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Italian Republic
Repubblica Italiana
Motto: none
Anthem: Il Canto degli Italiani
Location of Italy
Capital
and largest city
Rome
Official languagesItalian1
GovernmentRepublic
Unification
• Water (%)
2.4
Population
• July 2005 estimate
58,462,375 (22nd)
• December 2004 census
58,103,033
GDP (PPP)2005 estimate
• Total
$1.645 trillion (8th)
• Per capita
$28,300 (20th)
HDI (2003)0.934
very high (18th)
CurrencyEuro (€)2 (EUR)
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)
UTC+2 (CEST)
Calling code39
ISO 3166 codeIT
Internet TLD.it
1 French is co-official in the Aosta Valley; German and Ladin are co-official in Trentino-South Tyrol.
2 Prior to 2002: Italian Lira.

Italy, officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Italia, IPA: /i'talja/ or Repubblica Italiana, IPA: /re'pubblika ita'ljana/), is a Southern European country, situated on the western side of the European continent. It comprises the Italian peninsula, the Po River valley, and two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia, and shares its northern alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The country also shares a sea border with Croatia. The independent countries of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italian territory.

For more than 3,000 years Italy witnessed many migrations and invasions from Germanic, Celtic, Frankish, Byzantine Greek, Saracen, Norman, and the French Angevin, and Lombard peoples. Italy was also home to many well-known and influential civilisations, including the Etruscans, Greeks and the Romans.

Italy is called Belpaese (Italian for beautiful country) by its inhabitants, due to the beauty and variety of its landscapes and for having the world's largest artistic patrimony; the country is home to the greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (40 as of January 1 2006).

Presently, Italy is a highly developed country with the 6th highest GDP in 2004, a member of the G8 and a founding member of what is now the European Union, having signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

Inhabitants of Italy are referred to as Italians (Italian: Italiani). There exist several theories concerning the origin of the name "Italia", but the most widely accepted etymology is that it is derived from the ancient Greek word italos (bull). It is notable that Italians are identifying themselves using a word given to them by Greeks, and Greeks are also identifying themselves as Greeks(Γραικοί) or Romans(Ρωμιοί), names given to them by Italians.

History

Main article: History of Italy

According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the word Italy derives either from the name of the king Italos descendant of Oenotrus, or from the Homeric (Aeolic) word ιταλός [1], which means "bull". Excavations throughout Italy have found proof of life in Italy dating back to the Palaeolithic period (the "Old Stone Age") some 200,000 years ago. The first Greek settlers, who arrived in Italy from Euboea island the 8th century BC, possibly named their new land "land of bulls".

Italy has influenced the cultural and social development of the whole Mediterranean area, deeply influencing European culture as well. As a result, it has also influenced other important cultures. Such cultures and civilisations have existed there since prehistoric times. After Magna Graecia, the Etruscan civilisation and especially the Roman Republic and Empire that dominated this part of the world for many centuries, Italy was central to European science and art during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Modern Italy became a nation-state belatedly — on March 17 1861, when most of the states of the peninsula were united under king Victor Emmanuel II of the Savoy dynasty, which ruled over Sardinia and Piedmont. The architects of Italian unification were Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the Chief Minister of Victor Emmanuel, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, a general and national hero. Rome itself remained for a little less than a decade under the Papacy, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy only on September 20 1870. The Vatican is now an independent enclave surrounded by Rome.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Italy
File:Giorgio Napolitano (EP, 5th term).jpg
Giorgio Napolitano, President of the Italian Republic elected on May 10, 2006.

The 1948 Constitution of Italy established a bicameral parliament (Parlamento), consisting of a Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati) and a Senate (Senato della Repubblica), a separate judiciary, and an executive branch composed of a Council of Ministers (cabinet) (Consiglio dei ministri), headed by the prime minister (Presidente del consiglio dei ministri).

The President of the Republic (Presidente della Repubblica) is elected for seven years by the parliament sitting jointly with a small number of regional delegates. The president nominates the prime minister, who proposes the other ministers (formally named by the president). The Council of Ministers must retain the support (fiducia) of both houses.

The houses of parliament are popularly and directly elected through a proportional representation system. The Chamber of Deputies has 630 members, the Senate 315 elected senators; in addition, the Senate includes former presidents and other persons (no more than five) appointed senators for life by the President of the Republic according to special constitutional provisions. As of 1 May 2006, there are seven life senators (of which two former Presidents). Both houses are elected for a maximum of five years, but both may be dissolved before the expiration of their normal term. Legislative bills may originate in either house and must be passed by a majority in both. The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. A constitutional court, the Corte Costituzionale, passes on the constitutionality of laws, and is a post-World War II innovation.

All Italian citizens older than 18 can vote. To vote for the senate, the voter must be at least 25.

Regions

Main article: Regions of Italy
Administrative divisions.

Italy is subdivided into 20 regions (regioni, singular regione). Five of these regions enjoy a special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on some of their specific local matters, and are marked by an *:

All regions except the Aosta Valley are further subdivided into two or more provinces.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Italy

Italy consists predominantly of a large peninsula (the Italian peninsula) with a distinctive boot shape that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, where together with its two main islands Sicily and Sardinia it creates distinct bodies of water, such as the Adriatic Sea to the north-east, the Ionian Sea to the south-east, the Tyrrhenian Sea to the south-west and finally the Ligurian Sea to the north-west.

The Apennine mountains form the backbone of this peninsula, leading north-west to where they join the Alps, the mountain range that then forms an arc enclosing Italy from the north. Here is also found a large alluvial plain, the Po-Venetian plain, drained by the Po River — which is Italy's biggest river with 652 Km — and its many tributaries flowing down from the Alps (Dora Baltea, 160 Km, Sesia, 138 Km, Ticino, 248 Km, Adda, 313 Km, Oglio, 280 Km, Mincio), 194 Km, and Apennines (Tànaro, 276 Km, Trebbia, 115 Km, Taro, 115 Km, Secchia, 172 Km, Panaro, 148 Km).

Other well-known or importants rivers include the Tiber (405 Km), Adige (410 Km), Arno (241 Km), Piave (220 Km), Reno (212 Km), Volturno (175 Km), Tagliamento (170 Km), Liri-Garigliano (158 Km), Isonzo (136 Km).

Its highest point is Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) at 4,810 metres (15,781 feet), but Italy is more typically associated with two famous volcanoes: the currently dormant Vesuvius near Naples and the very active Etna on Sicily.

Sicily and Sardinia are the two major islands of Italy (comprehensive list).

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Italy

Italy is largely homogeneous in language and religion but is diverse culturally, economically, and politically. The country has the fifth-highest population density in Europe at 193 persons per square kilometre (499/sq. mi). Indigenous minority groups are small. For a country of 58.4 million people, Italy has a smaller number of migrants compared to France and Germany.

Since the beginning of Roman civilisation, important ethnic groups like Greek settlers, Germanic and Celtic invaders and plunderers, and Norman colonisers have all left important impressions on the people today. However, they have all been absorbed in a homogeneous Italian ethnic group.

The number of immigrants or foreign residents in Italy has steadily increased to reach 2,402,157, according to the latest figures (1/2005) of ISTAT. They currently make up a little more than 4 % of the official total population. According to these statistics, the largest foreign minorities are Albanians (316,659), Moroccan (294,945), Romanian (248,849(refactored from Romanian)), Chinese (111,712), and Ukrainian (93,441). Remaining groups include those who are Tunisian, Macedonians, Serbians, Filipinos, etc.

Religion

Roman Catholicism is by far the most popular religion in the country. According to estimates by (CIA World Fact Book 2005, Italian polls, Adherents.com, BBC News and others), it is safe to conclude that 87% of the Italian population self-identify as Roman Catholic, whereas around 13% identify with either other religions or none at all. Italy also has some important pilgrimages and famous Roman Catholic churches, cathedrals and sites. According to many other books (Reference) surveys (from Gallup and others) Italy can claim above 40% weekly church attendance rate.

Around 235,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, 30,000 Jews and 30,000 Buddhists live in Italy.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Italy

A member of the G8 group of leading industrialised countries, it ranked as the seventh largest economy in the world in 2004, behind the United States, Japan, Germany, China, UK, and France. According to the OECD, in 2004 Italy was the world's sixth-largest exporter of manufactured goods. This capitalistic economy remains divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less developed agricultural south (with 20% unemployment).

Most raw materials needed by industry and more than 75% of energy requirements are imported. Over the past decade, Italy has pursued a tight fiscal policy in order to meet the requirements of the Economic and Monetary Union and has benefited from lower interest and inflation rates. Italy joined the Euro from its conception in 1999.

Italy's economic performance has at times lagged behind that of its EU partners, and the current government has enacted numerous short-term reforms aimed at improving competitiveness and long-term growth. It has moved slowly, however, on implementing certain structural reforms favoured by economists, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy's rigid labour market and expensive pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition from labour unions.

Culture

See also: Culture of Italy

Languages

Main article: Languages of Italy

The official language of Italy is Standard Italian, a direct descendant of Latin. (Some 75% of Italian words are of Latin origin.) However, when Italy was unified, in 1861, Italian existed mainly as a literary language, and was spoken by less than 3% of the population. Different languages were spoken throughout Italian peninsula, many of which were Romance languages which had developed in every region, due to political fragmentation of Italy(refactored from dialects). Indeed, each historical region of Italy had its own so-called ‘dialect’ (with ‘dialect’ usually meaning, improperly, a non-Italian Romance language), with variants existing at the township-level.

Venice

Massimo d'Azeglio, one of Cavour's ministers, is said to have stated, following Italian unification, that having created Italy, all that remained was to create Italians. Given the high number of languages spoken throughout the peninsula, it was quickly established that 'proper' or 'standard' Italian would be based on the Florentine dialect spoken in most of Tuscany (given that it was the first region to produce authors such as Dante Alighieri, who between 1308 and 1321 wrote the Divina Commedia). A national education system was established - leading to a decrease in variation in the languages spoken throughout the country over time. But was not until the 1960s, when economic growth enabled widespread access to the television programmes of the state television broadcaster, RAI, that Italian truly became broadly-known and quite standardised.

Today, despite regional variations in the form of accents and vowel emphasis, Italian is fully comprehensible to all throughout the country. Nevertheless certain dialects have become cherished beacons of regional variation—the Neapolitan dialect which is extensively used for the singing of popular folk-songs, for instance—and in recent years many people have developed a particular pride in their dialects.

In addition to the various regional variations and dialects of standard Italian, a number of truly separate languages are spoken:

  • In the north, the province of South Tyrol (Südtirol in German, Alto Adige in Italian) is almost entirely German-speaking; the area was awarded to Italy following the First World War and her defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Pockets of German speakers also persist in other north-eastern Italian regions—a remnant of the old Austrian influence on this area of Italy. In total some 300,000 or so Italians speak German as their first language and indeed identify themselves as ethnic Austrians.
  • Some 120,000 or so people live in the Aosta Valley region, where a dialect of Franco-Provençal is spoken that is similar to patois dialects spoken in France. About 1,400 people living in two isolated towns in Foggia speak another dialect of Franco-Provençal.
  • About 80,000 Slovene-speakers live in the north-eastern region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia near the border with Slovenia.
  • In the Dolomite mountains of Trentino-South Tyrol and Veneto there are some 40,000 speakers of the Rhaetian language Ladin. A very large community of some 700,000 people in Friuli speak Friulian—another Rhaetian language.
  • In the Molise region of central-south Italy some 4,000 people speak Serbo-Croatian. These are the Molise Croats, descendants of a group of people who migrated from the Balkans in the Middle Ages.
  • Scattered across southern Italy (Salento and Calabria) are a number of some 30,000 Greek-speakers—considered to be the last surviving traces of the region's Greek heritage. (Ancient Greek colonists reached southern Italy and Sicily about 1500 BC.) They speak a Greek dialect, Griko.
  • Some 15,000 Catalan speakers reside around the area of Alghero in the north-west corner of Sardinia—believed to be the result of a migration of a large group of Catalans from Barcelona in ages past.
  • The Arbëreshë, of whom there are around 100,000 in southern Italy and in central Sicily—the result of past migrations—are speakers of the Arbëresh dialect of Albanian.
  • Finally, the largest group of non-Italian speakers, some 1.6 million people, are those who speak Sardinian, a Romance language which retains many pre-Latin words.

Notes

Template:Ent According to Mitrica, an October 2005 Romanian report estimates that 1,061,400 Romanians are living in Italy, constituting 37.2% of 2.8 million immigrants in that country [2] but it is unclear how the estimate was made, and therefore whether it should be taken seriously or not. Template:EntSee also (in Italian): L. Lepschy e G. Lepschy, La lingua italiana: storia, varietà d'uso, grammatica, Milano, Bompiani

References

Other references can be found in the more detailed articles linked to in this article.

Official sites

Others

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