
Liguria is a region of north-western Italy, with Genoa serving as its capital. It was named for the Ligures, an ancient tribe which once inhabited southern France and northern Italy; from the Second Punic War of the 3rd century BC until the 150s BC, the Roman Republic gradually conquered the Ligures. After the Fall of the Roman Empire, Liguria fell under Ostrogothic control, only to be reconquered by the Byzantines in the 6th century AD. It was then ruled by the Lombards after 641, the Franks after 774, the Republic of Genoa from 1005, the Ligurian Republic from 1797, the First French Empire from 1805, Sardinia-Piedmont from 1815, and Italy from 1861. Liguria was a center of the shipping industry from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, but deindustrialization during the 1980s and low birth rates led to Liguria's decline during the late 20th and early 21st centuries; unemployment was still a rising issue during the 2010s. In 2017, Liguria had a population of 1,557,533 people.