Weekly market: FRIDAY

Important touristic locations: BIODOLA, SCAGLIERI, LE GHIAIE, ACQUAVIVA, VITICCIO, ENFOLA, OTTONE, MAGAZZINI, BAGNAIA

Portoferraio is the capital of Elba Island and its territory ranges to include 50.35 square kilometers. It is Elba’s most heaviest populated community and the second largest after the municipality of Marciana. Portoferraio was founded upon the request of Cosimo I of the Medici family, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, from whom the city received its first name “Cosmopoli” in 1548. The settlement was established as a military garrison with the purpose of defending the coasts of the Grand Duchy and Elba island.
In its early history, the city only consisted of several different fortresses (today still, these remain well maintained and can be visited), such as the three forts: Forte Stella, Forte Falcone and Linguella (while Forte Inglese was built at a later date in order to defend the small city in view of the pending siege by the British fleet) and the magnificent enclosing wall, which surrounds the downtown area of Portoferraio with its well-maintained remains that have been renovated to be inhabitable.
The city remained under the command of the Tuscan Grand Duchy up until the 18th century, when the island became an epicenter of a war between France, Austria and England because of its strategic position. In 1814, the island was entrusted to Napoleon Bonaparte as the seat of his first exile. Napoleon chose Portoferraio as the capital of the island. The two villas that served as his residences can still be visited today.
Thanks to the nonetheless short (1814-1815) reign of the French emperor, Portoferraio and the entire island gained extreme notoriety and modernity as a result of the infrastructures and land improvements with the development of the mines in Rio Marina. In those years, Portoferraio became the port for shipping iron from Elba's mines to the mainland - which explains the name Portoferraio.
Later, Portoferraio returned to be under the government of the Tuscan Gross Duchy until the Italian unification in 1860. Thanks to its mines, Portoferraio and the entire Elba Island experienced an economically stable period until the early 1970s, at which point the steel industry began to falter. Within a short period of time, the mines were dismantled (the last mine closed down in 1981), yet Portoferraio managed to hold its ground in the tourism industry thanks to its magnificent beaches, which still today is the most important source of income for the island.