Italian Republic Repubblica italiana
Flag Emblem
Anthem: Il Canto degli Italiani   The Song of the Italians
Location of  Italy  (dark green) – in Europe  (green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (green)  —  [Legend]
Capital (and largest city)		Rome 41°54′N 12°29′E / 41.9°N 12.483°E / 41.9; 12.483
Official language(s)		Italian[1]
Demonym		Italian
Government		Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic
-	President	Giorgio Napolitano
-	Prime Minister	Mario Monti
Legislature		Parliament
-	Upper house	Senate of the Republic
-	Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
Formation
-	Unification	17 March 1861
-	Republic	2 June 1946
Area
-	Total	301,338 km2 (71st) 116,346 sq mi
-	Water (%)	2.4
Population
-	2011 estimate	60,681,514[2] (23rd)
-	2011 (preliminary results) census	59,464,644
-	Density	201.2/km2 (61st) 521.2/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$1.847 trillion[3] (10th)
-	Per capita	$30,464[3] (30th)
GDP (nominal)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$2.198 trillion[3] (8th)
-	Per capita	$36,267[3] (24th)
Gini (2006)		32[4]
HDI (2011)		0.874[5] (very high) (24th)
Currency		Euro (€)2 (EUR)
Time zone		CET (UTC+1)
-	Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Drives on the		right
ISO 3166 code		IT
Internet TLD		.it3
Calling code		394
1	French is co-official in the Aosta Valley; Slovene is co-official in the province of Trieste and the province of Gorizia; German and Ladin are co-official in the province of South Tyrol.
2	Before 2002, the Italian Lira. The euro is accepted in Campione d'Italia, but the official currency there is the Swiss Franc.[6]
3	The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.
4	To call Campione d'Italia, it is necessary to use the Swiss code +41.

Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic^[7] or the Republic of Italy^[8] (Italian: Repubblica italiana^{[note 1]}), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.

Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance,^[9] an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.

Through much of its post-Roman history, Italy was fragmented into numerous city and regional states (such as the Republic of Venice and the Church State), but was unified in 1861,^[10] following a tumultuous period in history known as "Il Risorgimento" ("The Resurgence"). In the late 19th century, through World War I, and to World War II, Italy possessed a colonial empire, which extended its rule to Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Albania, the Dodecanese and a concession in Tianjin, China.^[11]

Modern Italy is a democratic republic. It has been ranked as the world's 24th most-developed country^[5] and its Quality-of-life index has been ranked in the world's top ten in 2005.^[12] Italy enjoys a very high standard of living, and has a high GDP per capita.^[13][14] It is a founding member of what is now the European Union and part of the Eurozone. Italy is also a member of the G8, G20 and NATO. It has the world's third-largest gold reserves, eighth-largest nominal GDP, tenth highest GDP (PPP)^[15] and the sixth highest government budget in the world.^[16] It is also a member state of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Council of Europe, the Western European Union and the United Nations. Italy has the world's ninth-largest defence budget and shares NATO's nuclear weapons.

Italy plays a prominent role in European and global military, cultural and diplomatic affairs. The country's European political, social and economic influence make it a major regional power.^[17][18] The country has a high public education level and is a highly globalised nation.^[19]

Etymology[link]

The assumptions on the etymology of the name "Italia" are very numerous and the corpus of the solutions proposed by historians and linguists is very wide.^[20] According to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin: Italia,^[21] was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning "land of young cattle" (cf. Lat vitulus "calf", Umb vitlo "calf").^[22] The bull was a symbol of the southern Italian tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus,^[23] mentioned also by Aristotle^[24] and Thucydides.^[25]

The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy–according to Antiochus of Syracuse, the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula (modern Calabria: province of Reggio, and part of the provinces of Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia). But by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a larger region, but it was during the reign of Emperor Augustus (end of the first century BC) that the term was expanded to cover the entire peninsula until the Alps.^[26]

History[link]

Prehistory and antiquity[link]

The Colosseum in Rome, built ca. 70 – 80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and engineering.

Excavations throughout Italy reveal a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Paleolithic period, some 200,000 years ago,^[27] modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. The Ancient peoples of pre-Roman Italy – such as the Umbrians, the Latins (from which the Romans emerged), Volsci, Samnites, the Celts and the Ligures which inhabited northern Italy, and many others – were Indo-European peoples; the main historic peoples of non-Indo-European heritage include the Etruscans, the Elymians and Sicani in Sicily and the prehistoric Sardinians.

Between the 17th and the 11th century BC Mycenaean Greeks established contacts with Italy^{[28][29][30][31][32][33][34]} and in the 8th and 7th centuries BC Greek colonies were established all along the coast of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula became known as Magna Graecia. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily.

Ancient Rome was at first a small agricultural community founded c. the 8th century BC, that grew over the course of the centuries into a colossal empire encompassing the whole Mediterranean Sea, in which Ancient Greek and Roman cultures merged into one civilization. This civilization was so influential that parts of it survive in modern law, administration, philosophy and arts, forming the ground that Western civilization is based upon. In a slow decline since the late 2th century AD, the empire finally broke into two parts in 395 AD: the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The western part – under the pressure of the Franks, the Vandals, the Huns, the Goths and other populations from Eastern Europe – finally dissolved in 476 AD, when the last western Emperor was deposed by the Barbarian chief Odoacer.

Middle Ages[link]

Italy's Naval Jack, featuring the coats of arms of the four major Maritime Republics. Clockwise from upper left: Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi.

After the fall of Rome, Italy was conquered by the Germanic Tribe of the Ostrogoths, but in the 6th century the East Roman Emperor Justinian reconquered it. The invasion of another Germanic tribe (the Lombards) late in the same century reduced the Byzantine presence to a strip of land between Ravenna and Rome plus other lands in southern Italy, breaking the unity of the peninsula until 1870.

The Lombard reign of northern and central Italy was absorbed into the Frankish Empire by Charlemagne in the late 8th century. The Frankish kings also helped the formation of the Papal States in central Italy, extending from Rome to Ravenna, although for most of the Middle Ages the Papacy effectively controlled only Latium. The existence of this theocratic state hindered for centuries the unification of the peninsula. Until the 13th century, Italian politics were dominated by the relationship between the German Holy Roman Emperors and the popes, with most of the Italian cities siding for the former (Ghibellini) or for the latter (Guelfi) depending from momentary convenience.

It was during this vacuum of authority that the Italy saw the rise of a peculiar institution, the medieval commune. In the anarchic conditions that often prevailed in medieval Italian city-states, people organised themselves to restore order and disarm the feuding elites. In the 12th century, a league of comuni, the Lombard League, defeated the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, leading to a process granting effective independence to most of northern and central Italian cities. Despite the devastation of the numerous wars, Italy maintained, especially in the north and center, a relatively developed urban civilization.

During the same period, Italy saw the rise of numerous Maritime Republics, the most notable being Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi. Heavily involved in the Crusades, they took advantage of political and trading opportunities. Venice and Genoa soon became Europe's main gateways to trade with the East, establishing colonies as far as the Black Sea and often controlling most of the trade with the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Mediterranean world. The county of Savoy expanded its territory into the peninsula in the late Middle Ages, while Florence developed into a highly organized commercial and financial city-state, becoming for many centuries the European capital of silk, wool, banking and jewelry.

In the south, Byzantine Sicily had become an Islamic emirate in the 9th century, thriving until the Italo-Normans conquered it in the late 11th century together with most of the Lombard and Byzantine states of southern Italy. Through a complex series of events, southern Italy developed as a unified kingdom, first under the House of Hohenstaufen, then under the Capetian House of Anjou and, from the 15th century, the house of Aragon (although Sicily was a separate Aragonese kingdom from the late 13th to the 15th century). In Sardinia, the former Byzantine provinces became independent states known as giudicati, although most of the island was under Genoese or Pisan control until the Aragonese conquered it in the 15th century.

Early Modern[link]

The Vitruvian man by Leonardo da Vinci, representing the ideal human proportions as described by Roman architect Vitruvius, is a quintessential masterpiece of the Renaissance.

The Black Death pandemic in 1348 left its mark on Italy by killing one third of the population.^[35][36] However, the recovery from the disaster of the Black Death led to a resurgence of cities, trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phases of Humanism and Renaissance, cultural movements both born in the peninsula, and later spread in Europe.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, Northern and upper Central Italy were divided into a number of warring city-states, the rest of the peninsula being occupied by the larger Papal States and Naples. The strongest among these city-states annexed the surrounding territories giving birth to the Signorie, regional states led by merchant families which founded local dynasties. Dominated by merchant oligarchies, they enjoyed a relative freedom and nurtured academic and artistic advancement. Warfare between the states was common, invasion from outside Italy confined to intermittent sorties of Holy Roman Emperors. These wars were primarily fought by armies of mercenaries known as condottieri, bands of soldiers drawn from around Europe, but especially Germany and Switzerland, led largely by Italian captains.^[37]

Decades of fighting eventually saw Florence, Milan and Venice emerge as the dominant players that agreed to the Peace of Lodi in 1454, which saw relative calm brought to the region for the first time in centuries. This peace would hold for the next forty years, and Venice's unquestioned hegemony over the sea also led to unprecedented peace for much of the rest of the 15th century. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the mid-16th century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and even spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, and the English Renaissance.

In the meantime, the discovery of the Americas, the new routes to Asia discovered by the Portuguese and the rise of the Ottoman Empire—all factors which eroded the traditional Italian dominance in trade with the East – started the economic decline of the peninsula.

The triumph of Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo placed Italy under French control and paved him the way to become Emperor.

Following the Italian Wars (1494 to 1559), Italy saw a long period of relative peace, first under Habsburg Spain (1559 to 1713) and then under Habsburg Austria (1713 to 1796). The plague repeatedly returned to haunt Italy throughout the 14th to 17th centuries. In the first half of the 17th century, a plague claimed some 1.7 million victims, or about 14% of Italy’s population.^[38] As Spain declined in the 17th century, so did its Italian possessions in Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Milan. Southern Italy was impoverished, stagnant, and cut off from the mainstream of events in Europe.^[39] Despite that, Italy kept making its contribution to the European culture, giving birth to the Baroque Style.

In the 18th century, as a result of the War of Spanish Succession, Austria replaced Spain as the dominant foreign power, while the House of Savoy emerged as a major regional power expanding to Piedmont and Sardinia. In this century, the ideas of the Enlightenment influenced the Italian rulers, paving the way to reforms which started an economic recovery in northern Italy and Tuscany.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the northern and central parts of the country were invaded and later partly annexed to the Empire and partly reorganized as a new Kingdom of Italy—essentially a client state of the French Empire —^[40] while the southern half of the peninsula was administered by Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, who was crowned as King of Naples. The 1814 Congress of Vienna restored the situation of the late 18th century, but the ideals of the French Revolution could not be eradicated.

Italian unification and Liberal Italy[link]

The legendary "handshake of Teano" between Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II: on 26 October 1860, General Garibaldi sacrificed republican hopes for the sake of Italian unity under a monarchy.

The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of efforts by Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united state encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. In the context of the 1848 liberal revolutions that swept through Europe, an unsuccessful war was declared on Austria. The Kingdom of Sardinia again attacked the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence of 1859, with the aid of France, resulting in liberating Lombardy.

In 1860–61, Giuseppe Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily,^[41] allowing the Sardinian government led by the Count of Cavour to declare a united Italian kingdom on 17 March 1861. In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II allied with Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War, waging the Third Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to annex Venetia. Finally, as France during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870 abandoned its garrisons in Rome, the Savoy rushed to fill the power gap by taking over the Papal States.

Italian infantrymen in 1916. More than 650,000 Italian soldiers lost their lives on the battlefields of World War I.

The Sardinian Albertine Statute of 1848, extended to the whole Kingdom of Italy in 1861, provided for basic freedoms, but electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. The government of the new kingdom took place in a framework of parliamentary constitutional monarchy dominated by liberal forces. In 1913, male universal suffrage was adopted. As Northern Italy quickly industrialized, the South and rural areas of North remained underdeveloped and overpopulated, forcing millions of people to migrate abroad, while the Italian Socialist Party constantly increased in strength, challenging the traditional liberal and conservative establishment.

Starting from the last two decades of the 19th century, Italy developed into a colonial power by forcing Somalia, Eritrea and later Libya and the Dodecanese under its rule.^[42] During World War I, Italy at first stayed neutral, but in 1915 signed the Treaty of London, entering the Entente on the promise of receiving Trento, Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca, Istria and northern Dalmatia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire—as well as parts of the Ottoman Empire. During the war, more than 650,000 Italian soldiers died,^[43] and the economy collapsed. Under the Peace Treaties of Saint-Germain, Rapallo and Rome, Italy obtained most of the promised territories, including the Hungarian harbour of Fiume, but not Dalmatia (except Zara), allowing nationalists to define the victory as "mutilated".

Fascist regime[link]

The turbulence that followed the devastation of World War I, inspired by the Russian Revolution, led to turmoil and anarchy. The liberal establishment, fearing a socialist revolution, started to endorse the small National Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini. In October 1922 the fascists attempted a coup (the "March on Rome"), supported by king Victor Emmanuel III. Over the next few years, Mussolini banned all political parties and curtailed personal liberties, thus forming a dictatorship.

In 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, resulting in an international alienation and leading to Italy's withdrawal from the League of Nations. Consequently, Italy allied with Nazi Germany and Empire of Japan and strongly supported Franco in the Spanish civil war.

In 1939, Italy occupied Albania, a de facto protectorate for decades, and entered World War II in June 1940 on the side of the Axis powers. Mussolini, wanting a quick victory like Hitler's Blitzkriegs in Poland and France, invaded Greece in October 1940, but was forced to accept a humiliating stalemate after a few months. At the same time, Italy, after initially conquering British Somalia and parts of Egypt, saw an allied counter-attack lead to the loss of all possessions in the Horn of Africa and in North Africa.

Italy was then invaded by the Allies in July 1943, leading to the collapse of the Fascist regime and the fall of Mussolini. In September 1943, Italy surrendered. The country remained a battlefield for the rest of the war, as the allies were moving up from the south as the north was the base for loyalist Italian fascist and German Nazi forces, fought also by the Italian resistance movement. The hostilities ended on 2 May 1945. Nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) died in the conflict,^[44] and the Italian economy had been all but destroyed; per capita income in 1944 was at its lowest point since the beginning of the 20th century.^[45]

Italian Republic[link]

The Constitution of Italy, come into force in 1948.

Italy became a republic after a referendum^[46] held on 2 June 1946, a day celebrated since as Republic Day. This was also the first time that Italian women were entitled to vote.^[47] Victor Emmanuel III's son, Umberto II, was forced to abdicate and exiled. The Republican Constitution was approved on 1 January 1948. Under the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947, the eastern border area was lost to Yugoslavia, and, later, the Free Territory of Trieste was divided between the two states.

Fears in the Italian electorate of a possible Communist takeover proved crucial for the first universal suffrage electoral outcome on 18 April 1948, when the Christian Democrats, under the leadership of Alcide De Gasperi, obtained a landslide victory. Consequently, in 1949 Italy became a member of NATO. The Marshall Plan helped to revive the Italian economy which, until the late 1960s, enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth commonly called the "Economic Miracle". In 1957, Italy was a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC), which became the European Union (EU) in 1993.

The 1957 Treaties of Rome signing ceremony. Italy is a founding member of the European Union.

From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, the country experienced the Years of Lead, a period characterized by economic crisis (especially after the 1973 oil crisis), widespread social conflicts and terrorist massacres carried out by opposing extremist groups, with the alleged involvement of US intelligence.^[48][49][50] The Years of Lead culminated in the assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978, an event that deeply affected the whole country.

In the 1980s, for the first time since 1945, two governments were led by non-Christian-Democrat premiers: one liberal (Giovanni Spadolini) and one socialist (Bettino Craxi); the Christian Democrats remained, however, the main government party. During Craxi's government, the economy recovered and Italy became the world's fifth largest industrial nation, gaining entry into the G7 Group. However, as a result of his spending policies, the Italian national debt skyrocketed during the Craxi era, soon passing 100% of the GDP.

In the early 1990s, Italy faced significant challenges, as voters – disenchanted with political paralysis, massive public debt and the extensive corruption system (known as Tangentopoli) uncovered by the 'Clean Hands' investigation – demanded radical reforms. The scandals involved all major parties, but especially those in the government coalition: the Christian Democrats, who ruled for almost 50 years, underwent a severe crisis and eventually disbanded, splitting up into several factions. The Communists reorganized as a social-democratic force. During the 1990s and the 2000s (decade), centre-right (dominated by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi) and centre-left coalitions alternatively governed the country, which entered a prolonged period of economic stagnation.

Geography[link]

Topographic map of Italy.

Italy is located in Southern Europe and comprises the boot-shaped Italian Peninsula and a number of islands including the two largest, Sicily and Sardinia. It lies between latitudes 35° and 47° N, and longitudes 6° and 19° E.

The country's total area is 301,230 km², of which 294,020 km² is land and 7,210 km² is water. Including the islands, Italy has a coastline and border of 7,600 km on the Adriatic, Ionian, Tyrrhenian seas (740 km), and borders shared with France (488 km), Austria (430 km), Slovenia (232 km) and Switzerland; San Marino (39 km) and Vatican City (3.2 km), both enclaves, account for the remainder.

Mont Blanc is the highest point in Italy and the European Union.

The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone and the Alps form its northern boundary, where Italy's highest point is located on Mont Blanc (4,810 m/15,782 ft).^{[note 2]} The Po, Italy's longest river (652 km/405 mi), flows from the Alps on the western border with France and crosses the Padan plain on its way to the Adriatic Sea. The five largest lakes are, in order of diminishing size:^[51] Garda (367.94 km²/142 sq mi), Maggiore (212.51 km²/82 sq mi, shared with Switzerland), Como (145.9 km²/56 sq mi), Trasimeno (124.29 km²/48 sq mi) and Bolsena (113.55 km²/44 sq mi).

The country is situated at the meeting point of the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate, leading to considerable seismic and volcanic activity. There are 14 volcanoes in Italy, three of which are active: Etna (the traditional site of Vulcan’s smithy), Stromboli and Vesuvius. Vesuvius is the only active volcano in mainland Europe and is most famous for the destruction of Pompeii and Herculanum. Several islands and hills have been created by volcanic activity, and there is still a large active caldera, the Campi Flegrei north-west of Naples.

Although the country comprises the Italian peninsula and most of the southern Alpine basin, some of Italy's territory extends beyond the Alpine basin and some islands are located outside the Eurasian continental shelf. These territories are the comuni of: Livigno, Sexten, Innichen, Toblach (in part), Chiusaforte, Tarvisio, Graun im Vinschgau (in part), which are all part of the Danube's drainage basin, while the Val di Lei constitutes part of the Rhine's basin and the islands of Lampedusa and Lampione are on the African continental shelf.

Environment[link]

Map of national parks in Italy.

After its quick industrial growth, Italy took a long time to confront its environmental problems. After several improvements, it now ranks 84th in the world for ecological sustainability.^[52] National parks cover about five percent of the country.^[53] In the last decade, Italy has become one of the world's leading producers of renewable energy, ranking as the world’s fourth largest holder of installed solar energy capacity^[54][55] and the sixth largest holder of wind power capacity in 2010.^[56] Renewable energies now make up about 12% of the total primary and final energy consumption in Italy, with a future target share set at 17% for the year 2020.^[57]

Asinara island with the Aragonese Torre della Pelosa (16th century), Sardinia.

However, air pollution remains a severe problem, especially in the industrialised north, reaching the tenth highest level worldwide of industrial carbon dioxide emissions in the 1990s.^[58] Italy is the twelfth largest carbon dioxide producer.^[59][60] Extensive traffic and congestion in the largest metropolitan areas continue to cause severe environmental and health issues, even if smog levels have decreased dramatically since the 1970s and 1980s, and the presence of smog is becoming an increasingly rarer phenomenon and levels of sulphur dioxide are decreasing.^[61]

Many watercourses and coastal stretches have also been contaminated by industrial and agricultural activity, while due to rising water levels, Venice has been regularly flooded throughout recent years. Waste from industrial activity is not always disposed of by legal means and has led to permanent health effects on inhabitants of affected areas, as in the case of the Seveso disaster. The country has also operated several nuclear reactors between 1963 and 1990 but, after the Chernobyl disaster and a referendum on the issue the nuclear program was terminated, a decision that was overturned by the government in 2008, planning up to four French nuclear power plants. This was in turn struck down by a referendum following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.^[62] Deforestation, illegal building developments and poor land-management policies have led to significant erosion all over Italy's mountainous regions, leading to major ecological disasters like the 1963 Vajont Dam flood, the 1998 Sarno^[63] and 2009 Messina mudslides.

Climate[link]

The coastal areas of Liguria have a Mediterranean climate.

The climate of Italy is highly diverse and can be quite different from the stereotypical Mediterranean climate. Most of the inland northern regions of Italy, for example Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, have a climate variously described as humid continental or temperate. The climate of the "Po valley region [is] continental ... with harsh winters and hot summers".^[64][65] The coastal areas of Liguria and most of the peninsula south of Florence generally fit the Mediterranean stereotype (Köppen climate classification Csa). Conditions on peninsular coastal areas can be very different from the interior's higher ground and valleys, particularly during the winter months when the higher altitudes tend to be cold, wet, and often snowy. The coastal regions have mild winters and warm and generally dry summers, although lowland valleys can be quite hot in summer.

Governance[link]

Giorgio Napolitano, 11th President of the Italian Republic.

Italy has been a unitary parliamentary republic since 2 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished by a constitutional referendum. The President of the Italian Republic (Presidente della Repubblica), currently Giorgio Napolitano since 2006, is Italy's head of state. The President is elected for a single seven years mandate by the Parliament in joint session. Italy has a written democratic constitution, resulting from the work of a Constituent Assembly formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the Civil War.^[66]

Government[link]

Italy has a parliamentary government based on a proportional voting system. The Parliament of Italy is perfectly bicameral: the two houses, the Chamber of Deputies (that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio) and the Senate of the Republic (that meets in Palazzo Madama), have the same powers. The Prime Minister, officially President of the Council of Ministers (Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is Italy's head of government. The Prime Minister and the cabinet are appointed by the President of the Republic, but must pass a vote of confidence in Parliament to become in office.

While the office is similar to those in most other parliamentary systems, the Italian prime minister has less authority than some of his counterparts. The prime minister is not authorized to request the dissolution of Parliament or dismiss ministers (that are exclusive prerogatives of the President of the Republic) and must receive a vote of approval from the Council of Ministers—which holds effective executive power—to execute most political activities.

Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Silvio Berlusconi, from 8 May 2008 to his resignation on 12 November 2011, was Prime Minister, leading a center-right coalition. The Italy's four major political parties are the People of Freedom, the Democratic Party, the Northern League and the Italy of Values. During the 2008 general elections these four parties won 590 out of 630 seats available in the Chamber of Deputies and 308 out of 315 seats available in the Senate of the Republic.

Most of the remaining seats were won by minor parties that only contest election in one part of Italy, like the South Tyrolean People's Party and the Movement for Autonomies. However, during the last 3 years, a so called "Third Pole" emerged, merging the Christian Democrats of UDC with some dissident MPs coming from Mr. Berlusconi's cabinet.

A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italian citizens permanently living abroad (about 3.6 million people): 12 Deputies and 6 Senators elected in four distinct overseas constituencies. In addition, the Italian Senate is characterized also by a small number of senators for life, appointed by the President "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". Former Presidents of the Republic are ex officio life senators.

Law and criminal justice[link]

The Supreme Court of Cassation.

The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. The Supreme Court of Cassation is the highest court in Italy for both criminal and civil appeal cases. The Constitutional Court of Italy (Corte Costituzionale) rules on the conformity of laws with the Constitution and is a post–World War II innovation. Since their appearance in the middle of the 19th century, Italian organized crime and criminal organizations have infiltrated the social and economic life of many regions in Southern Italy, the most notorious of which being the Sicilian Mafia, which would later expand into some foreign countries including the United States. The Mafia receipts may reach 9%^[67][68] of Italy's GDP.^[69]

A 2009 report identified 610 comuni which have a strong Mafia presence, where 13 million Italians live and 14.6% of the Italian GDP is produced.^[70][71] The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, nowadays probably the most powerful crime syndicate of Italy, accounts alone for 3% of the country's GDP.^[72] However, at 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate^[73] (in a group of 62 countries) and the 43rd highest number of rapes per 1,000 people in the world (in a group of 65 countries), relatively low figures among developed countries.

Foreign relations[link]

US President Barack Obama and Giorgio Napolitano in Rome.

Italy is a founding member of the European Community, now the European Union (EU), and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Italy was admitted to the United Nations in 1955, and it is a member and strong supporter of a wide number of international organizations, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, and the Central European Initiative. Its recent turns in the rotating presidency of international organisations include the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), the forerunner of the OSCE, in 1994; G8; and the EU in 2009 and from July to December 2003.

Italy strongly supports multilateral international politics, endorsing the United Nations and its international security activities. Italy deployed troops in support of UN peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Mozambique, and East Timor and provides support for NATO and UN operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. Italy deployed over 2,000 troops in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) from February 2003. Italy still supports international efforts to reconstruct and stabilize Iraq, but it has withdrawn its military contingent of some 3,200 troops as of November 2006, maintaining only humanitarian operators and other civilian personnel. In August 2006 Italy deployed about 2,450 troops in Lebanon for the United Nations' peacekeeping mission UNIFIL.^[74]

Military[link]

The new Italian aircraft carrier Cavour (550) (MM Cavour).

The Italian Army, Navy, Air Force and Gendarmerie collectively form the Italian armed forces, under the command of the Supreme Defence Council, presided over by the President of the Italian Republic. From 1999, military service is voluntary.^[75] In 2010, the Italian military had 293,202 personnel on active duty,^[76] of which 114,778 in the national gendarmerie.^[77] Total Italian military spending in 2010 ranked tenth in the world, standing at $35.8 billion, equal to 1.7% of national GDP. As part of NATO's nuclear sharing strategy Italy also hosts 90 United States nuclear bombs, located in the Ghedi and Aviano air bases.^[78]

The Italian Army is the national ground defense force, numbering 109,703 in 2008. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft the Mangusta attack helicopter, recently deployed in UN missions. It also has at its disposal a large number of Leopard 1 and M113 armored vehicles.

A Eurofighter Typhoon operated by the Italian Air Force.

The Italian Navy in 2008 had 35,200 active personnel with 85 commissioned ships and 123 aircraft.^[79] It is now equipping itself with a bigger aircraft carrier, (the Cavour), new destroyers, submarines and multipurpose frigates. In modern times the Italian Navy, being a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), has taken part in many coalition peacekeeping operations around the world.

The Italian Air Force in 2008 had a strength of 43,882 and operated 585 aircraft, including 219 combat jets and 114 helicopters. As a stopgap and as replacement for leased Tornado ADV interceptors, the AMI has leased 30 F-16A Block 15 ADF and four F-16B Block 10 Fighting Falcons, with an option for more. The coming years also will see the introduction of 121 EF2000 Eurofighter Typhoons, replacing the leased F-16 Fighting Falcons. Further updates are foreseen in the Tornado IDS/IDT and AMX fleets. A transport capability is guaranteed by a fleet of 22 C-130Js and Aeritalia G.222s of which 12 are being replaced with the newly developed G.222 variant called the C-27J Spartan.

An autonomous corps of the military, the Carabinieri are the gendarmerie and military police of Italy, policing the military and civilian population alongside Italy's other police forces. While the different branches of the Carabinieri report to separate ministries for each of their individual functions, the corps reports to the Ministry of Internal Affairs when maintaining public order and security.^[80]

Administrative divisions[link]

Italy is subdivided into 20 regions (regioni, singular regione), five of these regions having a special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on some of their local matters. The country is further divided into 110 provinces (province) and 8,100 municipalities (comuni). There are also 15 metropolitan cities (città metropolitane), established in 2009, but this administrative division is not yet operational.

Apulia

Basilicata

Calabria

Sicily

Molise

Campania

Abruzzo

Lazio

Umbria

Marche

Tuscany

Sardinia

Emilia-Romagna

Liguria

Piedmont

Friuli
Venezia Giulia

Aosta
Valley

Trentino
Alto Adige
Südtirol

Veneto

Lombardy

Adriatic Sea

Ionian Sea

Mediterranean Sea

Tyrrhenian Sea

Ligurian Sea

Economy[link]

The new Ferrari F12berlinetta. Italy is the world's 7th largest exporter of goods.

Italy has a free market economy characterized by high per capita GDP and low unemployment rates. In 2010, it was the eighth-largest economy in the world and the fourth-largest in Europe in terms of nominal GDP,^[81] and the tenth-largest economy in the world and fifth-largest in Europe in terms of PPP.^[82] It is a founding member of the G8, the Eurozone and the OECD.

After World War II, Italy was rapidly transformed from an agriculture based economy into one of the world's most industrialized nations^[83] and a leading country in world trade and exports. It is a developed country, with the world's 8th highest quality of life in 2005^[12] and the 24th Human Development Index. In spite of the recent global economic crisis, Italian per capita GDP at purchasing power parity remains approximately equal to the EU average,^[84] while the unemployment rate (8.5%) stands as one of the EU's lowest.^[85] The country is well known for its influential and innovative business economic sector,^[86] an industrious and competitive agricultural sector^[86] (Italy is the world's largest wine producer),^[87] and for its creative and high-quality automobile, industrial, appliance and fashion design.^[86]

Italy is part of a monetary union, the Eurozone (dark blue), and of the EU single market.

Italy has a smaller number of global multinational corporations than other economies of comparable size, but there is a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, notoriously clustered in several industrial districts, which are the backbone of the Italian industry. This has produced a manufacturing sector often focused on the export of niche market and luxury products, that if on one side is less capable to compete on the quantity, on the other side is more capable of facing the competition from China and other emerging Asian economies based on lower labour costs, with higher quality products.^[88]

The country was the world's 7th largest exporter in 2009.^[89] Italy's closest trade ties are with the other countries of the European Union, with whom it conducts about 59% of its total trade. Its largest EU trade partners, in order of market share, are Germany (12.9%), France (11.4%), and Spain (7.4%).^[90] Finally, tourism is one of the fastest growing and profitable sectors of the national economy: with 43.6 million international tourist arrivals and total receipts estimated at $38.8 billion in 2010, Italy is both the fifth most visited country and highest tourism earner in the world.^[91]

Vineyards in the hilly area of Langhe, Piedmont. Italy is the world's top wine producer.

Despite these important achievements, the Italian economy today suffers from many and relevant problems. After a strong GDP growth of 5–6% per year from the 1950s to the early 1970s,^[92] and a progressive slowdown in the 1980s and 1990s, the last decade's average annual growth rates poorly performed at 1.23% in comparison to an average EU annual growth rate of 2.28%.^[93] The stagnation in economic growth, and the political efforts to revive it with massive government spending from the 1980s onwards, eventually produced a severe rise in public debt. According to the EU's statistics body Eurostat, Italian public debt stood at 116% of GDP in 2010, ranking as the second biggest debt ratio after Greece (with 126.8%).^[94]

However, the biggest chunk of Italian public debt is owned by national subjects, a major difference between Italy and Greece.^[95] In addition, Italian living standards have a considerable north-south divide. The average GDP per capita in the north exceeds by far the EU average, whilst many regions of Southern Italy are dramatically below.^[96] Italy has often been referred the sick man of Europe,^[97][98] characterised by economic stagnation, political instability and problems in pursuing reform programs.

More specifically, Italy suffers from structural weaknesses due to its geographical conformation and the lack of raw materials and energy resources: in 2006 the country imported more than 86% of its total energy consumption (99.7% of the solid fuels, 92.5% of oil, 91.2% of natural gas and 15% of electricity).^[99][100] The Italian economy is weakened by the lack of infrastructure development, market reforms and research investment, and also high public deficit.^[86] In the Index of Economic Freedom 2008, the country ranked 64th in the world and 29th in Europe, the lowest rating in the Eurozone. Italy still receives development assistance from the European Union every year. Between 2000 and 2006, Italy received €27.4 billion from the EU.^[101]

The country has an inefficient state bureaucracy, low property rights protection and high levels of corruption, heavy taxation and public spending that accounts for about half of the national GDP.^[102] In addition, the most recent data show that Italy's spending in R&D in 2006 was equal to 1.14% of GDP, below the EU average of 1.84% and the Lisbon Strategy target of devoting 3% of GDP to research and development activities.^[103] According to the Confesercenti, a major business association in Italy, organized crime in Italy represented the "biggest segment of the Italian economy", accounting for €90 billion in receipts and 7% of Italy's GDP.^[104]

Infrastructure[link]

Frecciarossa high speed trains, capable of 355 km/h (220.59 mph).^{[105][106][107]}

In 2004 the transport sector in Italy generated a turnover of about 119.4 billion euros, employing 935,700 persons in 153,700 enterprises. Regarding the national road network, in 2002 there were 668,721 km (415,524 mi) of serviceable roads in Italy, including 6,487 km (4,031 mi) of motorways, state-owned but privately operated by Atlantia. In 2005, about 34,667,000 passenger cars (590 cars per 1,000 people) and 4,015,000 goods vehicles circulated on the national road network.^[108]

The national railway network, state-owned and operated by Ferrovie dello Stato, in 2003 totalled 16,287 km (10,120 mi) of which 69% is electrified, and on which 4,937 locomotives and railcars circulated. The national inland waterways network comprised 1,477 km (918 mi) of navigable rivers and channels in 2002. In 2004 there were approximately 30 main airports (including the two hubs of Malpensa International in Milan and Leonardo Da Vinci International in Rome) and 43 major seaports (including the seaport of Genoa, the country's largest and second largest in the Mediterranean Sea). In 2005 Italy maintained a civilian air fleet of about 389,000 units and a merchant fleet of 581 ships.^[108]

Electric Power Imports[link]

Italy is the world's largest net importer of electricity, as shown in the treemap below from the Observatory of Economic Complexity. The treemap shows those countries which are the largest net importers of electricity.

Net Electricity Imports by nation from MIT/Harvard Observatory of Economic Complexity

Demographics[link]

Population 1861–2008. Number of inhabitants.

Italy has 60,626,442 inhabitants according to 1/1/2011 municipal records (Anagrafe).^[109] Its population density, at 201/km² (520/sq. mile), is higher than that of most Western European countries. However the distribution of the population is widely uneven. The most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (that accounts for almost a half of the national population) and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples, while vast regions such as the Alps and Appennines highlands, the plateaus of Basilicata and the island of Sardinia are very sparsely populated.

The population of Italy almost doubled during the 20th century, but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven due to large-scale internal migration from the rural South to the industrial cities of the North, a phenomenon which happened as a consequence of the Italian economic miracle of the 1950-1960s. In addition, after centuries of net emigration, from the 1980s Italy has experienced large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history. According to the Italian government, there were 4,570,317 foreign residents in Italy as of January 2011.^[110]

High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they start to dramatically decline, leading to rapid population aging. At the end of the 2000s (decade), one in five Italians was over 65 years old.^[111] However, thanks mainly to the massive immigration of the last two decades, in recent years Italy experienced a significant growth in birth rates.^[112] The total fertility rate has also climbed from an all-time low of 1.18 children per woman in 1995 to 1.41 in 2008.^[113]

v t e Largest cities or towns of Italy ISTAT estimates for 31 December 2010
	Rank	City name	Region	Pop.	Rank	City name	Region	Pop.
Rome Milan	1	Rome	Lazio	2,761,477	11	Venice	Veneto	270,884	Naples Turin
	2	Milan	Lombardy	1,324,110	12	Verona	Veneto	263,964
	3	Naples	Campania	963,357	13	Messina	Sicily	242,503
	4	Turin	Piedmont	907,563	14	Padua	Veneto	214,198
	5	Palermo	Sicily	655,875	15	Trieste	Friuli-Venezia Giulia	205,535
	6	Genoa	Liguria	607,906	16	Brescia	Lombardy	193,879
	7	Bologna	Emilia-Romagna	380,181	17	Taranto	Apulia	191,810
	8	Florence	Tuscany	371,282	18	Prato	Tuscany	188,011
	9	Bari	Apulia	320,475	19	Parma	Emilia-Romagna	186,690
	10	Catania	Sicily	293,458	20	Reggio Calabria	Calabria	186,547

Ethnic groups[link]

Little Italy in New York, ca.1900.

Italy used to be a country of mass emigration from the late 19th century until the 1970s. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000 Italians emigrated each year.^[114] Italian communities once thrived in the former African colonies of Eritrea (nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II),^[115] Somalia and Libya (150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting about 18% of the total population).^[116]

All of Libya's Italians were expelled from the North African country in 1970.^[117] In addition, after the communist occupation of Istria in 1945, up to 350,000 ethnic Italians left Titoist Yugoslavia.^[118] Today, large numbers of people with full or significant Italian ancestry are found in Brazil (25 million),^[119] Argentina (20 million),^[120] US (17.8 million),^[121] France (5 million),^[122] Uruguay (1.5 million),^[123] Canada (1.4 million),^[124] Venezuela (900,000)^[125] and Australia (800,000).^[126]

As a result of the profound economic and social changes induced by postwar industrialization, including low birth rates, an aging population and thus a shrinking workforce, during the 1980s Italy became to attract rising flows of foreign immigrants. The present-day figure of about 4.6 million foreign residents, that make up some 7.5% of the total population, include more than half a million children born in Italy to foreign nationals—second generation immigrants, but exclude foreign nationals who have subsequently acquired Italian nationality; this applied to 53,696 people in 2008.^[127]

The official figures also exclude illegal immigrants, the so-called clandestini, whose numbers are very difficult to determine. In May 2008 The Boston Globe quoted an estimate of 670,000 for this group.^[128] Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and more recently, the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union, the main waves of migration came from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe (especially Romania, Albania, Ukraine and Poland). The second most important area of immigration to Italy has always been the neighbouring North Africa (in particular, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia), with soaring arrivals as a consequence of the Arab Spring. Furthermore, in recent years, growing migration fluxes from the Far East (notably, China^[129] and the Philippines) and Latin America (Ecuador, Peru) have been recorded.

Currently, more than one million Romanians (around one tenth of them being Roma^[130]) are officially registered as living in Italy, representing thus the most important individual country of origin, followed by Albanians and Moroccans with about 500,000 people each. The number of unregistered Romanians is difficult to estimate, but the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network suggested that in 2007 that there might have been half a million or more.^{[131][note 4]} Overall, at the end of 2000s (decade) the foreign born population of Italy was from: Europe (54%), Africa (22%), Asia (16%), the Americas (8%) and Oceania (0.06%). The distribution of immigrants is largely uneven in Italy: 87% of immigrants live in the northern and central parts of the country (the most economically developed areas), while only 13% live in the southern half of the peninsula.

Estimated foreign-born population by country of birth, 2006 figures.

Languages[link]

"Italophone" world.

  Official language.

  Secondary, widely spoken or understood.

  Understood by some due to former colonisation.

Italy's official language is Italian. Ethnologue has estimated that there are about 55 million speakers of the language in Italy and a further 6.7 million outside of the country.^[133] However, between 120 and 150 million people use Italian as a second or cultural language, worldwide.^[134]

Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on the Florentine variety of Tuscan and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages and the Gallo-Romance languages. Its development was also influenced by the Germanic languages of the post-Roman invaders.

Italy has numerous dialects spoken all over the country and some Italians cannot speak Italian at all.^[135] However, the establishment of a national education system has led to decrease in variation in the languages spoken across the country. Standardisation was further expanded in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to economic growth and the rise of mass media and television (the state broadcaster RAI helped set a standard Italian).

Several linguistic groups are legally recognized,^[136] and a number of minority languages have co-official status alongside Italian in various parts of the country. French is co-official in the Valle d’Aosta—although in fact Franco-Provencal is more commonly spoken there. German has the same status in the province of South Tyrol as, in some parts of that province and in parts of the neighbouring Trentino, does Ladin. Slovene is officially recognised in the provinces of Trieste, Gorizia and Udine in Friuli Venezia Giulia.

In these regions official documents are bilingual (trilingual in Ladin communities), or available upon request in either Italian or the co-official language. Traffic signs are also multilingual, except in the Valle d’Aosta where – with the exception of Aosta itself which has retained its Latin form in Italian (as in English) – French toponyms are generally used, attempts to italianise them during the Fascist period having been abandoned. Education is possible in minority languages where such schools are operating.

Religion[link]