Sardinia 1%

Primarily located in: Italy

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily. Its craggy mountains pushed up from the ocean in the Paleozoic era more than 250 million years ago. Rome, Spain, and Italy have all left their mark on Sardinian history, but even in the face of outside influences, the island has developed and maintained a culture, language, and cuisine of its own.

The First Sardinians

Sardinia's earliest inhabitants likely came from the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and elsewhere around Europe and the Mediterranean. About 1800 B.C. they began building cone-shaped stone towers called nuraghe. Seven thousand of them have been found around the island. Scholars aren't sure what they were used for, but they may have been dwellings that could be defended easily.

Sardinia made a natural stopping place and harbor for seafaring people of the Mediterranean. These included the Phoenicians, who came to Sardinia starting about 800 B.C. Eventually the Phoenicians started venturing inland and landing soldiers. The Sardinians attacked, and in 509 the Phoenicians got help from Carthage and captured the southern part of the island. After losing the Punic Wars, the Carthaginians handed Sardinia over to Rome in 238 B.C. The Romans would rule for almost 700 years, and Latin would become the dominant language of the island.

This pattern of outside conquerors coming and going went on for centuries. The Vandals took Sardinia for a short time. Then the island fell under the Byzantine Empire for almost 300 years. Those ties were broken during the Muslim conquests of the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries. The Muslims didn't conquer Sardinia, but they did cut them off from the Eastern Empire, and Sardinia enjoyed a period of self-rule as the island divided into states called Giudicati.

The Sardinian Language

The Sardinian language links speakers to both their ancient Nuragic and Roman roots. Sardinian is a leftover from Roman times. Though it's related to Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian, Sardinian is actually closer to the Latin spoken by the Romans than modern Italian or any other Romance language. However, it also retains elements of the even earlier indigenous language of the island. Italian is Sardinia's official language, but Sardinian, which has several dialects, is recognized as an official minority language on the island.

Sardinian Secrets to Longevity

The Sardinian greeting A chent'annos means, "May you live to be 100." And they're not kidding. Sardinia's highlands are home to one of the largest populations of centenarians in the world. It's one of five "blue zones" where people beat the averages for life expectancy and good health with remarkable regularity. Researchers credit the Sardinian diet (flat bread, beans, vegetables, lamb and pork, and cheese from sheep or goat milk), lots of physical activity, low stress, and tight family and social networks for their long lives and good health. What's more, there are as many 100-year-old men as there are women — another rarity.

Did you know?

Sardinia is famous for its cheeses, such as pecorino sardo, made from sheep's milk. Not so popular off the island is casu marzu, a Sardinian cheese containing live maggots.