Piedmont
A piedmont (piemonte in Italian) is a foothill.
Regions
Piedmont is a region of north-western Italy.
In recent centuries, the name Piedmont also refers to a region of the eastern United States of America.
Piedmont (Italy)
It has an area of 25,400 km2 and a population of est. 4.3 million. Its capital is Turin.
Piedmont is surrounded on three sides by the Alps mountain range, including the Monviso, where the Po river rises. It borders with France and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Liguria and Valle d'Aosta.
The region is divided into eight administrative provinces (Alessandria, Asti, Biella, Cuneo, Novara, Vercelli, Verbania and Torino), each named after its principal city. Other important cities include Moncalieri and Rivoli.
Lowland Piedmont is a fertile agricultural region, producing wheat, rice, maize and grapes: the region also contains major industrial centres, notably Turin, home to the FIAT automobile works.
From 1046 the main territory of the house of Savoy, (dukes of Savoy from 1416 and kings of Sardinia from 1720), Piedmont was the springboard for Italy's unification in 1859-1861, following earlier unsuccessful wars against Austria in 1820-1821 and 1848-1849.
Piedmont (USA)
Piedmont is the region of the eastern United States of America which lies between the coastal plain, from which it is divided by the fall line, and the eastern mountain ranges, the Appalachian Mountains. The width of the Piedmont varies, being quite narrow or vanishing above the Delaware River, but nearly 300 miles wide in the State of North Carolina.
The surface relief of the Piedmont is characterized by relatively low, rolling hills with heights between 200 and 800-1000 feet above sea level. Its geology is complex, with numerous rock formations of different materials and ages intermingled with one another.
Places
Several towns in the United States are called Piedmont:
- Piedmont, Alabama
- Piedmont, California, near Oakland
- Piedmont, Missouri
- Piedmont, Oklahoma
- Piedmont, South Carolina
- Piedmont, West Virginia
Airline
- Piedmont Airlines was a regular passenger flight operator around the Piedmont section of the United States, to Florida and to the North-Eastern states.