an eastern foothill plain of the Appalachian Mountains in the United States. The Piedmont has widths from 50 to 200 km and is composed of crystalline and metamorphic rocks. The surface is somewhat hilly and is inclined to the southeast (elevations from 40-80 to 400 m), where it drops sharply to the Atlantic lowland. Monadnocks reach 500-700 m in elevation. The rivers crossing the eastern edge of the Piedmont form a series of rapids and waterfalls (the Fall Line), some of which are used for electrical energy. There are mixed forests in some parts of the region.
(Italian, Piemonte), a region in northwestern Italy, comprising the provinces of Torino, Vercelli, Cuneo, Alessandria, Novara, and Asti. Area, 25,400 sq km. Population, 4.4 million (1971). The regional capital and main economic center is Turin.
Almost three-fourths of Piedmont is covered by mountains and hills. In the north and west lie the Pennine (Mount Rosa, 4,634 m), Graian, Cottian, and Maritime Alps. The region is drained by the Po and its tributaries. In the mountains grow broad-leaved and coniferous forests, covering 26 percent of the region’s area. The Piedmont Plain occupies the central part of the region.
One of Italy’s economically most highly developed regions, Piedmont is notable for its concentration of industry and centralization of capital. Industry is dominated by the major Italian monopolies: Fiat, Pirelli, Montedison, and Olivetti. The region employs 15 percent of the country’s workers engaged in manufacturing (1971). The leading industry is machine building, chiefly the manufacture of motor vehicles (Fiat plants in Turin), tractors, aircraft, motors, and electrical equipment. Other important products include ball bearings and typewriters. The traditional branches produce textile machinery, equipment for the food and paper industries, farm machinery, precision instruments, and armaments. Piedmont leads the country in the production of wool cloth, artificial fibers, and cement. The region also has electrometallurgical, petroleum-refining, chemical, pharmaceutical, rubber, food, paper, and printing enterprises. Piedmont produces 10 percent of Italy’s total electric power output. There are hydroelectric power plants in the Alps, steam power plants in the large cities, and a nuclear power plant in the town of Trino-Vercellise. The chief industrial centers are Turin, Novara, Vercelli, Alessandria, Cuneo, Biella, and Ivrea.
Some 53 percent of Piedmont’s 1.5 million ha of cultivated land is occupied by plowed land, 39 percent by meadows and pastures, and 8 percent by orchards and vineyards. Piedmont is Italy’s leading producer of rice, of which about 5 million centners were harvested in 1971. Other crops include wheat, corn, fodder crops, and potatoes. Cattle raising is also important (about 1.2 million head).
T. A. GALKINA
Historical survey. The name “Piedmont” first appeared in the 13th century. The region was divided into numerous feudal holdings until the 15th century, when it became part of the Duchy of Savoy. Piedmont and Savoy thereafter constituted a single state. In 1720, Piedmont became the basis of the Kingdom of Sardinia, with Turin as its capital. From 1802 to 1814 it was part of France. In the 1820’s, 1830’s, and 1840’s, it was one of Italy’s most prosperous regions. Piedmont’s bourgeoisie and the nobility that had become bourgeois played a major role in the 19th-century Italian national liberation movement, leading the bourgeois Piedmont Revolution of 1821 and taking an active part in the Revolution of 1848–49 in Italy. The Kingdom of Sardinia (actually Piedmont) was the core around which Italy became unified in 1859–60.
During World War II, Piedmont was occupied by German fascist troops in September 1943. It became a major center of the resistance, whose forces were largely responsible for the region’s liberation in April 1945. The region’s high concentration of industry and its large working class, chiefly in Turin, have made Piedmont one of the main centers of the Italian workers’ and democratic movement.