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Padania ( , , "Padania" (US) and ) is an alternative name and proposed independent state encompassing Northern Italy, derived from the name of the Po River (Latin Padus), whose basin includes much of the region, centered on the Po Valley (Pianura Padana), the major plain of Northern Italy.
Coined in 1903 as a geographical term roughly corresponding to the historically Celtic land of Cisalpine Gaul, the term was popularized beginning in the early 1990s, when Lega Nord, a federalist and, at times, separatist political party in Italy, proposed it as a possible name for an independent state. Since then it has been strongly associated with "Padanian nationalism" and North Italian separatism. Padania as defined in Lega Nord's 1996 Declaration of Independence and Sovereignty of Padania goes beyond Northern Italy and includes much of Central Italy, for a greater Padania that includes more than half of the Italian Republic (161,000 of 301,000 km2 in area, 34 million out of 60 million in population).
Some Padanians consider themselves to have Celtic ancestry and/or heritage.
The terms Pianura Padana or Val Padana are the standard denominations in geography textbooks and atlases, but the derivation Padania was coined back in 1903 and popularized by a Hoepli Editore geographical encyclopedia in 1910.Gian Lodovico Bertolini, Sulla permanenza del significato estensivo del nome di Lombardia, Rome, 1903, "Bollettino della Società geografica italiana", volume XXXVII, pp. 345-349.
Journalist Gianni Brera from the 1960s used the term Padania to indicate the area that at the time of Cato the Elder corresponded to Cisalpine Gaul..
In 1990 Gianfranco Miglio, a political scientist who would be elected senator for Lega Nord in 1992 and 1994, wrote a book in which he described a draft constitutional reform. According to Miglio, Padania (consisting of five regions: Veneto, Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria and Emilia-Romagna with the addition of the provinces of Massa-Carrara and Pesaro and Urbino in the Tuscany and Marche regions, respectively) would become one of the three hypothetical of a future Italy, along with Etruria (Central Italy, without the two aforementioned provinces) and Mediterranea (Southern Italy), while the autonomous regions (Aosta Valley, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sicily and Sardinia) would be left with their current autonomy.
In 1993 Robert D. Putnam, a political scientist at Harvard University, wrote a book titled , in which he spoke of a "civic North", defined according to the inhabitants' civic traditions and attitudes, and explained its social peculiarities to the historical emergence of the free since the 10th century.
Lega Nord's definition of Padania's boundaries is similar to Putnam's "civic North", which also includes the central Italian regions of Tuscany, Marche and Umbria. Stefano Galli, a political scientist close to the party and columnist for Il Giornale and La Padania, has called Putnam's theory a source for defining Padania. According to Galli, these regions share similar patterns of civil society, citizenship, and government with the North.
The existence of a "Padanian nation" has been however criticised by a number of organisations and individuals in Italy, from the Italian Geographical Society Rapporto annuale 2010 to historian Paolo Bernardini, who is a supporter of Venetian nationalism instead.[4] Angelo Panebianco, a political scientist, once explained that, even though a "Padanian nation" does not exist yet, it might well emerge as all nations are ultimately human inventions. La questione non e' padana - Corriere della Sera
Since 1991, Lega Nord has promoted either secession or larger autonomy for Padania, and has created a flag and a national anthem to this effect. In 1996, the "Federal Republic of Padania" was proclaimed.Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, p. 103 Subsequently, in 1997, Lega Nord created an unofficial Padanian parliament in Mantua and organised elections for it. Lega Nord also chose a national anthem: the Va, pensiero chorus from Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco, in which the exiled Hebrew slaves lament their lost homeland.
The term Padania has been also used in politics by other nationalist/separatist parties and groups, including Lega Padana, Lega Padana Lombardia, the Padanian Union, the Alpine Padanian Union, Veneto Padanian Federal Republic and the Padanian Independentist Movement.
| Lombardy | 10.0 | 23,865 |
| Veneto | 4.9 | 18,391 |
| Emilia-Romagna (Emilia and Romagna) | 4.5 | 22,451 |
| Piedmont | 4.4 | 25,399 |
| Liguria | 1.6 | 5,422 |
| Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Friuli and Venezia Giulia) | 1.2 | 7,845 |
| Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol (Trentino and South Tyrol) | 1.1 | 13,607 |
| Aosta Valley | 0.1 | 3,263 |
| Northern Italy | 27.7 | 120,243 |
| Tuscany | 3.8 | 22,993 |
| Marche | 1.6 | 9,366 |
| Umbria | 0.9 | 8,456 |
| Padania (total) | 33.9 | 161,076 |
In its previous version, the flag included a red St George's Cross and a smaller Sun of the Alps in the upper part.
According to a poll conducted in February 2010 by GPG, 45% of Northerners support the independence of Padania. A poll conducted by SWG in June 2010 puts that figure at 61% of Northerners (with 80% of them supporting at least federal reform), while noting that 55% of Italians consider Padania as only a political invention, against 42% believing in its real existence (45% of the sample being composed of Northerners, 19% of Central Italians and 36% of Southerners). As for federal reform, according to the poll, 58% of Italians support it. A more recent poll by SWG puts the support for fiscal federalism and secession respectively at 68% and 37% in Piedmont and Liguria, 77% and 46% in Lombardy, 81% and 55% in Triveneto (comprising Veneto), 63% and 31% in Emilia-Romagna, 51% and 19% in Central Italy (not including Lazio).
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