Milan ( or ; ), the
second-most populous city in Italy, is the capital of
Lombardy. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area (the
5th-largest in the
EU) comprises an estimated 5 million people (former Provinces of Milan and Monza-Brianza, with other Comuni included in the former Province of Varese). The enormous suburban sprawl that followed the
post-war boom of the 1950s–1960s has resulted in a polycentric metropolitan area, known as
Greater Milan, of 7 to 10 million people, stretching over the provinces of
Milan,
Bergamo,
Como,
Lecco,
Lodi,
Monza and Brianza,
Pavia,
Varese and
Novara. The Milan metropolitan region is part of the so-called
Blue Banana, the area of
Europe with the highest population and industrial density. In terms of
GDP, Milan has the
third largest economy among EU cities (after London and Paris) and the largest among European non-capital cities.