The core of the Alto Milanese consists of the Olona conurbation, i.e. the urban area including, from north to south, the cities of Gallarate, Busto Arsizio, and Legnano.

The soil, which is mainly composed of pebbles, gravel, sand and clay,[5] was once covered by a thin layer of humus unsuitable for forest growth and agricultural cultivation, resulting in it being largely heathland.

In particular, the Canegrate culture was a protohistoric civilization that developed in the Po Valley from the Bronze Age on the territories of western Lombardy, eastern Piedmont, and Ticino.

The material evidence is found scattered over a wide territory of 20,000 km2[18] south of the Alps, including the Po, Serio and Sesia rivers bounded on the north by the Alpine passes.

[21][22] The ancient Romans did not pursue forced assimilation of conquered populations, but allowed the inhabitants of the Alto Milanese to continue to profess their religion, use their language, and maintain their traditions.

The Via Mediolanum-Bilitio connected Mediolanum (modern Milan) with Bilitio (Bellinzona) or perhaps even Curia Raetorum (Chur) via Varisium (Varese) and, only hypothetically, Luganum (Lugano).

[29] This road, beyond Bellinzona, via Mons Vaium (San Bernardino Pass) or Lukmanier, led to Chur and connected to other trade routes directed to Rhaetia and beyond the Alps.

[37] The clash was crucial in the long war waged by the Holy Roman Empire in an attempt to assert its power over the communes of northern Italy,[38] who decided to put aside mutual rivalries by allying themselves in a military union symbolically led by Pope Alexander III, the Lombard League.

[39] The battle ended the fifth and final descent into Italy of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who after the defeat at Legnano tried to resolve the Italian question by attempting the diplomatic approach.

This resulted a few years later in the Peace of Constance (June 25, 1183), by which the emperor recognized the Lombard League by giving administrative, political and judicial concessions to the communes and officially ending his attempt to hegemonize northern Italy.

[40][41] The battle is referred to in Goffredo Mameli and Michele Novaro's Canto degli Italiani, which reads, “[...] From the Alps to Sicily, Legnano is everywhere [...]” in remembrance of the victory of Italian populations over foreign ones.

[48] The peasants of the Alto Milanese mainly cultivated cereals (millet and wheat), vines and mulberry trees, which formed the basis of silkworm breeding.

[52] What was influential in the genesis of this process was the tradition of handicrafts and that of domestic manufacturing that had been present in the productive fabric of the area for a few centuries; these activities were practiced to supplement work in the fields.

[52][53][54] The process of industrialization that led to the gradual transformation of the Alto Milanese economy was accelerated by two natural disasters that threw local agriculture into crisis: cryptogamy, a disease that affected vines, and pébrine, an epidemic that damaged silkworm cocoons.

As a result of these epidemics, wine cultivation in the Alto Milanese disappeared for good, and farmers concentrated their efforts on grain production and silkworm breeding.

In addition to this problem, in the latter part of the 19th century, Europe was hit by an agricultural crisis involving cereal crops: this was due to the spread on the markets of competitively priced American grains.

This initiated, in the second half of the century, the second phase of the industrial revolution in the Alto Milanese, which led to the establishment of real textile and mechanical factories in the modern sense of the term.

As Italian politics also stabilized, the economic system of the Alto Milanese began to develop again, returning to the growth rate of the pre-World War II period partly due to the Marshall Plan.

[69] Enzo Tortora and Renzo Villa had the intuition to bring to television the forms of theatrical performances typical of the small theaters of oratories in the area.

[70] From an economic point of view, advertising revenue was favored by the entrepreneurial and commercial fabric of the area, based on small and medium enterprises, with the first examples of large-scale distribution.

[75][76] At the same time, a phase of the emergence of small businesses began, which allowed the Alto Milanese to remain embedded in a highly advanced manufacturing environment, still placing it in the 21st century among the most developed and industrialized areas in Italy.

[82] Some scholars have discerned in it traces of the languages of peoples prior to the Latinization of the region, in particular ancient Ligurian, although data on the actual influence of this linguistic substratum are few and of varying interpretation.

"[84] However, it was the Roman domination, which supplanted the Celtic one, that shaped the local language spoken in the Alto Milanese, so much so that the lexicon and grammar of this dialect is of Romance derivation.

[98] The goals of the festival are to promote high-quality Italian productions,[99] with particular attention to the various professionals working in the audiovisual field, and to spread film culture through screenings and workshops for students and meetings between major figures from the world of cinema and the public.

The dish, which is widespread in the Alto Milanese and Verbano Cusio Ossola areas, is completed with the addition of polenta or mashed potatoes and can be accompanied by well-structured red wines such as Barbera, Barolo or Barbaresco.

[101] The core of the Alto Milanese consists of the Olona conurbation, that is, the urban area including, from north to south, the cities of Gallarate, Busto Arsizio, and Legnano.

[1] Since the Unification of Italy, the Alto Milanese has had well-defined boundaries: it was comprised by the district of Gallarate (then part of the province of Milan), a subprefecture established in 1859 and suppressed in 1926.

Nowadays, due to the administrative split it subsequently underwent, the Alto Milanese can be divided into four zones having as their main center their respective major cities: the Bustese, the Legnanese, the Gallaratese and the Saronnese.

The main center of the area is Castano Primo, with its other municipalities being Arconate, Bernate Ticino, Buscate, Cuggiono, Inveruno, Magnago, Nosate, Robecchetto con Induno, Turbigo and Vanzaghello.

[118] Also noteworthy is the Altomilanese women's volleyball derby between Futura Volley Busto Arsizio and Gruppo Sportivo Oratorio Pallavolo Femminile Villa Cortese, which was also played in Serie A1.