Delta del Po

Did you know that the Po Delta Park represents one of the most important wetlands in Europe and the largest in Italy, hosting hundreds upon hundreds of animal and vegetable species? Did you also know that it can boast a double UNESCO recognition?

On this website, we will try to help you discover all, but really all, the secrets of the Park, a real paradise for naturalists, biologists, tourists and birdwatchers. A vast green area surrounded by centuries-old woods, pine forests and oases alternating with precious architecture.

Let’s explore it together!

64,000 hectares in total, spread over 2 regions; over 400 animal species and nearly 1,000 plant species. These are just a few figures relating to the Po Delta Park, which comes to life from the end of the course of the Great River, on the eastern border with the Po Valley, and stretches over a total area of more than 52,000 hectares in the Emilia Romagna region, between the provinces of Ferrara and Ravenna, and of approximately 12,000 hectares in the Veneto region in the province of Rovigo.

Everything revolves around the river Po, the absolute protagonist of the formation of the Po Valley, thanks to the incessant transport of earth and sand over thousands of years. However, beyond the morphology of the territory, it has also profoundly influenced the history of the people living in the Po Delta area: the continuous changes of the river course, in fact, gradually created different riverbeds generating new opportunities for them to create settlements along its shores, and therefore where they could develop both their economic and social lives. The river Po was, therefore, an extraordinary resource first of all for its supply of water, then for fishing, for irrigation and finally as a communication route. Subsequently, populations have also inevitably suffered both the periods in which there were floods as well as those when the level of water was extremely low, adapting to the will of a river that, between the possibilities of development on the one hand and floods and droughts on the other, it has always been strictly linked to the very life of the people who resided in the local area.

Thus, this is a story dating back thousands of years, capable of establishing a captivating territory between land and water, a changing landscape in which woods, pine forests and flooded forests alternate with internal wetlands with either fresh or salty water. Still today, in fact, the Po Delta represents a dynamic environment, in continuous evolution, where nature is free to give Man new lands that have emerged or at least to recover parts of them. This vast environmental wealth is also reflected in the numerous animal and plant species identified within the Park: almost 300 species of birds, 50 species of fish, 10 species of amphibians, 15 species of reptiles, 40 species of mammals and over 1,000 species of plants.