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Piombino: what to know before buying a home

A municipality in the province of Livorno, Toscana. Official data on earthquakes, population, services and transport.

Liveability index free for any address

Search for an address in Piombino

The report looks at the exact point: landslide and flood risk, seismic zone, price per square metre for the area, services and nearby stops.

For example: Lungomare Guglielmo Marconi 1, Piombino.

Piombino, the headland, the Elba ferries and the steelworks

Piombino looks straight across at the island of Elba: ferries leave its port for Portoferraio and the island's other harbours. The town occupies the tip of a headland on the Tuscan coast, with the old centre overlooking the sea from Piazza Bovio, and the municipality also includes the Gulf of Baratti and the Etruscan village of Populonia.

For more than a century Piombino grew around steelmaking. The blast furnace has been cold for years and the future of the plant is still under discussion, while the industrial land is part of a national remediation site. For buyers, distance from the industrial zone and the commercial port matters, and it varies a lot between the old workers' districts, the centre and the areas towards Baratti and the Cornia valley. A branch railway links the town to Campiglia Marittima and the main Tyrrhenian line.

The population is shrinking and ageing. Istat, the national statistics office, recorded 32,509 residents in 2023, down 5.5% since 2011, with an average age of 50.1 against 48.7 in the province and over-65s at 31.0% against 26.5% for Tuscany. Households are small, 2.02 people on average, and foreign residents make up 11.5%.

In the province of Livorno, 13 municipalities are in seismic zone 4 and 6 in zone 3 on the Civil Protection scale. Piombino is in zone 4, the lowest, with an expected ground acceleration of about 0.045 g. What weighs more here is salt air on balcony and cornice steelwork, the state of the facades and the energy efficiency of blocks built for steelworkers.

The Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate) land registry maps are published and the report goes from the address to the plot. On the Cornia plain and in low-lying areas near the coast, flood hazard should be checked house by house.

Key points

  • Ferry port for Elba, with Populonia and Baratti in the municipality.
  • 32,509 residents, down 5.5% since 2011.
  • Over-65s at 31.0%, above the Tuscan average.
  • Seismic zone 4, expected acceleration about 0.045 g.

Overview

Piombino is a municipality in the province of Livorno, in Toscana. At the end of 2023 it had 32,509 residents, the second most populous in the province.

Earthquakes

For Italy's Civil Protection Department, Piombino is in seismic zone 4, the lowest-risk zone, where strong earthquakes are very rare. Most municipalities in the province (13 of 19) are in the same zone.

In the built-up area, the expected ground shaking (peak ground acceleration, PGA) is about 0.045 g, a low value: the level with a 10% probability of being exceeded in 50 years, on rock.

In zone 4 the risk is low, but for an older building it is still worth asking about the state of the structure.

Population

Compared with the 2011 census, the resident population has fallen by 5.5%. The estimated average age is 50 years, in line with the province. 31% of residents are over 65 (the regional figure is 26%). Foreign residents make up 11.5% of the population. On average, a household has 2.0 members.

Income and climate

In tax year 2024, taxpayers in Piombino declared an average taxable income of 22,748 euros, below the provincial average (24,772 euros). The Italian average is 24,895 euros.

Piombino is in climate zone C, with 1,245 heating degree days: heating may be switched on from 15 November to 31 March, for up to 10 hours a day. The same table puts the town hall at 21 metres above sea level.

Services

In the official Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health lists, Piombino has 24 schools and 12 pharmacies. The Overture Maps data also lists 30 grocery shops and supermarkets, 33 healthcare facilities, 37 sports facilities and 14 parks and green areas.

There are 0.9 grocery shops and supermarkets per 1,000 residents, more than the province average (0.6).

Public transport

We do not yet have open public transport timetables for this municipality: the report says so explicitly, without inventing distances.

How built-up it is

Buildings, roads, car parks and other sealed surfaces cover 13.0% of the land in Piombino, compared with 10.2% in the province and 6.2% in the region. In 2024 built-up land grew by 6.7 hectares.

Radon and contaminated sites

Piombino is not among the radon priority areas designated by the Regione Toscana in 2025. Radon varies from building to building and can only be known by measuring it, especially on ground floors and in basements.

Official databases list 3 contaminated sites, or sites still under investigation, in Piombino, and 7 more have been cleaned up or closed. The report tells you whether one is close to the address.

Landslides and flooding

Landslide and flood hazard changes from one street to the next even within Piombino: the report checks the address against the ISPRA maps.

House prices

The Revenue Agency's price ranges per square metre (OMI) apply to zones, not to whole municipalities: the report gives the range for the address's zone.

Land registry

The cadastral maps for Piombino are public: from the address the report finds the sheet and parcel number.

Liveability area by area

The Vicinalia liveability index runs from 0 to 100 and looks at the place, not the people who live there: services within walking distance, transport, green space, natural hazards, air, quiet, buildings and connection. Here it is worked out at the centre of each of the 224 inhabited census areas in Piombino. Half of the residents live in areas scoring 81 or more.

Residents by band

  • modest 0.5%
  • fair 9.1%
  • good 25.6%
  • very good 62.4%
  • excellent 2.4%

Vicinalia index by census area, licence CC BY-SA 4.0. Data: IdroGEO ISPRA (2026), Istat, INGV, EEA, AGCOM, Overture Maps and OpenStreetMap.

The colour is the value at the centre of the area. For an exact address, search for it above: the free check looks at that exact point. How the index is worked out

Data sources

ISTAT code 049012. The text on this page is generated automatically from the data.