The design of more effective policies of flood risk management is a challenge for the entire scientific and institutional communities, in particular in the light of the implications that climate and land use changes can have on floods impacts, especially in urban areas. Here, in fact, different types of floods can coexist, and the availability of historical flood data is crucial for ensuring a proper flood hazard assessment. To this aim it is important to improve the knowledge about locations, occurrences, types and impacts of floods, in order to acquire more information about dynamics and issues that occurred in the past. In this paper we illustrate and discuss the results of a systematic collection of flood events occurred in the period 1950–2020 for the case study of Bari (southern Italy). This city has been hit by significant floods since early ‘900 due to the episodic streams that cross the city, but the characteristics of urban area make also possible the occurrence of pluvial and coastal floods. Results indicated how underpasses were among the most hit locations, together with flat areas of the city, and that events are generally attributable to a pluvial nature. A comparison with a study on risk perception carried out in the same area showed results consistent with our analysis, demonstrating that the integration of these approaches can provide an additional contribution to research aimed in providing more effective strategies for copying with flood risk in urban areas.