The Patron
San Dionigi
Dionigi l'Areopagita is Crotone's listed patron, celebrated on 9 October.
— Castellesi
CASTELLESI COMUNE
Crotone,
Calabria
An ancient Ionian city whose old records use two names the modern map does not.
Crotone stands on the Ionian coast where the Sila comes down to the sea, on the site of Greek Kroton — home of Pythagoras, and of the athletes who dominated the ancient games.
For a family researcher two things are wrong on the modern map. The town was spelt Cotrone until the twentieth century, and the province did not exist until 1992 .
The Name
Cotrone
Older records commonly use Cotrone, not Crotone. That spelling appears in Bourbon administration, the district name and many emigration-era documents, so both forms should be searched.
The Landmark
Duomo di Crotone
The Duomo di Crotone is one of the city's principal listed churches. Parish identity helps narrow a family within the old town, while district-level records may still be filed under the historical spelling Cotrone.
Did you know?
TOWN AND PROVINCE BOTH CHANGED
Search Cotrone under Catanzaro
The town was historically Cotrone, while the Province of Crotone did not exist until 1992 and became operational in 1995. Earlier family records were created under Catanzaro, with district-level material filed under Cotrone.
LA PARLATA
How they speak
Italian is standard. Local speech may include diverse Calabrian varieties, without naming one specific Crotonese form.
Cotrone in Catanzaro
Kroton was founded by Achaean Greeks around 710 BC and became one of the most powerful cities of Magna Graecia . Pythagoras settled here around 530 BC and founded his school in the city; the Crotoniate athlete Milo was the most celebrated of the ancient games. The city's doctors were famous across the Greek world. Of the great temple of Hera Lacinia on Capo Colonna, one column still stands.
After Rome, the town declined into a small fortified port. Under the Aragonese and Spanish it was the centre of the Marchesato di Crotone , a great feudal territory of grain estates worked by landless labourers — the same latifondo structure that shaped the Sicilian interior, and with the same consequences.
The fortress that dominates the town, the Castello di Carlo V , was rebuilt in the sixteenth century against Ottoman raiding.
In the twentieth century Crotone industrialised sharply — chemical and metallurgical works made it one of the few industrial centres in Calabria — and then deindustrialised just as sharply from the 1980s and 1990s, with heavy job losses and lasting environmental damage.
The province was created in 1992 , more than three decades after the campaign for it began.
Postcards from Crotone
Wear Crotone
Carry your heritage with pride. Timeless designs inspired by the heart of Crotone.
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Where this
belongs
belongs
PROVINCIA DI CROTONE
Discover the beauty, culture and traditions of Crotone and its remarkable comuni.
REGIONE CALABRIA
From the mountains to the sea, Calabria is a region of history, flavor and soul.
EXPLORE CALABRIA →From the passenger index
At least 56 people who gave Crotone as their home are recorded by name among Italian arrivals in the United States — each with the ship they sailed on and the day they landed.
A floor, not a total. The index covers arrivals through 1912, holds nothing between May 1907 and December 1911, and many passengers were written down with no home town at all. Where a name is there, it is there with its record.
Have Orso look for your family →Ready to visit
One column, and a fortress
Getting there
The nearest major airport is Lamezia Terme International Airport.
Crotone is a working port city with an industrial past that is still visible, and it receives few visitors. The old town beneath the castle is compact and worth walking.
The essential trip is out to Capo Colonna , where the single surviving column of the temple of Hera Lacinia stands above the sea — the most evocative Greek site in Calabria, and the focus of the town's own devotion.
The Sila rises inland, and the marchesato country between — wide grain land, thinly populated — is where most families of this province actually lived.
Catanzaro is about an hour south, and where your older records will be.
What to see
Capo Colonna — the surviving column of the temple of Hera Lacinia, and the sanctuary.
Castello di Carlo V — the fortress above the old town.
Museo Archeologico Nazionale — the treasure of Hera, and the Greek city's finds.
The old town — the streets beneath the castle.
The marchesato — the grain country inland, and the comuni of the province.
Your family's parish — the record-keeping institution before 1809.
Family history
Where the records are
Archives and registers
Crotone's province dates from 1992. Everything earlier is Catanzaro's.
Related places
Keep exploring
The journey does not end at the boundary of one comune. The province, the region and the neighbouring towns often hold the rest of the picture.
Your Roots. Their Story. Your Place.
Crotone is more than a place on a map. It is a part of you.
FIND YOUR COMUNE →