Palermo City Map Poster

About Palermo

The Palermitan language is a dialect of the Sicilian language. It is spoken by about 600,000 people in Palermo and its surrounding area (Province of Palermo). The old town ("Città Vecchia") was founded in 734 BC by the Phoenicians as Ziz (or Cizy), a colony of the city of Tyre, now in modern-day Lebanon. In 831 AD it was conquered by Arabs during their invasion to conquer Sicily; they named it Balarm after its former name "Panormos". From 1072 until 1816, when Sicily became part of the Kingdom Of Naples first then Kingdom Of Italy later on after 1861 unification Italy period ,the city was known simply as "Palermu" or "Palermò", from Arabic بَلْرُمْحَان‎‎ Balarmah meaning 'strong wall'.