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The name of this town has got a very old origin and it is supposed that even the nuraghic civilizations called the town Karal or Karallai. The name changed throughout the centuries, depending on the different dominions and reached the present name, Cagliari, thanks to the Spaniards in the 14th century.
In this way, Cagliari was populated since the Neolithic as a nuraghic centre and in 48 B.C. it became a Roman Municipium with temples, villas and thermae.
After the Byzantine domination in 534, in the ninth century, the town organized a form of indedpendent government and became Giudicato of Cagliari. This Giudicato was a form of government guided by the Giudici (judges) who appeared in the Middle Ages, in the period precisely called Giudicale.
Later Cagliari was conquered by the inhabitants of Pisa and then by the Aragonese, who governed it from 1326 to 1708, when it was assigned to Austria in exchange for Sicily. In 1720 it was surrendered to the Piedmontese Kingdom and then it became part of the Italian Kingdom.
Cagliari is the hub of Sardinia and boasts a beautiful old district or "Castello", an Archeological Museum with an excellent collection of Nuraghic artefacts, botanical gardens and an impressive port.
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