Until the mid-19th century, the great majority of Waldensians lived in the Waldensian Valleys in Torre Pellice and the surrounding villages.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, some Waldensians moved from the Valleys to nearby Turin (which at that time was the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia—which included Piedmont), and Liguria, where they started a Waldensian congregation.
Also, during the 1800s, other Waldensians moved to Rome where, between 1870 and 1920, they founded three congregations. In the course of the nineteenth century, some Swiss Protestants came to southern Italy where they joined a Waldensian Church.
After World War II, many Southern Italians, including many Waldensians who lived in the south of Italy, were forced by a lack of jobs to migrate to the north of Italy as well as to other countries, including Uruguay, Argentina, and the United States.
Even as late as the 1960s, Italians were still leaving southern Italy for Germany and Switzerland. In Geneva, Switzerland, eighty percent of the members of a small Waldensian congregation had come from a Baptist church in Puglia on the Adriatic coast in southern Italy.