Venice
Venice is the lagoon city of the northern Adriatic: 118 islands joined by canals and bridges inside a crescent-shaped lagoon, once the capital of a maritime republic that dominated the eastern Mediterranean, and today a World Heritage site fighting to stay habitable. This fact file gathers the evidence behind the story: UNESCO’s 1987 inscription and the advisory missions that twice recommended placing the site on the Danger List; the tide records — 194 cm on 4 November 1966 and 187 cm on 12 November 2019; the MOSE system of 78 mobile gates, operational since October 2020 and now raised about 20 times a year; the shifting statistics of residents, visitors and cruise ships; and the scientific record of a lagoon whose salt marshes have shrunk by half since 1927.