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Nicotera, a small town in the Calabria Region in Southern Italy, was the third Italian rural area of the Seven Countries Study (SCS) examined in the fall of 1957 as a pilot study. Because both due to shortage of funds and similarity with the two rural areas of Greece, this study was not followed longitudinally.Nicotera, selected for the quite high olive oil and legumes consumption, is perched on a spot of the Poro Mountain overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea about 60 km north of Reggio Calabria near the toe of Italy. The main farm products were olives, grapes, figs, oranges, tomatoes, pulses, wheat, bergamot for the perfume trade, and for local use, a little meat and poultry. In the hamlet of Nicotera Marina few families were engaged in fishing. There was no manufacturing industry. The population was relatively poor in comparison to the two rural areas of Italy in the SCS, but there was a migration of persons under the age of 40. Besides the main center of Nicotera and the hamlet of Nicotera Marina there were three more detached hamlets: Comerconi, Badia, and Preitoni. The total population of the entire survey area was 9,043 inhabitants at the time of the survey. About 80% of the people lived in the centers and went out daily to work in their small fields often as far as several kilometers away. Both men and women were engaged in moderate physical activity and only men in some cases in rather heavy physical work. Because of its geography (altitude 0-641 m) and road conditions, transportation was mainly by mule. The prevalence of myocardial infarction in men aged 45-64 years was very low (4 cases out of 598 examined in 1957), and hypertension, overweight and obesity were uncommon. Similar findings were observed in the cohort of men from Corfu (Greece) examined in 1960.

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