Padula (Cilentan: A Parula) is a comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.

Its existence reaches back to at least the ninth century when local people used the hilltop area for defence against the Saracens.

The history of Padula as an organized village begins with the arrival in 1296 of Tommaso II Sanseverino, though the Monastery of Saint Nicola had been erected on this site earlier, in 1086.

The town counts a railway station on the abandoned Sicignano-Lagonegro line, closed in 1987.

It is served by the A2 motorway Salerno-Reggio Calabria, at the exit "Padula-Buonabitacolo", which is the northern end of a highway to Policastro Bussentino on the Cilentan Coast.