Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies existed from 1816 to 1861, formally created on 8 December 1816 when the Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples under Bourbon rule. Its capital was Palermo from 1816 to 1817 and then Naples, and it was governed by the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the Bourbon dynasty. Covering southern Italy and Sicily across roughly 111,900 square kilometers by 1860, it was the largest sovereign state by population and land area in Italy before Italian unification, holding about 36 percent of Italy's population around 1850, and its capital Naples was Europe's third-largest city and Italy's largest. The kingdom fell in 1860 and 1861 when Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand conquered its territory; King Francis II abdicated in February 1861 after the Siege of Gaeta, a plebiscite approved annexation by the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed that March, completing the first phase of Italian unification.