Hotels in Milan
Book now a hotel in Milan. Choose a luxury hotels in Milan for your holidays, or save money with budget hotels, bed and breakfast, apartments or other accomodations in Milan. Book now your hotel in Milan.


Milan
Milan is the main city in northern Italy, and is located in the plains of Lombardy, the most populated and developed region in Italy. The city proper has about 1,308,311 inhabitants (2004), but the population of the urban area including the hinterland is about 4 million and is called La Grande Milano (Greater Milan, 1,981 square kilometres). The metropolitan area, called the Città Regione (The City Region) claims more than 9.4 million inhabitants (this is an ambitious definition of Milan's metropolitan area, perhaps not very comparable with figures claimed for metros outside Italy).
Milan's name has for many centuries been recorded as Mailand, which is still the German name of the city today. It comes from the Celtic Mid-lan (meaning "in the middle of the plain") and was known as Mediolanum by the Romans.
Its province lies in the western part of Lombardy; it covers an area of 1,982 km2 and has a population of 3,839,818 (2004); in 1991, the population was 3,738,685. The province comprises 188 communes, ranging in population (2001) from Milan Municipality (1,308,311) to Nosate (638); the city of Milan has lost 113,084 inhabitants (8.3 percent), from 1991 to 2001.
The town is famous for fashion firms and shops (via Montenapoleone) and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele on the Piazza Duomo, reputed to be the world's oldest shopping mall. Milan is one of the world capitals of fashion, like New York City, Paris, London and Rome, and design. Indeed the English word milliner is derived from the name of the city. Another famed product of the city is the traditional Christmas sweet cake called Panettone. Milan is also famous for the Alfa Romeo motorcar and for its silk production.
Inhabitants of Milan are referred to as "Milanesi" and nicknamed "Meneghini".

History
It is presumed Milan was originally founded by the Celts of Northern Italy around 600 BCE and was conquered around 222 BCE by the Romans, who gave it the name of Mediolanum. In the 4th century CE, at the time of the bishop Saint Ambrose and emperor Theodosius I, the city was briefly the capital of the Western Roman Empire. At that time Milan was the second largest city in Europe, with more than 300,000 inhabitants. St Ambrose is now the Patron Saint of the city. His feast day is the 7th of Decmeber.
In the 11th century, after the Ostrogothic and Lombard periods, the city regained its importance and led other Italian cities in gaining semi-independence from the Holy Roman Empire. During the Plague of 1349 Milan was one of the few places in Europe that was untouched by the epidemic, but it was deeply affected by the plagues of 1402 (50,000 deaths), 1542 (80,000), 1576 (17,000) and 1629 (also known as Great Plague of Milan, 70,000 deaths). During the Renaissance Milan was ruled by dukes of the Visconti and Sforza families, who had artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Bramante at their service. After trying to conquer the rest of northern Italy in the 15th century, Milan was conquered by France, and then later on by Austria (Habsburg), then given in the early 16th century to the Spanish Habsburg line to rule.
In the 18th century Austria replaced Spain as Milan's overlord, because the Spanish line of Habsburgs died out. But the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars saw the city annexed into the French satellite states of the Cisalpine Republic, which later became the Kingdom of Italy. After this period, Milan was part of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia under Austrian rule. Milan eventually became one of the main centers of Italian nationalism, claiming independence and the unification of Italy.
In 1859 (after the second of the Wars of Italian Independence) Austrian rule was ended by the Kingdom of Sardinia (which transformed into the kingdom of Italy in 1861).
As a critical industrial center of Italy, Milan was target of continuous carpet bombing during World War II. The city was bombed even after Pietro Badoglio surrendered to the allied forces in 1943. In fact, Milan was part of Mussolini's Italian Social Republic puppet state, and an important command centre of the German Army stationed in Italy. When war in Italy was finally over, April 25, 1945, Milan was heavily damaged and entire neighborhoods such as Precotto and Turro were destroyed. After the war, the city was reconstructed and has again become an important financial and industrial centre of Italy. See also: Rulers of Milan.

Airports
The city has a large international airport known as Malpensa International Airport (MXP), located in the northern suburb of Busto Ariszio and connected to the downtown with the "Malpensa Express" railway service (from Cadorna Station). Malpensa was designed by the famous Ettore Sottsass. Milan also has the Linate Airport (LIN) within the city limits (for European and domestic traffic), connected with bus line 73 (from S. Babila). A third airport is Orio al Serio (BGY), close to the city of Bergamo. Vergiate, Bresso, and Parma are further airports in the region. The main 3 airports of Milano (Malpensa, Linate and Orio) comprise the largest and most important hub in Italy, both for passengers and cargo.

Subways, tramways, and buses
Milan has 3 subway lines (M1 - red, M2 - green, M3 - yellow) and the system, called Milan Metro - "M", running for more than 80 km. There is also a light metro-service, "Metrò S. Raffaele", connecting the S. Raffaele Hospital with the Cascina Gobba station (M2). Extensions of lines 1, 2 and 3 are under construction, to create more than 15 km of track with 10 new stations. Line 5 is also under construction, to be finished in the first half of 2008. Lines 4 (linking downtown with Linate Airport) and 6 are in planning stages.
Greater Milan also has one of the most extensive tramway systems in the world, with more than 286 km of track, and 20 lines.
93 bus lines cover over 1,070 km between them. The local transportation authority (ATM) transported more than 600 million passengers in 2003 .

Regional-Metropolitan Railway services
The Suburban Railway Service ( "S" Lines, a service similar to the French RER and German S-Bahn), composed of 8 suburban lines and 10 more scheduled for 2008, connects the "Greater Milan" to cities such as Como and Varese. The Regional Railway Service ( "R"), instead, links Milan with the rest of Lombardy and the national railway system. The "Passante ferroviario" is an underground railway serving a couple of "S" lines and is very much like another subway line (and is even marked as such on subway maps), except that it is connected to the FNME and Trenitalia suburban networks.

Taxis
Milan has an efficient Taxi service, operated by private companies and licensed by the City of Milan (Comune di Milano). All taxis are the same color: white. Prices are based on time elapsed and distance traveled.

Wikipedia.org