Milan, known as Mediolanium in ancient Roman times, was Italy's second-largest city.
It was the capital of Milan Province and the Lombardy region, located on the Lombardy Plain. It was also a major transportation hub in southern Europe, with a long history, famed for its architecture, fashion, design, art, painting, opera, economy, football, commerce, tourism, media, manufacturing, finance, and more...
Milan was Italy's largest metropolitan area and one of the largest in the world. It was a world-renowned historic and cultural city, one of the world's most developed regions and highest-GDP regions, as well as Europe's most economically developed area. It possessed four percent of the world's art treasures.
Moreover, Milan was one of Europe's three major metropolitan areas and one of its four major economic centers, as famous as Paris in France, London in Britain, and Berlin in Germany.
It was also the world's fashion and design capital, one of the most influential cities in the fashion industry, and was hailed as the foremost of the world's four fashion capitals.
More than half of the world's famous luxury brands could be found here. Basically... every famous fashion brand in the world had an office here, including the headquarters of Italian luxury brands such as Armani, Versace, Fendi, Prada, Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana, and Moschino.
This was a place designers around the globe yearned for. Milan Fashion Week not only influenced global fashion, but had always been regarded as the "barometer" of global fashion design and consumption.
The great Leonardo da Vinci had left behind some of his most brilliant works here. Milan Cathedral, like a white flame, soared into the clouds; La Scala represented the pinnacle of world opera; and the city derby between the two famed clubs, AC Milan and Inter Milan, was endlessly discussed by football fans