National name: Repubblica Italiana

President: Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1999)

Prime Minister: Massimo D'Alema (1998)

Area: 301,230 sq. km

Population (2000 est.): 57,634,327 (average annual rate of natural increase: &endash;0.9%); birth rate: 9.1/1000; infant mortality rate: 5.9/1000; density per sq. mi.: 495

Capital and largest city (1994 est.): Rome, 2,693,383

Other large cities:
Milan, 1,561,438;
Naples, 1,204,149;
Turin, 952,736;
Genoa, 706,754;
Palermo, 694,749;
Florence, 460,924;
Bologna, 394,969;
Catania, 372,212;
Bari, 355,352;
Venice, 306,439

Monetary units: Lira and euro

Languages: Italian; small German-, French-, and Slovene-speaking minorities

Ethnicity/race: Italian (includes small clusters of German-, French-, and Slovene-Italians in the north and Albanian-Italians and Greek-Italians in the south), Sicilians, Sardinians

Religions: Roman Catholic 98%, other 2%

Literacy rate: 97% (1990)

Economic summary: GDP/PPP (1998 est.): $1.181 trillion, $20,800 per capita. Real growth rate: 1.5%. Inflation: 1.8%. Unemployment: 12.5%. Arable land: 31%. Agriculture: fruit, vegetables, grapes, potatoes, sugar beets, soybeans, grain, olives; beef, dairy products; fish. Labor force: 23.193 million; services, 61%; industry, 32%; agriculture, 7% (1996). Industries: tourism, machinery, iron and steel, chemicals, food processing, textiles, motor vehicles, clothing, footwear, ceramics. Natural resources: mercury, potash, marble, sulfur, dwindling natural gas and crude oil reserves, fish, coal. Exports: $243 billion (f.o.b., 1998): engineering products, textiles and clothing, production machinery, motor vehicles, transport equipment, chemicals; food, beverages and tobacco; minerals and nonferrous metals. Imports: $202 billion (f.o.b., 1998):engineering products, chemicals, transport equipment, energy products, minerals and nonferrous metals, textiles and clothing; food, beverages and tobacco. Major trading partners: Germany, France, U.S., U.K., Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium-Luxembourg.

Geography:
Italy, slightly larger than Arizona, is a long peninsula shaped like a boot bounded on the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the east by the Adriatic. Approximately 600 of Italy's 1,139 km of length are in the long peninsula that sticks out into the Mediterranean from the fertile basin of the Po River. The Apennine Mountains, branching off from the Alps between Nice and Genoa, form the peninsula's backbone, and rise to a maximum height of 2,912 m at the Gran Sasso d'Italia (Corno). The Alps form Italy's northern boundary.

Italy has many northern lakes, lying below the snow-covered peaks of the Alps. The largest are Garda (370 sq. km), Maggiore ( 215 sq. km), and Como ( 142 sq. km). The Po, the principal river, flows from the Alps on Italy's western border and crosses the Lombard plain to the Adriatic Sea.

Several islands form part of Italy. Sicily (25,708 sq. km) lies off the toe of the boot, across the Strait of Messina, with a steep and rockbound northern coast and gentler slopes to the sea in the west and south. Mount Etna, an active volcano, rises to 3,274 m, and most of Sicily is more than 3,274 m in elevation. 100 km southwest of Sicily lies Pantelleria (117 sq. km), and south of that are Lampedusa and Linosa. Sardinia ( 24,090 sq. km), which is just south of Corsica and about 200 km west of the mainland, is mountainous, stony, and won't grow things.

Government:
Republic.

History:
People first started to live in Italy about 2000 B.C. From about the 9th century B.C. until it was overthrown by the Romans in the 3rd century B.C., the Etruscan civilization dominated the area. By 264 B.C. all Italy was under the leadership of Rome. For the next seven centuries, until the barbarian invasions destroyed the western Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., the history of Italy was largely the history of Rome. From A.D. 800 on, through the Middle Ages, lots of small city states fought for power. Despite this, it became the cultural center of the Western world from the 13th to the 16th century.

Napoléon crowned himself king of Italy in 1805 and Italy had kings for about the next hundred years or so.

After World War I Mussolini made Italy into a dictatorship, where he had all the power. He was executed towards the end of World War II. After this, Italy decided to have no more kings or dictators, and declared that they would be a republic.

Italy became an member of NATO and the European Economic Community (later the EU).

Italy adopted the euro as its currency in Jan. 1999.