LA, or MAREMME, the name given by the Italians to the marshy regions which stretch along the coast of the Mediterranean, but more particularly applied to those in Tuscany and the States of the Church. This tract of country is extremely unhealthy, especially from midsummer to the autumnal equinox, when it is exceedingly dangerous, and often fatal, to spend a single night in the Maremma; so that the country which was anciently the seat of the most flourishing Etruscan cities, is now almost entirely deserted. The Maremma is divided into several basins by mountain ridges which stretch from the Apennines to the coast. The first basin extends from Lucca to the ridge of Montenero, S. of Leghorn, and stretches about 10 or 12 miles inland. The second basin is smaller in extent than the first, and extends to a few miles S. of the Cecina, where the mountains again approach the sea. This part is called the basin of Cecina. The third basin stretches into the Papal territory, and is bounded on the S. by Mount Cimino, which divides it from the basin of the Tiber. The fourth basin, that of the Lower Tiber, extends as far as the Alban Mount, which separates it from the fifth, that of the Pontine Marshes. Similar plains stretch into the kingdom of Naples, but they are known by the name of Paduli. The Tuscan government have made considerable improvements in the northern part of the Maremma by means of drains and embankments, and parts of the ground have been brought into cultivation.