 Italy is a country which is an underappreciated master of rail transit, and the country's largest and most used metro system is in Milan. The Milan metro of today is itself rather unassuming, with just under 100 kilometers of track and a little more than 100 stations. But how those stations and track came to be was absolutely groundbreaking in a lot of ways, and the system of today is modern and high-frequency, and it connects well with Milan's extensive other transit systems. So let's dive in and see what makes things tick. If you enjoy this video, make sure to check out our other explainers on cities around the world. Milan is Italy's second largest city, and is located in northern Italy in the foothills of the Alps, roughly 200 kilometers south of Zurich and 300 kilometers east of Lyon. While Rome does have a higher urban population than Milan, the great urban region around the country's northern business capital is substantially larger, and actually one of the largest urban areas in Europe. Milan is also probably going to be in the news a lot in the future, thanks in part to the booming northern Italian economy, but also because Milan is hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics alongside Cortina. Now let's take a look at some of the key destinations in the city. Milan Central is the city's beautiful historic rail terminus, and is the modern-day intercity and regional rail hub serving high-speed services to other parts of Italy, as well as international trains to Switzerland. A short distance to the west of Central is Portugera Balti Station, the city's second most used station, and the largest hub for suburban rail services. To the southwest of Garibaldi, not far from the city's historic center at the Duomo, is Cadorna, another major central suburban rail terminus. The last major station I'll mention is Rogoledo, which is both a suburban and intercity rail hub to the south of the city, served by all manner of trains from high-speed to suburban. I always mention airports when orienting us around cities because they tend to be easily identifiable on a map, but none of Milan's three main airports are massive global hubs, and so they can easily be missed. Linate Airport is quite close to the urban core, while the main international airport of the city, Milan-Malpenza, is roughly 40km to the northwest, but unlike Linate, features a rail link. To the west of the city's center is the Arena San Siro Stadium, where Milan's two rival football clubs, AC Milan and Inter Milan play. As mentioned before, the historic core of Milan centers around the Duomo, with major sites like the Italian Stock Exchange nearby. As it turns out, Milan's tram network, which is actually gigantic, is roughly centered on the Duomo. The tram routes are generally highly radial, extending into the suburbs in fast alignments and serving important destinations like San Siro Stadium. That being said, there is a looping route made up of trams 9 and 10. Throughout the city, lines do sometimes feature dedicated right-of-ways, and as with systems such as Toronto and Amsterdam, the trams are unidirectional, with doors on only one side, and using turning loops to change directions. The trams also feature a unique, slightly larger-than-standard gauge. There's of course a more modern city center, which roughly lies between Porta Curibaldi and Milan Central, which is host to numerous skyscrapers, including Milan's tallest building and the vertical forest tower, as well as an enormous park. This area is served by the trams as you would expect, but is also served by the impressive city-center S-Train tunnel that was completed in the 2000s. This tunnel has a total of six major underground stations in central Milan that enable a handful of suburban train services, usually double-decker trains operating with 3,000 volt DC overhead lines, to pass through the city center, typically every 30 minutes per line. Thus, given the six lines running through the S-Train tunnel, frequencies are typically around every five minutes. Porta Curibaldi also has an underground station on the line, while Rogo Rado is connected to it above ground. Now, you're probably wondering why you don't hear more about the Milan Metro when compared to other systems in Europe, and that has a large amount to do with its opening only starting in the 1960s, and its relatively modest scale. But these things also make the network quite interesting. Let's take a look at the lines, which, like many systems, can be broadly categorized into two divisions, with larger and smaller trains. The first line of the system to open M1 has 38 stations on 27 kilometer entirely underground alignment. The line runs from the northeast and features connections to Venezia on the S-Train tunnel, before turning north to pass by the Duomo and serve Cadorna station, before branching in the west, with one leg running to the southwest and another to the northwest. M1 is the most used line on the system, with roughly half a million daily riders. M2 opened only a few years after M1 in 1969, and now has 35 stations on 39 kilometers of track with two western branches and two eastern branches. M2 is unique within the system, as the southern and eastern branches run on the surface, with the eastern one being a converted interurban railway, a remnant of Milan's storied history with trams. At the same time, the line's north-eastern branches elevated, the only such case on the system. M2 reminds me a lot of line 4 in Paris, as it connects a number of major stations, such as Central, Giribaldi, and Cadorna, where an interchange is available with M1. It also connects to M1 at Loretto. M3 opened in 1990, and has 21 stations over 17 kilometers of track and is entirely underground. The line runs from north to south, with it connecting to M2 at Central, the rail link at Republica, and M1 at the Duomo, maintaining the site's legacy as a major transportation hub. The line also connects to several mainline rail services at Rogueredo. M1, M2, and M3 all use the same rolling stock standards, with six-car, just over 100 meter long trains that are quite wide by European standards at 2.8 meters. So, while Milan was late to building its metro, it compensated with high capacity lines. Line 1 uses 750 volt DC third rail, and sometimes center-mounted fourth rail, while M2 and M3 use 1500 volt DC overhead power. The rolling stock is intercompatible, and the lines are all connected in the city center, allowing equipment to move between them when necessary. M5 is the newest line on the system, having opened in 2013. It has 13 kilometers of track with 19 stations and is entirely underground. The line runs from the northeast, north of the M1, to Zara, where it connects to the M3, and then further south to Porta Garibaldi, where it connects to M2. From here, the line takes to the west, serving the major new city life mixed-use district on the periphery of the historic city center, before connecting to M1 at Lotto, and running due west to terminate near the AC Milan stadium. Now, what's interesting is that M5 uses the Hitachi Rail Italy driverless Metro tech, with its diminutive 50 meter long, narrow trains that are smaller than 50% of the size of trains used on the first three lines, and which are also used in Taipei, Copenhagen, and Rome. As within Copenhagen, this comes with platform screen doors at every station, and very frequent trains. Now, with today's network out of the way, Milan actually has quite a few exciting plans for expanding its network that we'll take a look at next. For starters, LINE was being extended in both directions, with the two station extension into Monza in the northeast, and a three station extension to the west, southwest as well. LINE 5 is getting a major northern extension, 12 stops to the north, also into Monza, creating another interchange point with LINE 1. The city is also finally adding a LINE 4, which is a massive project currently under construction and set to start opening later this year. The line will also use the Hitachi Rail Italy driverless Metro Deck and will connect from Linate Airport over to the tail on the S-Trade Tunnel before connecting to San Bablia, LINE 1, and Sant'Ambrosio, LINE 2, and then terminate in the southwest. This will add Metro coverage to a number of areas which do not currently have it. On top of all of this, there are also planned extensions to M2 as well as M3, easily making the Milan Metro one of the fastest growing in Europe at the moment. Now, perhaps the most unique feature of the Milan Metro is something you might not immediately notice if you visit Milan, but is incredibly important the way it was built. Italy is famous for tunneling and a visit to the country is often filled with tunnels, especially in mountainous areas where famous rail and road tunnels such as the nearly 20 kilometer Apennine base tunnel which was built all the way back in the 1930s can be found. There are many famous forms of tunneling named after different locales where they originated and one of those is the Milan method. Construction method that uses slurry walls to create a tunnel sidewall before completing cut and cover construction, which itself can be completed under a deck. Creating a wall like this enables cut and cover to occur in very narrow locations and the technique originated with the construction of M1. An interesting feature of the construction of M3 is that the tunneling section through the historic parts of Milan was first done using tiny tunnel boring machines, which you sometimes see being used for things like sewers. One unique feature of M5 is that the line is entirely underground, including its depots, which are really more like a series of light maintenance and storage tracks as well as an operations facility located at the Termini of the line. An underground connection to the M2 line enables trains to be towed to an existing depot to enable heavy maintenance to occur there, negating the need for such a facility on M5 itself. That said, with the substantial extension of M5 to Monza and the desire for a larger train fleet, this line will be getting a dedicated yard space in the future. With these unique construction methods often enable beyond just being able to build more underground metros in incredibly challenging locations is huge cost savings. Despite featuring the most modern amenities, line five was built for just over $2 billion. Now I rave about the candle line in Vancouver for its high quality and cost effective nature, something which multiple Italian firms actually played a hand in. But by comparison, Milan's M5 at a similar price is entirely underground, features platform screen doors and has larger stations. I also have to give credit to Milan for its interesting Leonardo trains, which were built to the heavier standard and feature fully walkthrough carriages with rather wacky wavy bench seating as well as nice internal LCD screens and a very unique front fascia and angular car design that looks as if it had its corner shaved off. So that's the Milan Metro and Milan more broadly. Honestly, an excellent transit city and one that like other European cities such as Paris wonderfully balances different modes with the high speed S trains to get across the region trams to get from neighborhood to neighborhood and the metro taking you throughout the city fast and frequently. Thanks for watching.