Calangianus

Calangianus stands at 518 metres on a granite plateau at the foot of Monte Limbara, in a basin ringed by vineyards and by the cork oak woods of Gallura; the municipal territory covers more than thirteen thousand hectares and reaches Lake Liscia. The town has 4,267 inhabitants and is Italy's leading centre for the production, working and export of cork: since 1979 it has appeared on the list of the hundred most industrialised comuni in Italy, and the Capuchin convent now houses the cork museum.

The rise was already inhabited in the Copper Age, and a list drawn up by the Ministry of Public Education records eleven nuraghi and two giants' tombs here, among them the one at Pascaredda. The first certain mention of the medieval village dates to 1100, when pirate raids pushed the coastal population inland and the curatorie of the Giudicato of Gallura filled up. The seat of a magistrate's court and of a district prison, Calangianus was the chief town of the mandamento that included Luras and Nuchis until 1927. Several theories circulate about the name: the most evocative derives it from cala 'e granis, «granite cove».