Murge are the prevailing element in the central landscape of Apulia. The plateau itself is not very high (66 m in height) and slopes down towards the Adriatic sea forming vast terraces cultivated with orchards and olive groves in the lower rows and pasture and wavy expanses of wheat in the upper ones.

On the side opposite to the sea the plateau, full of wrinkles and caves and sinks and furrows as are all the calcareous soils of karstic type, brusquely descends into the so-called Fossa Premurgiana, a corrugated or flat strip of land settled between the big rocks of Murge and the ramifications of Apennine.

While going along the coast we notice a particularity: to the lively coastal little towns corresponds a parallel allignement of big agricultural villages settled on the first steps of Murge, about 10 or 15 km inland, between a double row of built-up areas facing each others: Giovinazzo and Bitonto, Molfetta and Terlizzi, Bisceglie and Corato, Trani and Andria, Barletta and the farthest Canosa.