Eberian influence in the south-west, Ligurian on the shores of the Mediterranean, Germanic immigrations from east of the Rhine and Scandinavian immigrations in the north-west have tended to produce ethnographical diversities which ease of intercommunication and other modern conditions have failed to obliterate.
The Apennines (q.v.), as has been already mentioned, here traverse the whole breadth of Italy, cutting off the peninsula properly so termed from the broader mass of Northern Italy by a continuous barrier of considerable breadth, though of far inferior elevation to that of the Alps The Ligurian Apennines may be considered as taking their rise in the neighborhood of Savona, where a pass of very moderate elevation connects them with the Maritime Alps, of which they are in fact only a continuation.
Thus the great plain of northern Italy is chilled by the cold winds from the Alps, while the damp warm winds from the Mediterranean are to a great extent intercepted by the Ligurian Apennines.
It predominates along the Ligurian Riviera from Bordighera to Spezia, and on the Adriatic, near San Benedetto del Tronto and Gargano, and, crossing the Italian shore of the Ioian Sea, prevails in some regions of Calabria, and terminates around the gulfs of Salerno, Sorrento and Naples.
Anchovy and sardine fishing (the products of which are reckoned among the general total) are also of considerable importance, especially along the Ligurian and Tuscan coasts.