[ noun ] a region of southern Italy (forming the toe of the Italian `boot') <noun.location>
Police said both attacks appeared connected to a bloody rivalry between two clans of the 'ndrangheta, Calabria's version of the Mafia.
'Calabria is the garden of Furope,' he tells me.
Perched on a plateau in Calabria's isolated and austere Sila mountains, Petilia Policastro is a town that Italy's economic boom left behind.
Several organized crime clans are believed engaged in blood feuds over drug-dealing and control of lucrative government contracts in underdeveloped Calabria, the "toe" of the Italian boot.
The harsh weather brought the first snowfall of the year to many regions of Italy, from the Alps to the mountainous tip of the peninsula in Calabria.
Police said the killings occurred within 12 hours and raised the murder toll this year to 49 in Calabria, Italy's southern province.
Starvation and malaria are gone; illiteracy is rare; a new university serves the population; an autostrada now links Rome and Naples with Calabria's biggest cities.
Many of Calabria's factories sit idle.
Why on earth can't they do it at home? Princess Paola Ruffo di Calabria, soon to be the new Queen of Belgium, is famous for her disdain of excessive protocol.
Many companies have found, however, that unofficial procedures exist for accelerating grant payments. For companies in the south, distance from markets (Reggio Calabria is nearly 800 miles from Milan) is exacerbated by weaknesses in infrastructure.