[8] The region is home to 10 of the 58 UNESCO sites in Italy, including Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Royal Palace of Caserta, the Amalfi Coast, the Longobardian Church of Santa Sofia in Benevento and the Historic Centre of Naples.

[11] Campania is rich in culture, especially with regard to food, music, architecture, and archaeological and ancient sites—such as Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis, Paestum, Aeclanum, Stabiae, and Velia.

The rich natural beauty of Campania makes it important to the tourism industry: the city of Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Mount Vesuvius, and the islands of Capri and Ischia have long been major attractions.

Not much is known about the pre-Indo-European tribes that had lived in the region earlier; they were probably not as technologically or culturally advanced as the Oscans, and any who still flourished had become fully Oscanised by the middle of the first millennium BC.

Since the Samnites were more warlike than the other Oscan populations, they easily took over the cities of Capua and Cumae, in an area which was one of the most prosperous and fertile in the Italian Peninsula at the time.

[19] The Roman consul Quintus Publilius Filo recaptured Neapolis by 326 BC and allowed it to remain a Greek city with some autonomy as a civitas foederata while strongly aligned with Rome.

[22] During the Pyrrhic War in 275 BC, the Battle of Beneventum took place in Campania in the Samnite city of Maleventum, in which the Romans, led by the consul Curius Dentatus, were victorious.

[31] With the Decline of the Roman Empire, its last emperor, Romulus Augustus, was put in a manor house prison near Castel dell'Ovo, Naples, in 476, ushering in the beginning of the Middle Ages and a period of uncertainty in regard to the future of the area.

Allegiances with the Muslim Saracens were made in 836, and the Arabs were requested to repel the siege of Lombard troops coming from the neighbouring Duchy of Benevento.

[35] Conflict between the Hohenstaufen house and the Papacy, led in 1266 to Pope Innocent IV crowning Angevin Dynasty duke Charles I as the king.

[36] Despite the split, Naples grew in importance, attracting Pisan and Genoese merchants,[39] Tuscan bankers, and with them some of the most championed Renaissance artists of the time, such as Boccaccio, Petrarch and Giotto.

[44] The Spanish sent viceroys to Naples to directly deal with local issues: the most important of which was Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, who was responsible for considerable social, economic and urban progress in the city; he also supported the Inquisition.

[46] During the Baroque era it was home to artists including Caravaggio, Rosa and Bernini; philosophers such as Telesio, Bruno, Campanella and Vico; and writers such as Battista Marino.

A revolution led by local fisherman Masaniello saw the creation of a brief independent Neapolitan Republic, though this lasted only a few months before Spanish rule was regained.

[48] During the time of Ferdinand IV, the French Revolution made its way to Naples: Horatio Nelson, an ally of the Bourbons, even arrived in the city in 1798 to warn against it.

[49] Naples' lower classes (the lazzaroni) were pious and Royalist, favouring the Bourbons; in the mêlée that followed, they fought the Neapolitan pro-Republican aristocracy, causing a civil war.

[49] A counter-revolutionary religious army of lazzaroni under Fabrizio Ruffo was raised; they had great success and the French surrendered the Neapolitan castles and were allowed to sail back to Toulon.

Salerno received the first "Tricolore" in an official ceremony on 7 January 2012 from the premier Mario Monti, to celebrate the glorious story of Italy and its old capitals.

[58] Overall, Campania appears to be a region with great economic potential, which is partly held back by organized crime (Camorra) and the resulting corruption.

[64] Then there are the Campanian Archipelago (Capri, Ischia and Procida, the latter named Italian capital of culture in 2022), Vesuvius and the Sorrento coast; a notable growth in the cruise sector was observed in the Port of Naples.

The region, which was characterised until recently by an acute economic contrast between internal and coastal areas, has shown an improvement in the last decade thanks to the development of the provinces of Benevento and Avellino.

The Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated in December 2022 that 241,008 foreign-born immigrants live in Campania, equal to 4.32% of the total regional population.

Campania produces wines including Lacryma Christi, Fiano, Aglianico, Greco di Tufo, Falerno del Massico, Taburno, Solopaca, and Taurasi.

Other regional seafood dishes include "frittelle di mare" (fritters with seaweed), made with edible poseidonia algae, "triglie al cartoccio" (red mullet in the bag), and "alici marinate" (fresh anchovies in olive oil).

The ancient scientist Pliny the Elder studied Mount Vesuvius and died after being poisoned and killed by gas emitted from the volcano during the 79 AD eruption.

Years earlier in 1558, the first modern description and studies of the "camera obscura" ("dark chamber"), were established in Italy by Giovanni Battista della Porta in his Magiae Naturalis.

Italian poet and writer Giacomo Leopardi established his home in Naples and Torre del Greco, remaining there at the end of his brief young life.

French writer Alexandre Dumas, père was directly involved in the process of the Unification of Italy and sojourned two or three years in Naples, where he wrote several historical novels regarding that city.

German scientist Anton Dohrn founded in Naples the first public aquarium in the world and laboratory for the study of the sea, known as Maritime Zoological Station.

Amongst the painters who inspired directly these schools, are Salvator Rosa, Pierre-Jacques Volaire, and Anton Sminck van Pitloo, who spent his last years in Naples.