France–Italy border

The Franco-Italian border is 515 kilometres (320 mi) long,[1] in southeast France and northwest Italy. It begins at the west tripoint of France–Italy–Switzerland (45°55′23″N 07°02′40″E) at the top of Mont Dolent (3,820 m), in the French commune of Chamonix (department of Haute-Savoie), the Italian city of Courmayeur, (Aosta Valley), and the Swiss commune of Orsières (canton of Valais).

The boundary then follows a general direction towards south, to the Mediterranean, it reaches the sea at Menton in France and Ventimiglia in Italy. The border separates three regions (Aosta Valley, Piedmont, and Liguria) and four provinces of Italy (Aosta, Turin, Cuneo, and Imperia) from two regions (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) and five departments of France (Haute-Savoie, Savoie, Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, and Alpes-Maritimes).

The Franco-Italian border is mountainous. The points of paved road crossings between the two countries are, from north to south, quoted in this exhaustive list:

• Mont Blanc Tunnel
• Little St Bernard Pass
• The Saint Nicolas plateau below the Mont Cenis pass
• Fréjus Road Tunnel
• Pian del Colle (near Col de l'Échelle)
• Col de Montgenèvre (near Claviere)
• Col Agnel
• Maddalena Pass
• Col de la Lombarde
• Tende Tunnel
• Fanghetto, one of two villages in the municipality of Olivetta San Michele
• Olivetta San Michele
• Menton (France) and Ventimiglia (Italy)

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  Partition of the Western Alps between the provinces of Gaul and Italy in Roman Empire.
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  The Var river border between Gaul and Italy in Roman Empire.
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  Border between France and the Italian states in 1700.
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  English map representing the North West Regions of Italy (Kingdom of Sardinia, Duchy of Milan, Republic of Genoa) and the border with France in the 18th century.
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  Border in 1814 after the Treaty of Paris
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  Changes of borders with Nice and Savoy annexed by France in 1860.
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  Border changes 1859–1947

The border between the two countries dates back to that separating the Kingdom of Sardinia and France during the 19th century. In 1860, the Treaty of Turin links the Savoy and County of Nice to France; the border between the French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia was surveyed the following year.

At the conclusion of the Battle of France in World War II, Italy claimed and administered French territory under the terms of the armistice of 24 June 1940 (the Franco-Italian armistice signed at the Incisa villa near Rome) which were extended from 11 November 1942. The Germans occupied the Italian zone from 1943, and the territory was finally liberated by France in 1944. The border was then changed by the Treaty of Paris in 1947, when France acquired Tende, La Brigue, Mont Chaberton and the Lake of Mont Cenis.

In the 21st century, an ongoing issue to be resolved concerns the demarcation of the border at the top of Mont Blanc.[2]