Identity: Municipalità, sestieri, language, Saint Mark
The municipality is divided into six Municipalità (one for the historic city with Murano and Burano, one for Lido and Pellestrina, four on the mainland) and is the capital of Veneto and of the Metropolitan City. Italian and Venetian are spoken. Patron saint Mark, 25 April, coinciding with the national Liberation Day.
Sections: Geography · History · Population · Languages · Time zone · Public holidays
Administrative structure
The Comune di Venezia is organised into six Municipalità with elected councils: Venezia-Murano-Burano (the historic city and the northern lagoon islands), Lido-Pellestrina, Mestre-Carpenedo, Marghera, Favaro Veneto and Chirignago-Zelarino. The island city keeps its historic division into six sestieri (San Marco, Castello, Cannaregio, Dorsoduro, San Polo, Santa Croce), used for addresses: house numbers run consecutively per sestiere, not per street, and can exceed six thousand.
Venice is the capital of the Veneto Region (the regional council sits at Palazzo Ferro Fini on the Grand Canal) and of the Città metropolitana di Venezia, which replaced the Province in 2015. The municipality is based at Ca' Farsetti and Ca' Loredan, on the Grand Canal, with main offices in Mestre.
Language and identity
The language is Italian; Venetian, a variety of Veneto, is still spoken daily in the historic centre and islands, mostly by the elderly, and survives in place names (calle, campo, fondamenta, rio terà, sotoportego) and lagoon trades. English is widespread in tourism. About one resident in six is foreign, with large Bangladeshi, Chinese, Moldovan, Romanian and Ukrainian communities, mostly on the mainland.
The patron saint is Mark the Evangelist: 25 April is a city holiday and coincides with the national Liberation Day; tradition has men give a bocolo (rosebud) to women. The Festa della Salute (21 November) and the Redentore (third Sunday of July) are the other identity festivals, with votive bridges of boats.
- UNESCO heritage «Venice and its Lagoon» since 1987; the winged lion of Saint Mark is the symbol of the city and of the Serenissima Republic, which lasted over a thousand years until 1797.
- Institutions: Palazzo Ducale, Saint Mark's Basilica with its Procuratoria, the Biennale (since 1895), the Teatro La Fenice, the Biblioteca Marciana, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on San Giorgio Maggiore, the Arsenale (Navy, Biennale, CNR), the Patriarchate.
- The Ghetto in Cannaregio (1516) gave the word its name.
- Sport and traditions: Venetian rowing and the regattas (Regata Storica, Vogalonga), Venezia FC at the Penzo stadium on Sant'Elena, reachable only on foot or by vaporetto, Reyer basketball in Mestre.
Data
Sources
Updated: 2026-10-14
Updated: 2026-10-14
Updated: 2026-10-14
Reviewed: 10/22/2026 · by piero.avolio · rev. 1 · Period: → 2027-10-31
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