The history of Corsica goes back to antiquity, and was known to Herodotus, who described Phoenician habitation in the 6th century BC. Etruscans and Carthaginians expelled the Ionian Greeks, and remained until the Romans arrived during the Punic Wars in 237 BC. Vandals occupied it in 430 AD, followed by the Byzantine Empire a century later.
Raided by various Germanic and other groups for two centuries, it was conquered in 774 by Charlemagne under the Holy Roman Empire, which fought for control against the Saracens. After a period of feudal anarchy, the island was transferred to the papacy, then to city states Pisa and Genoa, which retained control over it for five centuries, until the establishment of the Corsican Republic in 1755. The French gained control in the 1768 Treaty of Versailles. Corsica was briefly independent as a Kingdom in union with Great Britain after the French Revolution in 1789, with a viceroy and elected Parliament, but returned to French rule in 1796.
Corsica strongly supported the allies in World War I, caring for wounded, and housing POWs. The poilus fought loyally and suffered great casualties. A recession after the war prompted a mass exodus to southern France. Wealthy Corsicans became colonizers in Algeria and Indochina.
After the Fall of France in 1940, Corsica was part of the southern zone libre of the Vichy regime. Fascist leader Benito Mussolini agitated for Italian control, supported by Corsican irredentists. In 1942, Italy occupied Corsica with a huge force. German forces took over in 1943 after the Allied armistice with Italy. The Germans faced opposition from the French Resistance, retreating and evacuating the island by October 1943. Corsica then became an Allied air base, supporting the Mediterranean Theater in 1944, and the invasion of southern France in August 1944. Since the war, Corsica has developed a thriving tourism industry, and has been known for its independence movements, sometimes violent.
Geography Corsica's strategic position in the western Mediterranean has significantly influenced its history. The island lies approximately 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) north of Sardinia, separated by the Strait of Bonifacio. It is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the Isle of Elba, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the coast of Tuscany, and approximately 170 kilometers (105 miles) from the French port of Nice.
Covering an area of 8,722 square kilometers (3,368 square miles), Corsica is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, following Sicily, Sardinia, and Cyprus.The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Corsica". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Mar. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/place/Corsica. Accessed 30 April 2025
Prehistory
The prehistory of Corsica covers the long period from the Upper Paleolithic to the first historical event, the founding of Aléria by the ancient Greeks in 566 BC.
During the Ice Ages, the average level of the Mediterranean Sea dropped and several natural bridges were created that allowed the passage of fauna from the Italian mainland to the Sardinian-Corsican archipelago, passing through the islands of the Tuscan archipelago and crossing at most a narrow stretch of sea. Around 12-14 000 years ago, the climate began the evolution that led it to its present form, and Corsica, detached from the Tyrrhenian Sea, assumed its present-day island configuration. In the 19th century BC, the hypothesis was developed that man may also have populated these lands by reaching them on foot when it was not yet completely an island; This thesis of Docteur Mattei was taken up by Count Colonna de Cesari Rocca, who noted how, at the time of his writing, anthropologists Obedenare su Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris were becoming interested in the curious behavioural similarities between the characters of certain types of Corsican and Albanian people.Pierre Paul Raoul Colonna de Cesari-Rocca, Histoire de la Corse, Boyle, 1890 https://www.archive.org/download/histoiredelacors00colouoft/histoiredelacors00colouoft.pdf
The first deposits of chipped stones and sculptural sketches found so far in Corsica, in the region of Porto-Vecchio, date back to around 9000 BC (Romanellian). A female skeleton (la dame de Bonifacio) was found near the town of the same place.Collectivité territoriale de Corse, L'abri sous roche d'Araguina Sennolahttps://www.corsicatheque.com/Histoire/Prehistoire/Dame-de-Bonifacio
The Early Neolithic is represented in Corsica by finds of cardinal pottery and imported obsidian. The major influences seem to come from both Tuscany and Sardinia.
In later phases, an important megalithic civilisation developed in Corsica, which left on the island dolmens (stazzòne, found near Cauria and Pagliagio), menhirs (stantare) and the original statues-menhirs, concentrated mainly in the south, at the site of Filitosa and that of Funtanaccia, near Sartene, but also present in the north, near San Fiorenzo. The site of Filitosa - a UNESCO World Heritage Site - is located near Sollacaro, towards the sea outlet of the Taravo Valley). According to the archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu, in the second half of the 4th millennium B.C., Corsica was invested by a cultural current called the Culture of Arzachena, also known as the Corsican-Gallurese cultural facies, secondary to the cultural complex known as the Culture of Ozieri and extended over the whole of Sardinia.Giovanni Lilliu e AA.VV, Prima dei Nuraghi - La società in Sardegna nei secoli - pp.14 e 15, Torino, Eri - Edizioni RAI, 1977.
The Corsican-Gallurese facies mainly affected the whole of Gallura with expansion beyond the Straits of Bonifacio into southern Corsica. According to G. Lilliu, this facies showed a society with an aristocratic and individualistic background, and was clearly distinguished from the predominant facies of Ozieri, which tended to be democratic and had clear influences from the eastern Mediterranean. The pastoral, aristocratic facies of Arzachena and the democratic agricultural culture of Ozieri constituted the most important sociological component of the pre-Nuragic Sardinian populations.Giovanni Lilliu e AA.VV, Prima dei Nuraghi - La società in Sardegna nei secoli - pp.14 e 15, Torino, Eri - Edizioni RAI, 1977.
The Corsican Eneolithic is characterised by the Torrean civilization, which takes its name from the site of Terrina, on the central-eastern coast, where techniques related to copper metallurgy were widespread. In the Early Bronze Age, northern influences from the Polada culture are recorded on the island, as well as in Sardinia.Kewin Peche-Quilichini, Périodisation des vaisselles de l'âge du Bronze de Corse : évolution morphologique et culturelle
In this phase, the Torrean civilisation developed in the south. Numerous megalithic towers with a structure similar to that of the "Sardinian nuraghi" remain today from this culture. Due to the nature of the finds, their age and location, scholars have ascertained that this civilisation was an extension of the coeval civilisation that developed in Sardinia. According to an invasionist theory, mainly developed by Grosjean in the 1970s, the Torreani (whom the author makes out to be the ancient sea people of the Sherden) got the better of the megalithic people and drove them towards the centre and north of the island. However, this theory is no longer accepted by most scholars who see the Torreani as the evolution of the local Neoeneolithic communities. It was in this period that the people that the Greeks would call "Κὁρυιοι, Còrsi", also attested in Gallura and perhaps of Ligurian ancestry, as toponyms such as Asco and Venzolasca, with the typical suffix in ‘-asco’, would seem to suggest.
Classical antiquity
Name The ancient Greeks, notably Herodotus, called the island Kurnos or Kyrnos (from kur or kyr meaning cape); the name Corsica is Latin and was in use in the Roman Republic.
Why Herodotus used Kyrnos and not some other name remains a mystery, and the phrases of the authors give no clue. The Roman historians, however, believed Corsa or Corsica (rightly or wrongly they interpreted -ica as an adjectival formative ending) was the native name of the island, but they could not give an explanation of its meaning. They did think that the natives were originally Ligures. Downloadable Google Books.
Iron Age and ancient history
Greek and Etruscan period Beginning on the island around the 8th century BC, the Iron Age ended with Corsica's entry into history when the colony of Alalia was founded by Ionian Greek colonists, the Phocians of Marseille, in 565 or 562 BC, near the site of the present-day town of Aleria. The Greeks called the island first Kalliste and later Cyrnos, Cernealis, Corsis and Cirné. Herodotus spoke of the Phocaeans, thus leaving the first documentary trace of the island, and narrated that after the foundation of Alalia other Phocaeans reached the island to escape the risk of being enslaved by the Persians.
In 535 B.C., following the battle of the Sardinian sea, they in turn were driven out by an Etruscan-Carthaginian coalition formed on the basis of a pact that had been drawn up for the purpose and which, after the conflict, provided for the division of the two islands over which influence had been won: Sardinia to the Carthaginians, Corsica to the Etruscans. In fact, according to Herodotus, the Phocians had won, but it was a Cadmean victory, since of the 60 ships employed (half the total armament of the opposing fleets) 40 were sunk and the remainder rendered unserviceable. The Phocaeans then left Corsica and the Carthaginians and Etruscans were thus able to implement the partition pact equally. The Etruscans therefore resumed that control over the eastern shores of the island that they had previously consolidated with the activity of the warships of Pisa, Volterra, Populonia, Tarquinia and Cere.Diod. V 13, 4 Their presence is attributed to the toponym Tarco on the south-eastern coast, which recalls the city of Tarquinia.This was followed by the incursions of the Siceliots from Syracuse, who founded a legendary Portus Syracusanus in the 5th century B.C., and again by the Carthaginians (4th century B.C.). The Syracusans first made a move towards the island under the command of Apello in 453 BC,Diod. XI 88, 5 but it was in 384 BC, under Dionysius I, that they launched their most important attack, since it was aimed not only at Corsica but also at the island of Elba and the Tuscan coast. The Portus Syracusanus has been classically identified at the site of today's Porto Vecchio, however there are several scholars from different periods who refute this thesis, arguing that it may have been in the Gulf of Santa Amanza,Thus according to Philipp Clüver (Sardinia et Corsica Antiqua, 1619) and Xavier Poli (La Corse dans l'antiquité, Paris, 1907) or in Bonifacio.Thus, among others, according to the Corsican historian Antonio Filippini (Istoria di Corsica, 1827)
Roman era
Corsica came under Roman control in 238 BC, during the First Punic War, when Rome annexed both Corsica and Sardinia from Carthage, exploiting Carthage's internal struggles during the Mercenary War. The islands were officially organized into the Roman province of Sardinia et Corsica in 227 BC, marking one of Rome's earliest overseas provincial establishments.Bechert: Die Provinzen des römischen Reiches, p. 61. The Roman conquest faced significant resistance from the indigenous Corsican tribes, particularly in the island's rugged interior. Rebellions were frequent, with notable uprisings occurring in 231 BC, which was suppressed by Gaius Papirius Maso, who celebrated a triumph on Mons Albanus.Mastino, Attilio (2005). Storia della Sardegna antica, Edizioni Il Maestrale, pp.69–90