Aléria shares the canton of Moïta-Verde with 13 other communes: Moïta, Ampriani, Campi, Canale-di-Verde, Chiatra, Linguizzetta, Matra, Pianello, Pietra-di-Verde, Tallone, Tox, Zalana and Zuani.

The eastern coastline is punctuated by a number of lakes connecting (but not always) to the Tyrrhenian Sea, the remnant of an ancient system of lagoons behind barrier beaches.

Corsica had an indigenous population in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age but the east coast was subject to colonization by Mediterranean maritime powers: Greeks, Etruscans, Carthaginians, Romans.

The site is partly occupied today by the village of Cateraggio (Corsican: U Cateraghju) at the crossroads of national routes N200 and N198.

When the Etruscans took the district, after its abandonment by the Greeks, they settled further south along N198 in the vicinity of the village of Aléria, today primarily an archaeological site across the river from Cateraggio, where visitors and academics are quartered.

Since 1975 a series of laws have created the Casabianda-Aléria Nature Preserve, 1,748 ha (4,320 acres) between the mouth of the Tavignanu and the Étang d'Urbinu, which is 5 km (3 mi) to the south.

[4] According to Herodotus[5] twenty years before the abandonment of Phocaea in Ionia, that is, in 566 BC, Phocaeans colonizing the western Mediterranean founded a city, Alalíē, on the island of Cyrnus (Corsica).

As Aleria and Nicaea were trade rivals it seems unlikely that the Etruscans would have allowed the Phocaeans, who were ancient Greeks, access to Étang de Diane.

Nicaea is generally identified with the La Marana district further north, where the Romans later built a city, Mariana, on the Étang de Biguglia, a better harbor.

[5] Refused permission to settle Oenussae in the territory of Chios they resolved to reinforce Alalíē, but first made a surprise punitive raid on Phocaea, executing the entire Persian garrison.

The Etruscans landed the numerous Phocaean prisoners and executed them by stoning, leaving the bodies where they lay until the oracle compelled a proper burial.

Across the waters, however, rose a power that eventually dominated the entire island and had a lasting impact, changing the language.

Florus says that Lucius Cornelius Scipio destroyed it and cleared the region of Carthaginians[9] while Pliny adds that Sulla much later placed two colonies, Aleria and Mariana.

[12] He lists the "native races" inhabiting the island, but their geographical coordinates do not match those of Aleria; perhaps the Roman town was not considered among them.

The commune of Aléria was created in 1824, but it did not truly begin to revive until after 1945, after the allies (chiefly American) had undertaken to eradicate malaria (1944).

Hundreds of archaeological sites on Corsica offer a view of an island that has been occupied continuously since about 6500 BC and has never been isolated.

[14] Only in the Iron Age (700 BC-) were there any historians to distinguish between the indigenes descending from previous populations and the more recent colonists.

A chance find of an ancient rubbish disposal pit at a location called Terrina about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the Étang de Diane gives some information regarding pre-Roman habitation.

Terrina IV features a Middle Neolithic settlement in which the use of cattle and pigs were, in contrast to the rest of the island, which kept mainly goats and sheep and grew grain.

Systematic excavation since 1955 has revealed wide-ranging contacts in the 6th century BC, through pottery shards in test pits, with Ionian, Phocaean, Rhodian and Attic black-figure ware.

The excavated necropolis of Casabianda's rock-cut tombs have revealed treasures and goods, left or placed with the buried, that include fine works of art, jewels, weapons, metalware, bronze and ceramic plates and dishes in particular, rhytons, distinctive kraters decorated by some of the first rank Attic vase-painters.