The first of five strong earthquakes hit the region of Calabria on the Italian Peninsula, killing more than 32,000 people over a period of nearly two months.

The 1783 Calabrian earthquakes were a sequence of five strong earthquakes that hit the region of Calabria in southern Italy, the first two of which produced significant tsunamis. The epicenters form a clear alignment extending nearly 100 km from the Straits of Messina to about 18 km SSW of Catanzaro. The epicenter of the first earthquake occurred in the plain of Palmi. The earthquakes occurred over a period of nearly two months, all with estimated magnitudes of 5.9 or greater. Estimates of the total number of deaths lie in the range 32,000 to 50,000.

Calabria is a region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. It has 1,832,147 residents as of 2025 across a total area of 15,222 km² (5,877 sq mi). Catanzaro is the region's capital.

The Italian peninsula, is a peninsula within the Italian geographical region, extending from the southern Alps in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south which comprises much of the country of Italy and the enclaved microstates of San Marino and Vatican City. The peninsula is also known as the Italic Peninsula, Apennine Peninsula, Italian Boot, or Mainland Italy.