Terra di Otranto

Its capital was, at first, Otranto, but, during the Norman period (twelfth century), the city's canal was replaced by Lecce.

It stretched for about 140 km from the so-called "threshold Messapian" located to the north, to Santa Maria di Leuca south, and on average for about 40 km between the Gulf of Taranto to the west and the Strait of Otranto in the east and then contained the whole Salento peninsula, but also a substantial part of the Murgia, known as the Valle d'Itria, and a part of the Alta Murgia declines towards the Ionian Sea.

By Act 132 of 1806 on the division and administration of the provinces of the Kingdom, launched on 8 August of that year, Joseph Bonaparte reformed the territorial division of the Kingdom of Naples on the basis of the French model, and abolished the system of justice.

The districts were constituted by the municipalities, the basic unit of political and administrative structure of the modern state, which could head to the villages, a predominantly rural centers.

[1] The crescent was inserted after the end of the Ottoman invasion of Otranto (1480–1481), when Alfonso of Aragon, son of King Ferdinand I of Naples, retook the city and the nearby areas on 10 September 1481.