The Ossola (Italian: [ˈɔssola]; Ossolano: Òssola), also Valle Ossola or Val d'Ossola (Walser: Eschetaal; German: Eschental), is an area of Northwest Italy situated to the north of Lago Maggiore.

There are many etymological claims as to the origins of the name Ossola, the most likely being Celtic for "high lands".

[1] In 1944, with the Allies of World War II still stuck south of the Apennines and Benito Mussolini's Italian Social Republic controlling all of Northern Italy, the Italian partisans staged an uprising behind German lines, led by the Committee of National Liberation of Upper Italy.

This rebellion led to the establishment of a number of provisional partisan governments throughout Northern Italy, of which the Free Republic of Ossola was the most prominent.

[citation needed] Within a few weeks, German reinforcements had crushed the uprising, and the area's liberation had to wait until the final offensives of 1945.