Patron saint festival In 228 days
Saint Ferdinand, patron of the town bearing his name
📅 Every year, on 30 May
San Ferdinando celebrates its patron on 30 May, in the church dedicated to him.
San Ferdinando has 4,299 inhabitants in the plain of Gioia Tauro, on entirely flat ground: from sea level to the forty-four metres of its highest point, the smallest difference in altitude in all Calabria. The earthquake of 1783 made the Mesima valley subside, the water stagnated, malaria arrived and people left. It was general Vito Nunziante, commissioned by king Ferdinand I, who reclaimed those lands and made them fit to be farmed again.
The first settlement was called Casette, after the small low houses of the new farmers; then it took the king's name. In 1831 a royal decree raised it to a village of Rosarno, and a frazione of Rosarno it long remained: it became an autonomous comune only in 1977, which makes it one of the youngest in Italy. In its territory, together with that of Gioia Tauro, stands the great transhipment port that sorts containers between the routes of the Mediterranean.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in San Ferdinando 1
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Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near San Ferdinando
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside San Ferdinando, but an easy day trip away.
Castello di Francavilla Bisio 📍 Francavilla Bisio · 6.5 km The medieval castle of Francavilla Bisio: towers, moat and six centuries of Spinola, Grillo and Guasco. Castello di Lercaro 📍 Ovada · 10 km A Lercaro fortified villa of 1570, given to the town in 1872 as a hospice, now a ruin chiesa di Nostra Signora Assunta 📍 Ovada · 13 km Sober baroque inspired by Genoa, with twin bell towers and Pietro Ivaldi's vault. chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie 📍 Ovada · 13 km Founded by Dominicans in 1481, with a high altar brought from Genoa in 1690 chiesa dell'Immacolata Concezione 📍 Ovada · 13 km A plague vow of 1631, first stone in 1640, and an almost total rebuild after the 1935 fire Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista 📍 Alessandria · 17 km Neo-Romanesque church in Alessandria's Cristo quarter, consecrated in 1905, with Vignoli frescoes and a Mascioni organ.