Italy Country Info - Europe

Description and Basic Information

Italy with its capital Rome is located in Europe (Southern Europe, a peninsula extending into the central Mediterranean Sea). It covers some 301,231 square kilometres (slightly larger than Arizona) with 58,145,000 citizens. Italian, German, French and Slovenian are the languages used by people in Italy (consider regional differences). Switzerland, Vatican, Slovenia, San Marino, France and Austria are bordering countries.

Italy is a large country in Southern Europe. Start with a visit to Piazza Michelangelo in Florence to admire the famous view. Then set about exploring the many museums, both inside and outside Florence, that house Renaissance masterpieces. You could visit Italy's cities, never go in a church, museum or Roman ruin, and still have a great time. Just wander around, keeping your eyes open.

Pictures from Capital (Rome)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Italy

The topography features mostly rugged and mountainous with some plains, coastal lowlands. The average density of population is about 193 per km². The climate in Italy can be described as predominantly Mediterranean with Alpine in far north, hot, dry in south. Potential natural disasters are regional risks include landslides, mudflows, avalanches, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flooding or land subsidence in Venice.

To reach someone in Italy dial +39 prior to a number. There are 21,300,000 installed telephones. And there are 90,613,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 MHz and 3G. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".it". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 20 regions/states in Italy we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Italian population shrinked at a rate of -0.08% (or by 43,568 citizens). With 629,122 deaths and 465,306 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at -0.28%. 120,248 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Italy: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.