‘World’s biggest’ Xmas tree lights up Italian town

Hundreds of onlookers, many of them delighted children, watched as a priest used a tablet computer to switch on the dazzling display on a hill above the town of Gubbio in the Umbria region.

The "tree" is made up of some 1,000 multi-coloured lights arranged across a hillside above Gubbio and stretches to a height of 750 metres (2,461 feet) and a maximum width of 450 metres.

The shooting star at the top of the hill is made up of 250 lights and covers an area of more than 1,000 square metres (10,760 square feet).

The town in the Umbria region in northern Italy, which also has historical links to Saint Francis of Assisi, began the installation in 1981.