Matera, Basilicata has a population of 60,000 and was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status in December 1993 for its twin cave districts, the Sassi, and its rupestrian churches cut into the far wall of the Gravina.

Two flanking ravines, called grabiglioni , split the hillside into two distinct zones; Sasso Barisano to the north and Sasso Caveoso to the south, with the high ground of the Civita, wedged between them at 1,316ft above sea level, carrying the cathedral and the admninistrative zone.

The Sassi - the cave districts that today define the city's identity - were decalred unfit for habitation at the turn of the twentieth century, and between 1952 and the 1970's the Italian government forcibly relocated all their residents to new housing on the Piano, the flat western extension of the city.A law passed in 1986 reversed that policy and opened the Sassi to restoration and reoccupation.