[8] The site, which today is the largest urban park in Palermo, divides the district of Mondello from the city center and the roads built inside it represent the main connection between the two areas.

[10] The new neighborhood was planned according to the canons of the garden city movement and its construction involved the leading architects of the Palermo modernist school, such as Ernesto Basile and his students.

[12][13] Later, Mondello Beach grew into a tourist destination and it is currently considered the main seaside resort of Palermo, although the district remains essentially a residential area.

According to the version most accredited by researchers, it appears to be an Italian alteration of the Arabic Al Mondellu, which means "The Swamp", because during the Islamic domination of Sicily, between the 10th and 11th centuries, the area was known for the presence of a marsh on the south-eastern side of the bay.

[16][17] The Greek historian Polybius mentioned that the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca used Mondello as a landing point for his fleet during the First Punic War, in the 3rd century BC.

Prince Francesco Lanza di Scalea, with the help of a Belgian real estate company, built a plant for the drainage of swampy waters to the sea.

Mondello lies on a semicircular bay on the north-western coast of Palermo, which shoreline extends for about 0.93 miles (1.5 km) and is bathed by the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

[21] The neighborhood is separated from the city center by La Favorita Park, founded at the end of the 18th century by King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and which today represents the largest urban garden in Palermo with an area of 400 hectares.

[22] Mondello is characterized by a sandy bay that binds the two promontories, called Monte Gallo and Mount Pellegrino, with a coastline of white sand that nowadays is approximately 1.5 kilometers long.