The Italian city of Turin at night
The Italian city of Turin at night. Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features a nighttime view of Turin, the capital city of Piedmont in northern Italy.
Torino, as the Italians call it, is a major industrial city that lies along the Po River. The region is known for its refined architecture and cuisine.
The city is home to many automotive manufacturing plants, and has been chosen as a test site for autonomous driving vehicles.
The brilliant lights represent the routes that connect the city center to the mountain valleys of the Italian Alps, which rise to the northwest. Turin is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is mainly on the western bank of the Po River, below its Susa Valley, and is surrounded by the western Alpine arch and Superga Hill. The population of the city proper is 866,425 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the OECD to have a population of 2.2 million.
Turin derives its name from the word tau, which is the Celtic word for mountain. Torino was founded nearly 2,400 years ago by a Celtic tribe, the Taurini.
The image was captured by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
