The province is divided into three zones from north to south: the
pianura (plains), the
collina (hills) and the
montagna (mountains). The
Po river acts as a boundary with the nearby province of
Cremona in the plains. The main centres of the
collina and
montagna are situated along the course of the main rivers, which descend from the Parmesan
Apennine Mountains. Roughly, each zone comprises one third of the total area.
The plains The part in the North of the Province comprises
Parma,
Fidenza and various smaller towns, and covers from the Po river to the foothills at an altitude of 50 to 100 m amsl. This area has a continental climate, with cold winters (minimum temperatures around −1 °C in the city centres, −3 °C to −4° in the countryside on average), hot and humid summers (maximum temperatures over 30 °C on average). During autumns and springs it is not uncommon to encounter fog, with an average of 31 days of fog a year in the city of Parma and higher values on the countryside, particularly in the area close to the Po river. During summer, thunderstorms with heavy rain and hail can hit the area. This is the part of the Province that hosts the vast majority of the industrial production, while the rest of the land is extensively used to grow crops, mainly wheat, tomatoes (with
Mutti and various other producers based here) and
alfalfa to feed the cows whose milk is used to produce
Parmesan cheese.
The hills The centre part of the Province comprises only smaller towns, built in the valleys along rivers or on top of hills for defensive purposes, from the foothills to where the
Apennine begin to grow into fully developed mountains, between 100 and around 700 m amsl. Many of those towns are built around medieval castles, such as
Bardi,
Torrechiara,
Compiano and many others. In this area the climate is slightly different from that of the plains, with less foggy days, milder temperatures (higher minimum temperatures during winter and lower maximum temperatures during summer due to its height that makes it less prone to
Temperature inversions. Here, cultivated fields and wide woods coexist, mainly because part of the land is owned by families no longer living in the area, as big chunks of the population migrated to the plains or to other nations, mainly the United States, the United Kingdom and Argentina, over the course of the 20th century.
The mountains The southernmost area of the Province is occupied by the ridge of the Apennine, with mountains ranging from 1000 m to the 1850 m amsl of
Mount Sillara,
Mount Losanna and
Mount Marmagna. Due to the geographical nature of this mountain range, the Parmesan side, facing North, has considerably longer nights than the rest of
Pianura padana and the Italian
Alps, even during summer. In this area the climate is Alpine, with long winters, temperatures frequently reaching double digits negatives and snow falling from October to May, typically leaving the tops snow-free only from mid June to the end of September. During the summer months temperatures reach the lower 20s°C only when intense heat waves hit the region, while minimum temperatures are in the 5–8 °C range, depending on the altitude. Almost daily thunderstorms develop on these mountains during summer, rarely being snow thunderstorms. The mountains are almost completely covered in forests to a height of about 1500 m amsl, where grass, heather and various berries predominate. Two main towns are located in the valleys between the Apennine mountains:
Bedonia and
Borgotaro, historically in control of commercial traffic through the passes to
Liguria (Passo del Tomarlo,
Passo della Cisa, Passo del Brattello, Passo del Bocco and others). ==
Comuni==