Physical characteristics of Tuscany

Physical characteristics

Tuscany is a region of central Italy that extends from Appennines chain to the Tyrrhenian sea, sloping sweetly in an environment characterized by wood, cultivated hills, vineyard and olive groves.

The Appennines chain is composed by mountains which reach 2000 meters high in the northern part (that constitutes the border with Emilia Romagna region)and slopes down in the southern part, maintaining, however, quotas about the 1500 meters towards South-east where it trace the border between Umbria and Marche regions.
No far from the sea, in the South of the region, rises the Monte Amiata (mt. 1734), an extint volcano that today shows its nature with pseudo-volcanics phenomenons scattered along its slopes that, in some cases, they made the born of important thermal sites.

The coast line quite indented is often characterized by sandy beaches, shadowed by pinewoods, alternated to charming reefs: the ones to the South of Livorno, the headlands of Piombino, Punta Ala and Argentario are very colourful.
Still intact parts are the Natural Park of Uccellina, in the South of Grosseto, and the Tuscan Arcipelago islands.

The few plains, beyond to the Versilia, are those along the valleys of the rivers.

The main rivers are: the Magra (that constitutes a part of the border with the Liguria), the Serchio, the Arno, the Cecina, the Ombrone, the Albegna and the Fiora. In a small part, near to its sources, the Tuscany is crossed also from the Tevere.

Tuscany is very rich of vegetation: many are the forests that cover the territory.

The only bare area is that one on the South of Siena, the "crete senesi" where, because of the argillaceous conformation of the land, the vegetation to high stalk is rather rare; we can find only the particular cypresses planted by the ancestors around the small villages or along the roads of access to the same ones.
In the other hills areas the forests are constituted by oaks, holm-oaks, arbutrus, beecks and, in particular in the Chianti woods, the jiniper, that shows its olive coloration among the numerous oaks.