Friuli's mountain villages are emptying while the towns around Udine grow

The mountain area follows the Italian statistics office's definition of inland mountain terrain: 58 towns, from Carnia and Tarvisio to the Natisone valleys and Val Cellina. The ring around Udine is our own definition: the 18 towns within twenty minutes' drive of the city centre, without traffic, Udine itself excluded.

Since 2001 the mountains have dropped from 73,095 to 59,366 residents and the ring has risen from 97,128 to 104,546. The region overall has barely moved, yet 141 towns have lost people, 38 of them a fifth or more.

The palest dots, the heaviest losses, trace the whole Alpine and pre-Alpine arc; the darkest sit in the plain around Pordenone and near Udine and Monfalcone.

The Natisone valleys on the Slovenian border head the list: Drenchia had 197 residents in 2001, has lost more than half of them, and its average age is 64.7. Carnia and the Canal del Ferro follow. Newcomers do arrive: in 2024, 31 of the 58 mountain towns gained more residents from the rest of Italy than they lost, and arrivals from abroad outnumbered departures by 168. But deaths exceeded births by 590.

The growing towns lie in the plain near Pordenone and Udine, where the city and its hospital are minutes away: from Tavagnacco the nearest round-the-clock A&E is 7 min by car, from Drenchia 57 min.

Homes cost less in the mountains: at OMI values a standard home is worth a median €650/m², against €790/m² region-wide, and €100,000 buys a median 155 m². The discount has a flip side:

• 7 mountain towns have no pharmacy;
• 23 have no primary school;
• the nearest A&E open day and night takes a median 28 min by car, against 18 min across the region.

That does not rule the mountains out. Tolmezzo, the main town of Carnia, has a hospital, schools and pharmacies and has lost far fewer people. But the village matters as much as the house; drive times to hospital are covered in hospitals and A&E.

In 2011, 47% of mountain homes had no resident, and in 30 mountain towns unoccupied homes outnumbered occupied ones. Many are second or holiday homes rather than ruins, but buyers have a choice.

Two regional rules come into play. In towns classed as wholly mountainous, the Region gives a first-home buyer €15,500, against €10,500 elsewhere, for homes up to €200,000 and 120 m², but only to people who have lived in the region for 5 of the last 8 years: it helps the young local family, not the newcomer from elsewhere. And the local property tax, ILIA, reaches 1.06% on homes kept empty and not declared as a second home in 7 mountain towns; Bordano raised it for 2026 precisely to get idle houses used. A house standing empty costs money every year.

• The 2026 figures are ISTAT's provisional count at 31 December 2025; 2001 comes from the census, mapped onto today's town boundaries.
• Figures for homes with no resident come from the 2011 census and count second homes too; the 2021 town-level figures, compiled with a different method, are not yet included here.
• Average age and the births, deaths and moves are for 2024.
• Minutes to A&E: driving time from the town hall, assuming no traffic.
• Pharmacies and schools are counted within town boundaries: the nearest may be in the next village.
• The Udine ring is our own cut-off on drive times without traffic: Mereto di Tomba, just over twenty minutes away, is left out.