South Italy (Italian: Italia meridionale or just Sud Italia) is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a first level NUTS region and a European Parliament constituency. South Italy encompasses six of the country’s 20 regions:
South Italy is defined only for statistical and electoral purposes. It should not be confused with the Mezzogiorno, which generally refers to all the southern half of the Italian State, including the island of Sicily and sometimes even Sardinia. The two islands form a distinct statistical region, called Insular Italy.