Italy's national parks: three official counts

The 24 you can actually visit

The map published by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security georeferences 24 national parks, and those are the ones with an authority, a budget and staff. Counted north to south they run: Stelvio, Dolomiti Bellunesi, Val Grande, Gran Paradiso, Appennino Tosco-Emiliano, Cinque Terre, Foreste Casentinesi, Monti Sibillini, Arcipelago Toscano, Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga, Majella, Abruzzo Lazio e Molise, Gargano, Circeo, Arcipelago di La Maddalena, Asinara, Vesuvio, Alta Murgia, Cilento Vallo di Diano e Alburni, Appennino Lucano, Pollino, Sila, Aspromonte and Isola di Pantelleria.

Several cross regional borders, including Stelvio, Gran Paradiso, Pollino and Gran Sasso, and the ministry lists only one province for each, so a park's address is not its extent.

Why the other two numbers exist

The ministry's written list, updated May 21, 2025, holds 27 entries. Three of them are not open for business in the same sense: Matese and Portofino carry provisional boundaries, and Golfo di Orosei e del Gennargentu was established but never made operational.

ISPRA's 2024 indicator gives 26, counting Portofino. In July 2026 the ministry's own undersecretary still described Portofino, Matese and Costa dei Trabocchi as parks in the process of being created. None of these is a mistake; they are three positions on the same slow pipeline.

How much ground the parks hold

National parks make up 46.5%⁴ of Italy's protected terrestrial surface, 1,476,682⁴ hectares out of 3,175,554⁴. The percentage is the ISPRA figure; the hectares are our arithmetic on it, because ISPRA publishes the share and not the absolute value.

The wider system had 843⁵ terrestrial protected areas covering 10.5%⁵ of the country in 2024: 26 national parks, 148⁶ state nature reserves, 133⁶ regional nature parks, 365⁶ regional reserves and 171⁶ other areas. Campania supplies 11% of that surface and Abruzzo 9.6%.

The 2026 update that resets the totals

On July 29, 2026 the environment minister approved the seventh update of the official register of protected areas, the first organic revision since 2010, counting 1,048⁸ protected areas: 3,356,239.55⁸ hectares on land, 2,868,914.05⁸ hectares at sea and 3,456.97 km⁸ of coast.

Older totals will keep circulating for a year or two. If two figures for Italian protected land differ by a few percent, check whether one predates July 2026.

Sea and land are counted separately

Italy's 30 marine protected areas and 2 submerged parks are a distinct system, covering 231,000⁹ hectares of sea and 711 km⁹ of coast. They are not national parks, even where they touch one.

Where the two overlap, as at Cinque Terre, La Maddalena and Asinara, you can be inside a land park and a marine zone at once, with different rules on each side of the waterline. Region by region detail is on the Abruzzo, Calabria and Sardinia pages.

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