Basilicata is one of the southern regions of varying length. Close
between Campania, Calabria and Puglia, overlooking the Ionian Sea, and for a short stretch on the Tyrrhenian Sea. For over 1,000 years, from Roman times to the Middle Ages, was called Lucania, and are said to still Lucanians its inhabitants.
It is a region across the mountains and hills. Only on the Ionian coast is a plain, the plain of Metaponto, once a marshy and malarial, now drained. The highest mountains are south: the Pollino (2,248 m), on the border with Calabria, and Sirino (2,005 m). To the north is an extinct volcano, the Vulture (1,326 m). Towards the east the hills slope down into the arid hills, clay, up to a wide furrow, the Fossa premurgiana, which runs along the border of Puglia.
The main rivers are the Brad, Basento, the Agri and Sinn, born on the Apennines, and are thrown in the Ionian Sea. All have torrential regime: dry or almost summer, swollen with water in autumn and winter.
The lucan landscape is almost everywhere harsh, arid, desolate. It was not always thus: in ancient times this region was covered with woods. Then over the centuries the forests were gradually destroyed and now only in few areas (Monte Vulture, Monte Pollino), nor is any trace. Without their protective action, the soil (mostly limestone) has been gradually eroded, "eating" almost by rain water, became unstable, prone to landslides and landslides have formed cracks, crevices, steep valleys as those carved by tributaries of Bradano (the canyons).
The climate is Mediterranean along the coasts (mild winters, warm summers), the interior continental (cold winters, with rain and snow, hot summers).