All things you need to know about living in Melpignano
Melpignano, in the province of Lecce, is home to 1 Austrians: 0.05% of its 2,070 residents.
That is the 400th-highest concentration of Austrians among the 5,872 Italian comuni with at least 1,000 residents.
Within Puglia it ranks 3rd.
ISTAT counts 36 residents with a foreign citizenship in Melpignano, 1.74% of the population. The largest groups among the nationalities we follow most closely are Austrians (1), Germans (1), French nationals (1).
That puts Melpignano in the bottom ten percent of Italian comuni for foreign residents. Anyone moving here should expect to be unusual.
Melpignano qualifies for the 7% pensioner regime.
On ISTAT's well-being measures, the province of Lecce scores in the top quarter of Italian provinces for intentional homicide rate and hospital beds in high-care wards.
It scores in the bottom quarter for urban green and overall Fixed Very High Capacity Network (VHCN) coverage.
These figures describe the province, not the town. A comune can sit some way from its province's average.
Summers average a high of 31.7°C (89°F) and winters a low of 8.0°C (46°F), measured over 2015 to 2024.
Melpignano sees about 60 days a year above 30°C (86°F).
It gets about 654mm of rain a year, spread across roughly 90 days.
These come from ERA5-Land reanalysis at the comune itself, not from the nearest weather station.
Melpignano population over time
By nationality
| Nationality | Citizens | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Romania | 4 | 0.19% |
| Albania | 3 | 0.14% |
| Ukraine | 2 | 0.10% |
| Austria | 1 | 0.05% |
| Germany | 1 | 0.05% |
| France | 1 | 0.05% |
| Portugal | 1 | 0.05% |
| Argentina | 0 | 0.00% |
| Australia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Belgium | 0 | 0.00% |
| Bulgaria | 0 | 0.00% |
| Brazil | 0 | 0.00% |
| Canada | 0 | 0.00% |
| Switzerland | 0 | 0.00% |
| Cyprus | 0 | 0.00% |
| Czechia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Denmark | 0 | 0.00% |
| Estonia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Spain | 0 | 0.00% |
| Finland | 0 | 0.00% |
| United Kingdom | 0 | 0.00% |
| Greece | 0 | 0.00% |
| Croatia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Hungary | 0 | 0.00% |
| Ireland | 0 | 0.00% |
| Japan | 0 | 0.00% |
| South Korea | 0 | 0.00% |
| Lithuania | 0 | 0.00% |
| Luxembourg | 0 | 0.00% |
| Latvia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Malta | 0 | 0.00% |
| Mexico | 0 | 0.00% |
| Netherlands | 0 | 0.00% |
| Norway | 0 | 0.00% |
| Poland | 0 | 0.00% |
| Russia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Sweden | 0 | 0.00% |
| Slovenia | 0 | 0.00% |
| Slovakia | 0 | 0.00% |
| United States | 0 | 0.00% |
| Venezuela | 0 | 0.00% |
Country of birth
| Group | Residents | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Born in Italy | 1,864 | 90.05% |
| Born elsewhere in the EU | 28 | 1.35% |
| Born outside the EU | 178 | 8.60% |
Austrians over time
Quality of life in Lecce
Full BES profile for Lecce →Lecce on cost vs quality of life (province-level) →
Tax regimes
Melpignano qualifies for the 7% pensioner regime. Comfortably below the 30,000-resident ceiling.
Qualifying is about the town. Whether it applies to you depends on criteria no map can check — where you were tax-resident before, and where your income comes from.
How the 7% pensioner regime works, and every qualifying comune →Property prices
Buying in Melpignano is well below the Lecce average of €739/m². Based on a single OMI micro-zone, so it describes the town as one market.
20.6 years of rent here equal the purchase price, close to the national median of 22.2 years.
A ratio between two OMI prices, not a return on investment. It leaves out purchase taxes, IMU, maintenance, financing and the months a place sits empty — all of which push the real figure up. Useful for the question it does answer: whether this town looks expensive to buy relative to what renting in it costs.
A detached house here averages €614/m², against €568 for an apartment.
Compared street for street — houses and flats priced in the same neighborhood — a house costs 25% more per square meter.
OMI prices “Ville e Villini” separately from the apartments every other figure on this page describes. Nationally a house costs about 14% more per square meter, but in 450 comuni it costs less — worth checking rather than assuming.
Seismic zone
Melpignano is in seismic zone 4. Of the four zones, zone 1 is the highest hazard and zone 4 the lowest. The Department of Civil Protection describes zone 4 as the lowest-hazard zone, where a strong earthquake is very unlikely.
This is the legal classification the Region gave the comune, used for planning and for control of building works. It is not a forecast, and it says nothing about the building you are looking at: since the 2018 building code the design load of a new building comes from site-specific hazard, not from the zone. Have any specific property checked by a qualified engineer.
Not to be confused with the “seismic” routes of the 7% pensioner regime. Those turn on whether the comune was in the 2009 L’Aquila or 2016–17 central-Italy earthquake areas, not on its zone, and being in zone 1 does not make anyone eligible for that regime, or for any tax treatment.
See every comune on the map →Hospital, airport and daily-needs distance
Nearest hospital: Ospedale Scorrano, about 10.2 km / 9 minutes by road from Melpignano (the main town).
Nearest emergency department: Ospedale Scorrano (DEA level I), about 10.2 km / 9 minutes by road from Melpignano (the main town).
Nearest airport: Brindisi Airport (BDS), about 76.4 km / 52 minutes by road from Melpignano (the main town).
Nearest supermarket (OpenStreetMap): A&O, about 0.3 km / 1 minute by road from Melpignano (the main town).
Nearest pharmacy: Farmacia Vergine Verardi Dr. Pietro Antonio, about 3.3 km / 4 minutes by road from Melpignano (the main town).
Nearest railway station (OpenStreetMap): Melpignano, about 2 km / 3 minutes by road from Melpignano (the main town).
Measured by road from the main town of the comune (its OpenStreetMap place point; the geographic center for the few comuni with none), at free-flow speeds with no traffic. It is approximate. For Melpignano, a trip from your own address can take longer or shorter. Drive the route before you rely on it, and ask the local health authority which hospital serves the town. Shops, pharmacies and stations are the nearest to the main town, not to your address.
Nearby comuni
← See Melpignano on the interactive map
This page, as data
Every figure above sits behind the page as a value with its source, its date and its coverage attached. Your assistant reads the same record, gaps included.