The lower hills are terraced for the cultivation of citrus fruits, olives and vines, and the higher parts are wooded, with chestnuts, beeches, holm oaks, pines, Sicilian firs and Mediterranean maquis shrubland.

[4] By the third century BC, the Greeks were conquered by tribes from the north, including a branch of the Samnites called the Bruttii.

They established their sovereignty over present day Calabria and founded new cities, including their own capital "Consentia", now known as Cosenza.

After their victory in the Pyrrhic War (280–275 BC), Rome occupied Calabria, and it remained under their control until the fifth century AD.

[5] The whole region of present-day Reggio province has been a wealthy area for centuries, and particularly during Byzantine age, till 1860s, when the Italian Unification happened.

[7] In the 1950s there was a mass migration of rural people from Reggio and other provinces in southern Italy to the cities of Rome, Milan and particularly Turin in the north.

They were driven by poverty, the poor soils of the region and the chronic lack of employment opportunities to move to places with more thriving economies.