Each year the Italian government releases a report of the state of the Italian seaside which classifies areas of the sea according to the quality of the water and their suitability for swimming or not. It also includes some very interesting statistics about the size of the Italian seaside.
Italy is actually the European country with the most beaches, not a suprise considering its boot-like shape and the big islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Italy actually has 33.8% of the European beaches with 4917, while the second one is Greece with 2088, followed by France (1968) and Spain with (1899).
Italy actually adopts more stringent control parameters for defining sea water suitable to swim in so 91.43% of the Italian coast is within the European standards against the average of 88.6% across Europe.
Basilicata, Molise and Emilia have 100% of their beaches in excellent conditions, while Sardinia is at 99.9%, Toscany 99.8%, Marche 98.2%, Sicily 98%, Lazio at 92%. Abruzzo is 97.8% while Campania fares the worst with 80.8%.
Overall out of 5175km of control seaside 4969 are in usable condition.
Here is the complete list:
Suitability of Italian coast for swimming per region
| Region | Length of Coast (km) | Coast Tested (km) | Coast suitable(km) | Coast not suitable(km) | Percentage |
| Liguria | 349.3 | 287.3 | 280.3 | 7 | 97.6% |
| Toscana | 601.1 | 391.8 | 391.2 | 0.6 | 99.8% |
| Lazio | 361.5 | 288.0 | 267.3 | 20.7 | 92.8% |
| Campania | 469.7 | 425.1 | 343.6 | 81.5 | 80.8% |
| Basilicata | 62.2 | 58.3 | 58.3 | 0 | 100% |
| Calabria | 715.7 | 653.6 | 609.6 | 44.1 | 93.3% |
| Puglia | 865 | 711.9 | 697.5 | 14.5 | 98.0% |
| Molise | 35.4 | 34.4 | 34.4 | 0 | 100% |
| Abruzzo | 125.8 | 117.4 | 112.5 | 4.9 | 95.8% |
| Marche | 173 | 151 | 151.8 | 1.2 | 99.2% |
| Emilia Romagna | 131 | 100.4 | 100.4 | 0 | 100% |
| Veneto | 158.9 | 100.9 | 90.6 | 10.6 | 89.8% |
| Friuli G. | 11.7 | 60.9 | 59.5 | 1.4 | 97.7% |
| Sicilia | 1489.9 | 933.8 | 922.9 | 10.9 | 98.8% |
| Sardinia | 1731.1 | 850.4 | 849.4 | 1.1 | 99.9% |
