained around 30% in the South and 27% in the Islands, against just 7.6% in the North-East and 12% in the North-West: the sharpest territorial gap of any party.

Conversely, Brothers of Italy — the largest party nationally with 26.3% — was stronger in the northern regions (around 27-29%) than in the South (around 21%). The Italy that votes is not one: it is at least two, separated by a line that cuts across the peninsula.

Even within the same regions, the big cities vote differently from the territories around them. In 2022 the Democratic Party was the largest party in Milan (25.5%) and Turin (25.4%), in the northern capitals where Brothers of Italy stayed just below (around 20-21%) and where Carlo Calenda's Action–Italia Viva took a notable 15.7% in Milan.

In the South the picture was reversed: in Naples the Five Star Movement reached almost 43%, a result unmatched anywhere else in the country. In Rome, a case of its own, Brothers of Italy won with 28.6%, ahead of the PD at 23.2%. The metropolises, younger and more educated, reward different parties than the surrounding countryside.

Between the big cities and the big national figures lies an Italy often invisible in the analyses: the inner areas, the small mountain and hill municipalities, the urban peripheries. These are the territories where depopulation, distance from services and economic uncertainty are felt most strongly.

It is here that the anti-establishment message finds fertile ground, and where the citizens' income, the Five Star Movement's flagship measure, weighed most heavily on voting choices — especially in the South. The fracture is not only North versus South or right versus left: it is also centre versus periphery, strong areas versus fragile ones. A geography of hardship reflected at the ballot box.

Reading elections only through national percentages hides the most important truth: that the same party can be worth 43% in one city and 7% in another part of the country. The national average is the balancing point of deep territorial tensions.

This is why ElectionLab's map and territorial-comparison tools are not a technical detail, but the way to see the real Italy: a mosaic of electoral geographies that the single figure of the national result flattens and conceals.