Europe's rockets are born here: Colleferro's plants build the Vega launchers that lift off from French Guiana, the latest chapter of a story that began in 1912 with the BPD explosives works. Around that factory the town itself was founded by decree in 1935, a purpose-built new city for its workers.
The result, 21,574 residents strong, is unlike anywhere else in Lazio: rationalist avenues, a workers' village and industrial halls now serving the aerospace sector, on the border between the Roman countryside and the Sacco valley. For anyone drawn to industrial heritage, this is a century-long open book.
Near Colleferro
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
