The name Sicily was given to the island after the name of ancient people Siculians lived here; it was also called Trinacria ("with three points") by Greeks remembering its triangle form.
Easily accessible by the water way Sicily was one of the first inhabited regions of Italy. The initiators of the economical development on the island were noted above Siculians who in the 3rd millenium b.C. introduced agriculture and breeding and artisan activities. They were succeeded by Phoenicians who founded a number of commercial centers and started intensive usage of the forests for construction needs.
Between VIII and III centuries b.C. the Greeks came and founded numerous colonies, developed commerce and agriculture. Romans made Sicily a granary of the empire, building the new roads and enforcing already existing settlements and systems.
Starting from 827 a.C. and beginning of Arabic pirates rides the period of the greatest improvements of the territory organization came.
The port of Palermo was fortified and enlarged and Palermo itself was built and rebuilt; increase of agricultural production on the whole of the territory: diffusion of irrigation, introduction of jasmine, citrus, cotton and other new cultivated plants. This work was continued by Normans and Swabians. But under the Angevin, Aragon and Spanish domination all these initiatives were reduced and Sicily in the end became a Spanish colony with the agriculture based on large landed estates and low productivity.
In the XIX century the criminal organization famous all over the world as Mafia was born and starting from the moment when Sicily became a part of the new Italian state in 1860 this organization took the real control on the territory of the island. After the WWII Italian government conducted a program of improvement of the Sicilian economy: division of large landed estates, reclaim of the soil along the seacoasts, settlement of petrol-mechanic industry, construction of the new roads and railways, development of touristic infrastructure. Nevertheless all these modifications didn't reach the desired results till now mostly due to bad and inrresponsible organization and intervention of mafia in all the spheres of Sicilian activity.
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