The patron saint of Battipaglia is Saint Mary of Hope, celebrated on the second Monday of July in the sanctuary dedicated to her, built in 1917: the dedication also recurs in the town hospital, Santa Maria della Speranza, as well as in various parish social works, including the Stimmatina community, a youth emergency centre and a soup kitchen for the poor.
Located at the northern edge of the Sele plain, whose place name already appeared in a document from 1080 concerning Norman ownership of the land between the Sele and Tusciano rivers, Battipaglia is today famous above all for producing buffalo mozzarella, the town's typical product: it is one of the plain's most productive agricultural centres, and also its main industrial and railway hub.
