Starting as a Celtic settlement at crucial crossroads (that in legend was founded by a prince from faraway Gaul)… at “the most commanding position”… in the “middle of the plain” (from which the name “Milan” originates – upon Italy’s largest plain and most populous region, the basin of the River Po)… to capital of the Western Roman Empire when Rome was no longer the seat of emperors… to economic and industrial capital of modern Italy – Milan has always been an important city.
Depiction of Milan’s original settlement as a strategic Celtic town of the Insubres. Image Credit: Taleworlds.com
With the World Expo 2015, Milan joined an elite handful of world cities that have hosted the exhibition more than once – despite more than a century having passed since the first time. The old 1906 trade fair grounds (with new exhibition halls built there not so long ago), slightly west of the city centre, have been such a fixture that the area has taken the name of “Fiera”. And the new exhibition grounds where Expo Milan 2015 was held at Rho, northwest of Milan, are also managed by the one iconic Milanese corporation with the unimaginative name, Fiera Milano… keeping Milan an economic, financial and trend leader in Italy and throughout Europe (not to mention that Milan is a world leader in style, design and fashion).
(SEE pictures of Milan as Roman Mediolanum in its heyday, and of the Fiera area when the 1906 Expo was held in Milan, as well as the new Fiera Milano area of Rho northwest of Milan, and read MORE in the article “The history of how and why Milan became such a politically and economically important city“.)
Milan Travel Notes 