Catanzaro is an urban centre, with much activity, including some coastal towns, such as Sellia Marina and Soverato, and the municipalities of Silas, with a total of 156,196 inhabitants.

Catanzaro is being consolidated to form a greater metropolitan area, by the Region of Calabria, and in connection with the town of Lamezia Terme, comprising 10 municipalities.

The Bishopric, St. Tryphon (or San Rocco) and St. John (or castle) marks the city's historical centre and is connected to the North Sila.

Catanzaro was always choice land due to its safe, high location, and the territory was under several groups' control, including the Saracens, Normans, Catalans and Venetians.

Catanzaro's development into a fortress town was established by General Flagizio, who began the construction of a citadel, which later assumed the name of Katantzárion.

At the beginning of the tenth century (circa 903),[9] the Byzantine city was occupied by the Saracens, who founded an emirate and took the Arab name of قطنصار Qaṭanṣār.

The silk of Catanzaro supplied almost all of Europe and was sold in a large market fair to Spanish, Venetian, Genoese and Dutch merchants.

[10][11] While the cultivation of mulberry was moving first steps in Northern Italy, silk made in Calabria reached a peak of 50% of the whole Italian/European production.

As the cultivation of mulberry was difficult in Northern and Continental Europe, merchants and operators used to purchase in Calabria raw materials in order to finish the products and resell them for a better price.

For fourteen years, it was the royal domain of King Ladislao of Naples, and in 1420 it was returned again to Nicholas Ruffo, who gave it as part of a dowry for his daughter Enrichetta who was married to Antonio Centelles.

[13] In 1466, King Louis XI decided to develop a national silk industry in Lyon and called a large number of Italian workers, mainly from Calabria.

The fame of the master silk weavers of Catanzaro spread throughout France and they were invited to Lyon in order to teach the techniques of weaving.

[16] In 1519 Emperor Charles V formally recognized the growth of the industry of Catanzaro by allowing the city to establish a consulate of the silk craft, charged with regulating and check in the various stages of a production that flourished throughout the sixteenth century.

[17] In 1528 Charles V gave authorization for Catanzaro to bear the imperial eagle attached to a coat of arms depicting the hilltops of the town.

A metropolitan service (with c. 1,600,000 users per year, with 20 trains working) is provided by Ferrovie della Calabria, with a total of 11 railway stations in the city, plus others in 12 comuni of the hinterland.

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