The Gran Sasso National Laboratory is the largest underground laboratory in the world for experiments in particle physics, particle astrophysics and nuclear astrophysics.

The underground facilities are located on a side of the 10 km. long freeway tunnel crossing the Gran Sasso Mountain. They consist of three large experimental halls, each about 100 m long, 20 m wide and 18 m high and service tunnels, for a total volume of about 180,000 cubic metres.

The average 1400 m rock coverage gives a reduction factor of one million in the cosmic ray flux; moreover, the neutron flux is thousand times less than on the surface, thanks to the smallness of the Uranium and Thorium content of the dolomite rocks of the mountain.

The mission of the Laboratory is to host experiments that require a low background environment in the field of astroparticle physics and nuclear astrophysics and other disciplines that can profit of its characteristics and of its infrastructures.