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Tuscany is the fifth largest region in Italy. Wedged deeply like a triangle in the heart of Italy, it constitutes a transitional, area between the Po Delta and Liguria, which are highly industrialized, and those Italian regions which are still principally agricultural. It stretches over the western side of the Apennines and includes the islands of the Tuscan archipelago. It lies on the sea to the west and south-west and borders with Liguria to the north-west, Emilia-Romagna to the north, the Marches and Umbria to the east, and Latium to the south-east.

Its limits are clearly defined to the north but less evident to the east, crossing the main ridge of the Tusco-Emilian Apennines and taking in the upper Val Tiberina, becoming even more uncertain to the south-east and south where they appear to be justified only for historical, linguistic and generally cultural reasons.

The Natural Environment. This area has a varied and complex morphology; ranges of mountains and hills alternate with intermountain basins and strips of plain, scattered in an apparently irregular distribution. The true Tusco-Emilian Apennines can be distinguished from the mountainous and hilly groups of the Preapennines, separated by an imaginary line linking Montecatini Terme to Chiusi.

The highest chains along the watershed strip, the Pratomagno group (1,592 m.), the Chianti mountains and the southern chain, which stretches between Casentino and Val di Chiana to the west and Val Tiberina to the east, are part of the Apennines; the Apuan Alps (1,945 m.) branch off from the ridge on the inner side.

The trachyte massif of Mount Amiata (1,738 m.) and the Colline Metallifere belong to the Tuscan Apennines. The intermountain basins are of particular interest, especially for their settlements; the largest and best defined are Lunigiana, near the upper Magra valley, Garfagnana (upper Serchio basin), the basin of Florence, Mugello (upper Sieve valley), Valdarno Superiore, Casentino, Val di Chiana and lastly, the upper section of Val Tiberina. The most extensive plains are Valdarno Inferiore, Versilia (at the foot of the Apuan Alps) and the coastal plains of Maremma).

The rivers in Tuscany are irregular in size, torrential and winding, for they have adapted to the morphology of the region. With the exception of the upper courses of the Reno, Santerno, Lamone, Marecchia and Foglia, which enter the Adriatic, all the other Tuscan rivers flow into the Tyrrhenian Sea.

The most important are the Tiber (only a stretch of its upper course in Tuscany), the Arno with its tributaries, the Sieve, Bisenzio, Greve, Pesa, Elsa and Era, the Magra and the Serchio, respectively flowing through Lunigiana and Garfagnana; the Cecina, the Ombrone and the Albegna, which flow through the Preapennine range.

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