Italy
The Country of the Week
Quick Facts
- Capital
- Rome
- Population
- 60,924,851 (2025 est.)
- Area
- 301,340 sq km
- Government
- parliamentary republic
- Religions
- Christian 80.8% (overwhelmingly Roman Catholic with very small groups of Jehovah's Witnesses and Protestants), Muslim 4.9%, unaffiliated 13.4%, other 0.9% (2020 est.)
- Ethnic Groups
- Italian (includes small clusters of German-, French-, and Slovene-Italians in the north, Albanian-Italians, Croat-Italians, and Greek-Italians in the south)
- Currency
- euros (EUR)
- Life Expectancy
- 83 years (2024 est.)
- Internet Domain
- .it
- Climate
- predominantly Mediterranean; alpine in far north; hot, dry in south
- Terrain
- mostly rugged and mountainous; some plains, coastal lowlands
- Natural Resources
- coal, antimony, mercury, zinc, potash, marble, barite, asbestos, pumice, fluorspar, feldspar, pyrite (sulfur), natural gas and crude oil reserves, fish, arable land
- Major Exports
- packaged medicine, garments, cars, refined petroleum, vehicle parts/accessories (2023)
Source: CIA World Factbook (public domain)
Overview
Italy became a nation-state in 1861 when the regional states of the peninsula, along with Sardinia and Sicily, were united under King Victor EMMANUEL II.