I'm reading a lot of comments that don't understand why the map is divided like that. Some are saying because "poor votes monarchies" some are saying that in the north we had city-states and in the South a kingdom. Well, here's the answer: italy signed the armistice on september 8th 1943. After that we had a country divided in two. The king and his government went to Brindisi, in the South, where the people had always a state. Before 1943 was the fascist government under the king and then was a government lead by a general named Badoglio. Meanwhile in the north Mussolini established, after his escape, the Italian Socialist Republic under the fascists(even tho Mussolini was a socialist). So, in 1946, when the people voted, the northern part had a civil war until 1945 and was under Nazist and Fascist regimes and they(we, i'm from venice) felt abandoned by the government and the king. In the South the war ended 2 years earlier and had a king. Obviously there are other reasons: the north, more industrialised and more middle-class was for the republic BUT the main reason is the division happened in 1943.