The town is located at the foot of the Aspromonte, on alluvial quaternary soils, consisting of incoherent sands and gravels that cover the large terraces sloping down towards the Gulf of Gioia. Cittanova dominates the Gioia Tauroplain from the highest terrace, the one bordering the massif of the Serre Calabresi, almost in contact between the two lithological formations: alluvial and crystalline.
This geological conformation favors the propagation of earthquakes, as the incoherence of the alluvial cover is increased during earthquakes by the contiguous and underlying crystalline formation. The territory of Cittanova is crossed by the homonymous fault which is part of the Serre-Aspromonte fault system, 30 kilometers long and still active.[3]
The altitude referring to the town hall building is 400 meters above mean sea level, in the municipal area the minimum altitude reaches 77 m above mean sea level while the maximum reaches 996 meters.[4] The surface is 61.98 km² [5] (about 65% in flat land planted with olive trees and 35% in mountainous wooded land and natural pastures).
The main water courses are the torrents Serra and Vacale.
Main peaks: Melìa plateau (m. 1,000), Zomaro (m. 920) and Mount Cuculo (m. 725).
The climate is Mediterranean. The plain of Gioia, open to the sea but sheltered from the winds, increases the humidity, making the land particularly fertile.
Cittanova (Italian for "New City") was born in 1618, in the wake of the disastrous earthquake of 1616, as the Nuovo Casale di Curtuladi ("New Hamlet of Curtuladi"), then Casalnuovo upgraded to city status as Cittanova.
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