Meda, Lombardy
Meda is a town in Lombardy, northern Italy, near Milan and Como. It’s in the province of Monza and Brianza and covers about 8.3 square kilometers. About 23,000 people live there. Meda is known for furniture making and has its own railway station.
The name Meda comes from a mound (the Latin word meta). A local legend says Saints Aimo and Vermund, two counts from Turbigo, were saved from two wild boars while hunting and vowed to build a convent there. The convent was founded around the year 780 near a small church dedicated to St. Vittore. To resist the convent’s control, the people built another church dedicated to St. Mary and St. Sebastian. In 1252, the prioress Maria da Besozzo gave up her political power in the village.
Over the centuries Meda was ruled by the Visconti and Sforza families, then by Spain, Napoleon, and the Habsburgs, before becoming part of the Kingdom of Italy after the wars of independence.
The area near Meda is also known for the Seveso disaster of 1976, when the ICMESA chemical plant released a cloud of dioxin that affected nearby towns.
Meda was proudly named a city on September 4, 1998.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 04:56 (CET).