This contribution aims at extensively introducing the geography, history, topography, and art of southern Italy from the eight century BCE to the Roman conquest, analyzing literary sources and archaeological evidence. After the first contacts between the prospectors and the local populations, the foundation (ktisis) of the Western Greek cities defined inner spaces, limits of the proper city (asty), and its territory (chora politike). Starting from the Archaic period onward, the Southern Italian cities began a significant process of monumentalization (urban grid, fortifications, buildings, temples) and self-definition toward the neighboring cities, until the emergence of Italic populations and the Roman conquest.