Torre Annunziata (Torr’Annunziata in Neapolitan) is an Italian town of 41 918 inhabitants in the metropolitan city of Naples in Campania.
It extends into the innermost inlet of the Gulf of Naples in a narrow strip of land surrounded by Vesuvius and the sea, an important seaside resort and member of the Sarno River Regional Park, which delimits the southern border with its mouth.
Since its foundation it has made fishing, trade, tourism and pasta production its main activities, so much so that it is called the Capital of White Art, for the massive production that peaked in the first post-war period, with over sixty mills and pasta factories, of which the Voiello and Setaro brands remain in business, among the best known and most awarded in the world. Since the period of the first industrial revolution, it has been an important production center, first in the engineering and steel industry, and, to date, nautical and pharmaceutical, as well as a port, hosting the third largest port in the region. It is also the seat of the Spolette military establishment, formerly a Royal Weapons Factory under the reign of the two Sicilies, and today managed by the Italian Army.
It stands on the remains of the ancient Oplontis, an imperial and patrician residential city, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, of which it preserves the active thermal station and the archaeological site, recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1997.
