Corleone

▪ Italy

      city, western Sicily, Italy. The name Qurliyūn is found in Arab sources of the 9th century AD; the city was probably an earlier Byzantine foundation. Made a military centre by the Hohenstaufen rulers of Sicily from the 10th century, it later passed under Spanish rule. Corleone took an active part in the anti-Bourbon revolutions of 1820 and 1848 and rallied to Giuseppi Garibaldi in 1861, when Sicily became part of the kingdom of Italy.

      After World War II the city became a centre for organized crime (Mafia) and was plagued by violence. It gained worldwide notoriety in the 1970s following the release of The Godfather movies, which chronicled a fictional Mafia family named Corleone. The Mafia Documentation Center opened in 2000 as a research centre. Corleone is the centre of an agricultural and pastoral area and has food-processing plants. Tourism also is an important part of its economy. Pop. (2006 est.) mun., 11,329.

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