Messina (, also US: , Italian: [messina] (listen)) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in the city proper and about 650,000 in the Metropolitan City. It is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina and it is an important access terminal to Calabria region, Villa San Giovanni, Reggio Calabria on the mainland. According to Eurostat the FUA of the metropolitan area of Messina has, in 2014, 277,584 inhabitants.

The city's main resources are its seaports (commercial and military shipyards), cruise tourism, commerce, and agriculture (wine production and cultivating lemons, oranges, mandarin oranges, and olives). The city has been a Roman Catholic Archdiocese and Archimandrite seat since 1548 and is home to a locally important international fair. The city has the University of Messina, founded in 1548 by Ignatius of Loyola.

The Kingdom of Sicily (Latin: Regnum Siciliae; Italian: Regno di Sicilia; Sicilian: Regnu di Sicilia) was a state that existed in the south of the Italian peninsula and for a time the region of Ifriqiya from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. The island was divided into three regions: Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto; val being the apocopic form of the word vallo, derived from the Arabic word wilāya (meaning 'district').

In 1282, a revolt against Angevin rule, known as the Sicilian Vespers, threw off Charles of Anjou's rule of the island of Sicily. The Angevins managed to maintain control in the mainland part of the kingdom, which became a separate entity also styled Kingdom of Sicily, although it is commonly referred to as the Kingdom of Naples, after its capital. From 1282 to 1409 the island was ruled by the Spanish Crown of Aragon as an independent kingdom, then it was added permanently to the Crown.After 1302, the island kingdom was sometimes called the Kingdom of Trinacria. In 1816, the island Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In 1861, the Two Sicilies were invaded and conquered by an Expedition Corps (Expedition of the Thousand) led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who later transferred them to the house of Savoy, to form, after a referendum, with the Kingdom of Sardinia itself (i.e. Savoy, Piedmont and Sardinia) and several northern city-states and duchies, the new Kingdom of Italy.