Pollino: 171,132 or 192,500 hectares, by source

The Pollino National Park, set up in 1993 across Basilicata and Calabria, is the largest national park in Italy on the UNESCO figure of 192,500² hectares and the second largest on the environment ministry's 171,132¹.

Two official sizes, two different rankings

The environment ministry's register of protected areas gives the Pollino 171,132¹ hectares, behind the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni park at 178,172¹.

UNESCO, which recognized the park as a Global Geopark in 2015, gives 192,500² hectares for the geopark that coincides with it, and on that number the Pollino comes first.

The ministry entry is an older figure that hasn't been updated, and neither number is wrong on its own terms. So "the largest national park in Italy" is true with a source attached and not without one. Compare the others in national parks by surface.

Basilicata tells it one way, Calabria another

The park is split across 55 comuni: 31 in the province of Cosenza in Calabria, 22 in Potenza and 2 in Matera in Basilicata.

Read from the Basilicata side, the park is the ministry's second, with its headquarters in the monumental complex of Santa Maria della Consolazione at Rotonda. Read from the Calabrian side, it's UNESCO's largest, and most of its comuni are Calabrian.

The geopark area has 135,898² residents, 78 per square kilometer. That's a park with towns in it, not an empty wilderness, and the two regions promote it separately.

Set up on November 15, 1993

The park was created by presidential decree on November 15, 1993, and carries the code EUAP 0008¹ in the national register.

The Cilento park that outranks it on the ministry's numbers came two years later, in 1995. Both are among the 24 national parks with an operating authority in 2026, on the ministry's own map.

The other national park in Basilicata

Basilicata has a second national park, the Appennino Lucano, Val d'Agri and Lagonegrese, set up in 2007 over 68,996³ hectares in 29 comuni, all in the province of Potenza.

It's the only national park lying entirely in Basilicata, with its authority at Marsico Nuovo. That's the difference in one line: the Pollino is shared with Calabria, the Appennino Lucano isn't.

What isn't on this page

The official park website, parcopollino.gov.it, didn't resolve when this research was done on September 1, 2026, and another site that states it isn't official publishes 192,565¹ hectares.

Trail conditions, visitor centers and the park's own rules aren't quoted here for that reason. Check them with the park authority at Rotonda once its site answers again. See Basilicata, Calabria and seven days in Calabria and Basilicata.

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