This mountainous and arid region cannot be more different to its northern counterparts. Relatively undeveloped and sparsely populated, many of its inhabitants emigrated with the hope of finding a better life - its very terrain traditionally making life and communications difficult.
Beauty, however, is something it does not lack. It has two coastlines, one in the centre of the Gulf of Taranto in the Ionian Sea, and a tiny one on the Tyrrhenian Sea, with the famous sea resort of Maratea. The bare mountain landscapes slope down to the Ionian Sea.