Notes by ANTASICILIA-ONLUS.

The Province of Siracusa.

The province of Siracusa covers an area from the Gulf of Catania to the promontory of Capo Passero, as far as Pantani Longarini. Its terrestrial boundaries are the province of Ragusa and the southern part of the province of Catania to the west, and only the province of Catania to the north.

Geographically, the area takes up about half the extension of the plateau of the Iblei Mountains. This upland region is shared between the province of Ragusa and the southern hinterland of the province of Catania. Together with the latter, as far as the Catania plain and the southern parts of the Enna and Caltanissetta provinces, is a part of the Val di Noto, one of the three administrative subdivisions of the Arab domination in Sicily.

The territory is more or less distributed evenly between zones of plain, coastal hills and internal uplands. There is only one significant highpoint, namely Mt.Lauro (986 m. a.s.l.), the pre-Etnean volcano in the commune of Buccheri; the province is not very mountainous (Augusta is the lowest centre, 15 m. a.s.l, while Buccheri is the highest, 820 m.). It has a prevalence of coastal towns.

The landscape is strongly characterised, geologically and morphologically, by the prominent presence of light limestone rock. In this landscape we find both level high-plains and deep valleys and gorges cut and shaped by rainwater and the millenary flow of river water.

This rock, originating from the consolidation of primordial marine sedimentation and later uplifted by tectonic movements, is typical of the entire Iblean upland.