Corsica

Corsica sits in the Mediterranean Sea as the region’s fourth-largest island, positioned southeast of mainland France, west of Italy, and just north of Sardinia. A single mountain range covers two-thirds of its land. As of January 2026, the population was 365,636. It is a territorial collectivity of France, with plans to gain “a form of autonomy” in the future. The capital is Ajaccio. The island is divided into two administrative departments, Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud, but these were merged into a single territorial collectivity on 1 January 2018. Corsica’s autonomy is broader than that of other French regional collectivities, and its assembly can exercise limited executive powers. Bastia, the second-largest town, serves as the prefecture of Haute-Corse.

Corsica was ruled by the Republic of Genoa from 1284 until 1755, when it seceded to become a self-proclaimed Italian-speaking republic. In 1768, Genoa ceded the island to Louis XV of France as part of a debt pledge for French military help in suppressing a Corsican revolt, leading to French annexation in 1769. That same year, Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio; his ancestral home, Maison Bonaparte, is now a museum and tourist attraction. Due to historical ties with Tuscany, Corsica retains many Italian cultural elements, and many surnames have Italian roots. French is the official and most widely spoken language, while Corsican—an Italo-Dalmatian tongue—is recognized as a regional language. Corsica is the third-least populated French region, after Mayotte and French Guiana.

Recent history has been shaped by a growing nationalist movement. A regionalist movement emerged in the 1960s, when Corsica was part of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region until 1975. After an armed standoff between French authorities and Corsican autonomists in 1975, and a harsh response from the state, an ongoing armed conflict began between French forces and nationalist guerrilla groups, notably the National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC) and its offshoots. War-like violence continued until 2014, when the FLNC-Union of Combatants, the largest nationalist faction, announced a truce with the French government. The second-largest faction, FLNC-22 October, signed a truce in 2016. Violence resumed in 2022 after the murder of jailed Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna by a prison inmate. Many suspect French government involvement, and in 2023, both the FLNC-UC and FLNC-22U resumed armed conflict.

**History** **Prehistory and antiquity** Corsica has been occupied since the Mesolithic era. A permanent human presence is documented from the Neolithic period, starting in the 6th millennium BC. After brief occupations by Carthaginians, ancient Greeks, and Etruscans, the island was incorporated by the Roman Republic at the end of the First Punic War. In 238 BC, along with Sardinia, it became a Roman province. The Romans established colonies at Mariana and Aléria on the east coast but had little control over the interior. The Greeks, who had earlier built a colony at Aléria, considered Corsica one of the most backward parts of the Roman world. The island produced sheep, honey, resin, and wax, and exported many slaves. It was also known for cheap wines sent to Rome and was used as a place of exile; the philosopher Seneca was one of the most famous exiles there. Emperor Diocletian integrated Corsica into Roman Italy. Administratively, the island was divided into *pagi*, which in the Middle Ages became *pievi*, the basic administrative units until 1768.

**Middle Ages** In the fifth century, the western Roman Empire collapsed, and the island was invaded by Vandals and Ostrogoths. Briefly recovered by the Byzantine Empire, it soon became part of the Kingdom of the Lombards, making it a dependency of the Duchy of Tuscia, which used it as an outpost against the Saracens. Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, expelled the Lombards and nominally granted Corsica to Pope Stephen II. In the early 11th century, Pisa and Genoa together freed the island from Arab invasion. After that, the Republic of Pisa held influence, and many polychrome churches from this period still adorn the island. A massive immigration from Tuscany gave Corsica its present toponymy and made the language in the northern two-thirds of the island very close to the Tuscan dialect. This led to a traditional division along the main mountain chain from Calvi to Porto-Vecchio: the eastern *Banda di dentro* (Cismonte), more populated and open to Italian commerce, and the western *Banda di fuori* (Pomonte), almost deserted and wild. Pisa’s defeat at the Battle of Meloria in 1284 ended its rule and began Genoese influence, contested initially by the King of Aragon, who received investiture over Sardinia and Corsica from the Pope in 1296. A popular revolution followed.