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Wikipedia
Italy (
i /ˈɪtəli/; Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana[note 1]), is a country located 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 theItalian 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 areenclaves within Italy, whilst 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 60.4 million inhabitants, it is the sixth most populous country in Europe, and thetwenty-third most populous in the world.
i /ˈɪtəli/; Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana[note 1]), is a country located 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 theItalian 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 areenclaves within Italy, whilst 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 60.4 million inhabitants, it is the sixth most populous country in Europe, and thetwenty-third most populous in the world.Italy's capital, Rome, was for centuries the political centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire. After its decline, Italy would endure 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 would become the birthplace of theRenaissance,[7] 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 kingdoms and city-states (such as the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Duchy of Milan), but was unified in 1861,[8] 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, Rhodes, the Dodecanese and a concession in Tianjin, China.[9]
Modern Italy is a democratic republic. It has been ranked the world's twenty-third most-developed country[10] and its Quality-of-Life Index has been ranked in the top ten in the world.[11] Italy enjoys a very high standard of living, and has a high nominal GDP per capita.[12][13] It is a founding member of what is now the European Union and part of theEurozone. Italy is also a member of the G8, G20 and NATO. It has the world's seventh-largest nominal GDP, tenth highest GDP (PPP)[14] and the sixth highest government budget in the world.[15] 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 sharesNATO'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, alongside the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Russia. The country has a high public education level, high labour force,[21] and is a highly globalised nation.
History
Main article: History of Italy
Etymology
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.[23] According to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin: Italia,[24] was borrowed throughGreek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning "land of young cattle" (cf. Lat vitulus "calf", Umb vitlo "calf").[25] 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 Samnite Wars. Greekhistorian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus,[26] mentioned also byAristotle[27] and Thucydides.[28]
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). But by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most ofLucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a larger region, but it was not until the time of the Roman conquests that the term was expanded to cover the entire peninsula.[29]
Prehistory and Roman Empire
Main articles: Prehistoric Italy and Ancient Rome
Excavations throughout Italy reveal a modern human presence dating back to the Palaeolithicperiod, some 200,000 years ago.[30] Between the 17th to the 11th century BC Mycenaean Greeksestablished contacts with Italy[31][32][33][34][35][36][37] 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. 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 4th 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 Goths finally dissolved, leaving the Italian peninsula divided into small independent kingdoms and feuding city states for the next 1,300 years, and leaving the eastern part sole heir to the Roman legacy.
Middle Ages
Main article: Italy in the Middle Ages
In the 6th century the Byzantine Emperor Justinian reconquered Italy from the Ostrogoths. The invasion of a new wave of Germanic tribes, the Lombards, doomed his attempt to resurrect theWestern Roman Empire but the repercussions of Justinian's failure resounded further still. For the next 13th centuries, whilst new nation-states arose in the lands north of the Alps, the Italian political landscape was a patchwork of feuding city states, petty tyrannies, and foreign invaders.
It was during this vacuum of authority that the region saw the rise of the Signoria and the Comune. In the anarchic conditions that often prevailed in medieval Italian city-states, people looked to strong men to restore order and disarm the feuding elites. Italy during this period was also characterized by its merchant Republics. These city-states, oligarchical in reality, had a dominant merchant class which under relative freedom nurtured academic and artistic advancement. The four classic Maritime Republics in Italy were Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi. Venice and Genoa were Europe's gateways to trade with the East, with the former producer of the renowned venetian glass. Florence was the capital of silk, wool, banks and jewelry. The Maritime Republics were heavily involved in the Crusades, taking advantage of the new political and trading opportunities, most evidently in the conquest of Zara and Constantinople funded by Venice.
Renaissance (15–16th century)
Main article: Italian Renaissance
The Black Death pandemic in 1348 left its mark on Italy by killing one third of the population.[38][39] However, the recovery from the disaster of the Black Death led to a resurgence of cities, trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phase of the Humanism and Renaissance, that best known for its cultural achievements. Accounts ofRenaissance literature usually begin with Petrarch (best known for the elegantly polished vernacular sonnet sequence of the Canzoniere and for the craze for book collecting that he initiated) and his friend and contemporary Boccaccio (author of the Decameron). Famous vernacular poets of the 15th century include the renaissance epic authors Luigi Pulci(Morgante), Matteo Maria Boiardo (Orlando Innamorato), and Ludovico Ariosto (Orlando Furioso). 15th century writers such as the poet Poliziano and the Platonist philosopherMarsilio Ficino made extensive translations from both Latin and Greek. In the early 16th century, Castiglione (The Book of the Courtier) laid out his vision of the ideal gentleman and lady, while Machiavelli cast a jaundiced eye on "la verita effetuale delle cose" — the actual truth of things — in The Prince, composed, humanist style, chiefly of parallel ancient and modern examples of Virtù. Italian Renaissance paintingexercised a dominant influence on subsequent European painting (see Western painting) for centuries afterwards, with artists such as Giotto di Bondone, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, andTitian. The same is true for architecture, as practiced by Brunelleschi, Leone Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Bramante. Their works includeFlorence Cathedral, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini (to name a only a few, not to mention many splended private residences: see Renaissance architecture). Finally, the Aldine Press, founded by the printer Aldo Manuzio, active in Venice, developed Italic type and the small, relatively portable and inexpensive printed book that could be carried in one's pocket, as well as being the first to publish editions of books in Ancient Greek.
Foreign domination and Napoleonic Wars (17th–19th centuries)
Main article: History of Italy (1559–1814)
The history of Italy in the Early Modern period was characterized by foreign domination: 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 Black Death repeatedly returned to haunt Italy throughout the 14th to 17th centuries. The plague of 1575–77 claimed some 50,000 victims in Venice.[40] In the first half of the 17th century a plague claimed some 1,730,000 victims, or about 14% of Italy’s population.[41] The Great Plague of Milan occurred from 1629 through 1631 in northern Italy, with the cities of Lombardy and Veniceexperiencing particularly high death rates. In 1656 the plague killed about half of Naples' 300,000 inhabitants.[42]
During the Napoleonic Wars, the northern part of the country was invaded and reorganized as a new kingdom of Italy, that was a client state of the French Empire from 1796 to 1814, while the southern half of the peninsula was administered by Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother in law, that was crowned as King of Naples. The Congress of Vienna (1814) restored the situation of the late 18th century, which was however quickly overturned by the incipient movement of Italian unification.
Italian unification and Liberal Italy (1861–1922)
Main articles: Italian unification and Italy in World War I
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 kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. In the context of the 1848 liberal revolutions that swept through Europe, an unsuccessful war was declared on Austria. Giuseppe Garibaldi led the Italian republican drive for unification in southern Italy,[43] while the northern Italian monarchy of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia whose government was led by Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour, had the ambition of establishing a united Italian state under its rule. The kingdom successfully challenged the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence with the help of Napoleon III, liberating theLombardy-Venetia. It established Turin as capital of the newly formed state. In 1865 the capital was moved to Florence.
In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II aligned the kingdom with Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War, waging the Third Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to annex Venice. In 1870, as France during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War abandoned its positions in Rome, Italy rushed to fill the power gap by taking over thePapal State from French sovereignty.
Italian unification finally was achieved, and shortly afterwards Italy's capital was moved fromFlorence to Rome. Whilst keeping the monarchy, the government became a parliamentary system, dominated by the liberals.
As Northern Italy became industrialized and modernized, Southern Italy and rural areas of the north remained under-developed and stagnant, forcing millions of people to migrate to the emergingIndustrial Triangle or abroad. The Sardinian Albertine Statute of 1848, extended to the wholeKingdom of Italy in 1861, provided for basic freedoms, but the electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. In 1913, male universal suffrage was adopted. TheItalian Socialist Party increased in strength, challenging the traditional liberal and conservative organisations. The highest point of Italian emigration was reached in 1913, when 872,598 persons left Italy.[44]
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.[45] During World War I, Italy at first stayed neutral but in 1915 signed the Treaty of London, entering Entente on the promise of receiving Trento, Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca, Istria and northern Dalmatiafrom the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as parts of Ottoman Empire. During the war, more than 650,000 Italian soldiers died,[46] and the economy collapsed. Under the Peace Treaties of Saint-Germain, Rapallo and Rome, Italy obtained most of the promised territories, including the town of Fiume. Nevertheless, the victory was described as "mutilated" by the nationalists, since most of Dalmatia was assigned toYugoslavia.
Fascist Italy (1922–1945)
Main articles: Italian Fascism and Italy in World War II
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 Marcia su Roma, "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 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 Nazis left the country on 25 April 1945 and the remaining Italian fascist forces eventually disbanded. Nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) died in the conflict,[47] 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.[48]
Italian Republic (1946–present)
Main article: History of the Italian Republic
In 1946, Victor Emmanuel III's son, Umberto II, was forced to abdicate. Italy became a republicafter a referendum 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.[49] The Republican Constitution was approved and came into force 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 ofAlcide De Gasperi, won the election with 48 percent of the vote. In the 1950s Italy became a member of NATO and allied itself with the United States. The Marshall Plan helped revive the Italian economy which, until the 1960s, enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth commonly called the "Economic Miracle". In 1957, Italy was a founder member of the European Economic Community (EEC), which became the European Union (EU) in 1993.
From the late 1960s till late 1980s the country experienced a hard economic crisis and the Years of Lead, a period characterized by widespread social conflicts and terrorist acts carried out by extra-parliamentary movements. The Years of Lead culminated in the assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978, bringing to an end the "Historic Compromise" between the DC and theCommunist Party. In the 1980s, for the first time since 1945, two governments were led by non-Christian-Democrat premiers: a republican (Giovanni Spadolini) and a socialist (Bettino Craxi); the Christian Democrats remained, however, the main force supporting the government. The Socialist Party (PSI), led by Bettino Craxi, became more and more critical of the Communists and of the Soviet Union; Craxi himself pushed in favour of US president Ronald Reagan's positioning of Pershing missiles in Italy, a move the Communists hotly contested.
From 1992 to 1994, Italy faced significant challenges, as voters, disenchanted with past political paralysis, massive government debt and an extensive corruption system (collectively calledTangentopoli after being uncovered by the 'Clean Hands' investigation ), demanded political, economic, and ethical reforms. The scandals involved all major parties, but especially those in the government coalition: between 1992 and 1994 the Christian Democrats underwent a severe crisis and was dissolved, splitting up into several pieces, while also the Socialists and the other governing minor parties also dissolved. The Communists reorganized as a social-democratic force.
The 1994 elections put media magnate Silvio Berlusconi into the Prime Minister's seat. However, he was forced to step down in December of that year when the Lega Nord Party withdrew its support. In April 1996, national elections led to the victory of a centre-left coalition under the leadership of Romano Prodi. Prodi's first government became the third-longest to stay in power before he narrowly lost a vote of confidence, by three votes, in October 1998. A new government was formed by Massimo D'Alema, but in April 2000 he resigned.
In 2001, national elections led to the victory of a centre-right coalition under the leadership of Silvio Berlusconi, who became prime minister once again. Berlusconi was able to remain in power for a complete five-year mandate, but with two different governments. The first one (2001–2005) became the longest-lived government in post-war Italy. Under that government, Italy joined the US-led military coalition in Iraq. Theelections in 2006 were won by the centre-left, allowing Prodi to form his second government, but in early 2008 he resigned after losing a confidence vote in Parliament. Mr. Berlusconi won the ensuing elections in April 2008 to form a government for a third time.
Geography
Main article: Geography 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 48° N, and longitudes 6° and 19° E. Although the country occupies 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 Leiconstitutes part of the Rhine's basin and the island comune of Lampedusa e Linosa is on the African continental shelf.
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.
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). 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:[50] Garda (367.94 km2/142 sq mi), Maggiore (212.51 km2/82 sq mi),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.
Administrative divisions
Italy is subdivided into 20 regions (regioni, singular regione). Five of these regions have a special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on some of their local matters; these are marked by an asterisk (*) in the table below. The country is further divided into 110 provinces (province) and 8,100 municipalities (comuni).
Region | Capital | Area (km²) | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abruzzo | L'Aquila | 10,794 | 1,324,000 |
| Aosta Valley* | Aosta | 3,263 | 126,000 |
| Apulia | Bari | 19,362 | 4,076,000 |
| Basilicata | Potenza | 9,992 | 591,000 |
| Calabria | Catanzaro | 15,080 | 2,007,000 |
| Campania | Naples | 13,595 | 5,811,000 |
| Emilia-Romagna | Bologna | 22,124 | 4,276,000 |
| Friuli-Venezia Giulia* | Trieste | 7,855 | 1,222,000 |
| Lazio | Rome | 17,207 | 5,561,000 |
| Liguria | Genoa | 5,421 | 1,610,000 |
| Lombardy | Milan | 23,861 | 9,642,000 |
| Marches | Ancona | 9,694 | 1,553,000 |
| Molise | Campobasso | 4,438 | 320,000 |
| Piedmont | Turin | 25,399 | 4,401,000 |
| Sardinia* | Cagliari | 24,090 | 1,666,000 |
| Sicily* | Palermo | 25,708 | 5,030,000 |
| Tuscany | Florence | 22,997 | 3,677,000 |
| Trentino-Alto Adige* | Trento | 13,607 | 1,007,000 |
| Umbria | Perugia | 8,456 | 884,000 |
| Veneto | Venice | 18,391 | 4,832,000 |
Climate
Main article: Climate of Italy
The climate of Italy is highly diverse and can be far from the stereotypical Mediterranean climate, depending on location. 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. Adriana Rigutti (in Meteorologia, Giunti 2005) states that the climte of the “Po valley region [is] continental ... with harsh winters and hot summers”.[51] 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.
Environment
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 became one of the world's largest producers of renewable energy, ranking as the world’s fifth largest solar energy producer in 2009[54][55] and the sixth largest producer of wind power in 2008.[56]
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.[57] Italy is the twelfth largest carbon dioxide producer.[58][59] 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 80s, and the presence of smog is becoming an increasingly rarer phenomenon and levels of sulphur dioxide are decreasing.[60]
Many watercourses and coastal stretches have also been contaminated by industrial and agricultural activity, while due to rising water levelsVenice 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. A deal was signed with France in 2009 for the construction of up to four new nuclear plants. 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[61] and 2009 Messinamudslides.
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Politics
Main article: Politics of Italy
The politics of Italy take place in a framework of a parliamentary, democratic republic, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised collectively by the Council of Ministers, which is led by a President(Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), informally referred to as "premier" or primo ministro (that is, "prime minister"). Legislative power is vested in the two houses of Parliament primarily, and secondarily in the Council of Ministers. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislative. Italy has been a democratic republic since 2 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished by popular referendum (see "birth of the Italian Republic"). The constitution was promulgated on 1 January 1948.
Giorgio Napolitano is the President of the Italian Republic, whilst Silvio Berlusconi is the nation's Prime Minister (President of the Council of Ministers).
The President of the Italian Republic (Presidente della Repubblica) is elected for seven years by the parliament sitting jointly with a small number of regional delegates. As the head of state, the President of the Republic represents the unity of the nation and has many of the duties previously given to the King of Italy. The president serves as a point of connection between the three branches of power: he is elected by the lawmakers, he appoints the executive, he is the president of the judiciary and he is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
The president nominates the Prime Minister, who proposes the other ministers (formally named by the president). The Council of Ministers must obtain a confidence vote from both houses of Parliament. Legislative bills may originate in either house and must be passed by a majority in both.
Italy elects a parliament consisting of two houses, the Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati), which has 630 members and the Senate of the Republic (Senato della Repubblica), comprising 315 elected members and a small number of senators for life). Legislation may originate in either house and must be passed in identical form by a majority in each. The houses of parliament are popularly and directly elected through a complex electoral system (latest amendment in 2005) which combines proportional representation with a majority prize for the largest coalition. All Italian citizens 18 years of age and older can vote. However, to vote for the Senate, the voter must be 25 or older.
The electoral system for the Senate is based upon regional representation. As of 17 August 2010 there are six senator for life (of which two are former Presidents). Both houses are elected for a maximum of five years, but both may be dissolved by the President before the expiration of their normal term if the Parliament is unable to elect a stable government. In post-war history, this has happened in 1972, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1994, 1996, and 2008.
A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italian citizens permanently living abroad (about 2.7 million people). Among the 630 Deputies and the 315 Senators there are respectively 12 and 6 elected in four distinct overseas constituencies. These members of Parliament were elected for the first time in April 2006, and they have the same powers as those of members elected in Italy.
Law
Main articles: Judiciary of Italy and Law enforcement in Italy
The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. The Supreme Court of Cassation is the court of last resort for most disputes. The Constitutional Court of Italy (Corte Costituzionale) rules on the conformity of laws with theConstitution and is a post-World War II innovation.
Foreign relations
Main article: Foreign relations of Italy
Italy was a founding member of the European Community—now the European Union (EU). Italy was admitted to the United Nations in 1955 and is a member and strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 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 supports 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 to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in 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 workers and other civilian personnel. In August 2006 Italy sent about 2,450 soldiers to Lebanon for the United Nations' peacekeeping mission UNIFIL.[62]
Military
Main article: Military of Italy
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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.[63] In 2010, the Italian military had 293,202 personnel on active duty,[64] of which 114,778 in the national gendarmerie.[65] 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.[66]
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 Arietetank, 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.
The Italian Navy in 2008 had 35,200 active personnel with 85 commissioned ships and 123 aircraft.[67] 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 theNorth 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-130Jsand 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.[68]
Economy
Main article: Economy of Italy
Italy has a capitalist economy with high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and developed infrastructure. According to the International Monetary Fund, in 2008 Italy was the seventh-largesteconomy in the world and the fourth-largest in Europe. Italy is member of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations, the European Union and the OECD.
In the post-war period, Italy was transformed from a weak, agricultural based economy which had been severely affected by the consequences of World War II, into one of the world's most industrialized nations,[69] and a leading country in world trade and exports. In 1987, the Italian economy temporarily overtook the British economy, by GDP (nominal), an event known as 'il sorpasso'[70] and in 1991 Italy became for a while the world's fourth-largest economic power. It may have briefly overtaken France as well.[71] This was due to a rapid increase in public expenditure in order to boost economic growth, which eventually resulted in unsustainable levels of public debt. In 1980 the public debt amounted to only 56.9 per cent of the GDP. By 1994 it had reached the record level of 121.8% per cent of GDP. This was over twice the ceiling fixed by the Maastricht agreement and the highest level of indebtedness of any member country of the European Union.[72] The result since then has been very low levels of growth, even compared to other European countries. Between 2000 and 2007 it averaged 1.5%, against the 2.4% of the European Union as a whole. At 15 November 2010, the EU's statistics body Eurostat published that Italy (in 2009) has debt ratio 116% or second biggest debt ratio after Greece with 126.8%.[73] Italy has now slipped to tenth (as ranked by the IMF and World Bank) in the list of countries by GDP on the basis of purchasing power parity.
According to the World Bank, Italy has high levels of freedom for investments, business and trade. Italy is adeveloped country, and, according to The Economist, has the world's 8th highest quality of life.[11] The country enjoys a very high standard of living. According to the last Eurostat data, Italian per capita GDP at purchasing power parity remains approximately equal to the EU average,[74] while the unemployment rate (8.5%) stands as one of the EU's lowest.[75]
Italy has the world's 4th largest gold reserve.[76] The country is also well-known for its influential and innovative business economic sector,[77] an industrious and competitive agricultural sector[77] (Italy is the world's largest wine producer[78]), and for its creative and high-quality automobile, industrial, appliance and fashion design.[77]
Despite this, the country's economy suffers from many problems. After a strong GDP growth of +8% from 1964 onwards,[79] the last decade's average annual growth rate lagged with 1.23% in comparison to an average EU annual growth rate of 2.28%.[80] In addition, Italian living standards have a considerable north-south divide. The average GDP per capita in Northern Italy exceeds by far the EU average, whilst some regions and provinces in Southern Italy are dramatically below.[81] Italy has often been referred the sick man of Europe,[82][83] 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).[84][85] The Italian economy is weakened by the lack of infrastructure development, market reforms and research investment, and also high public deficit.[77] 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.[86] 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.[87] 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.[88]
Organized crime is a contributing factor in Italy's economic weakness. The Mafia directly controls 14.6% of Italy's GDP,[89] and exerts influence over 13 million Italians.[89] However, at 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate[90] and only the 43th highest number of rapes per 1,000 people in the world.[3]
In the latest Corruption Perception Index 2010, Italy is ranked the most corrupt among Western European countries.[91]
Notwithstanding its many problems and challenges, as of the 2000s recession and more notably the 2008 recession and the 2009 recession, Italy was one of the few countries whose economy did not contract dramatically, and kept a relatively stable economic growth, yet figures for economic growth in 2009 and 2010 have showed a negative average, ranging from around −1% to −5%.[92]
Corporations
Italy has a smaller number of world-class multinational corporations than other economies of comparable size, but there is a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, and in the Northern "industrial triangle" (Milan-Turin-Genoa) or the Tuscan industrial triangle (Florence-Prato-Pistoia), where there is an area of intense industrial and machinery production, notably in their several industrial districts, which were for long 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.[93]
The country was the world's 7th largest exporter in 2009.[94] Italy's major exports and companies by sector are motor vehicles (Fiat, Aprilia, Ducati, Piaggio); chemicals and petrochemicals (Eni); energy and electrical engineering (Enel, Edison); home appliances (Candy, Indesit), aerospace and defense technologies (Alenia Aeronautica, Agusta, Finmeccanica), firearms (Beretta), fashion (Armani, Valentino, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli, Benetton,Prada, Luxottica); food processing (Ferrero, Barilla Group, Martini & Rossi, Campari, Parmalat); sport and luxury vehicles (Ferrari, Maserati,Lamborghini, Pagani); yachts (Ferretti, Azimut). 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%).[92]
Tourism
Tourism is one of the fastest growing and profitable sectors of the national economy: with 43.7 million international tourist arrivals and total receipts estimated at $42.7 billion, Italy is the fourth highest tourism earner and the fifth most visited country in the world.[95] Despite a slump in the late-1980s and during the Gulf War, Italy has, since the mid-1990s, rebuilt a strong tourism industry.[96] Italy's most popular tourist attractions are the Colosseum (4 million tourists per year, and the world's 39th most visited sight) and the ruins at Pompeii (48th in the world, with 2.5 million visitors).[citation needed]
Transport
Main article: Transport in Italy
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 (415,612 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.[100]
The national railway network, state-owned and operated by Ferrovie dello Stato, in 2003 totalled 16,287 km (10,122 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 hubsof 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 theMediterranean Sea). In 2005 Italy maintained a civilian air fleet of about 389,000 units and a merchant fleet of 581 ships.[100]
Demographics
Main article: Demography of Italy
With a population estimated in 60.4 million, Italy has the fourth-largest population in the European Union and the 23rd-largest population worldwide. The population density, at over 200 persons per square kilometer (over 500/sq mi), is the fifth highest in the European Union. The highest density is in Northern Italy, as that one-third of the country contains almost half of the total population.
After World War II, Italy enjoyed a prolonged economic boom which caused a major rural exodus to the cities, and at the same time transformed the nation from a massive emigration country to a net immigrant-receiving country. High fertility persisted until the 1970s, when it plunged below the replacement rates, so that as of 2008, one in five Italians was over 65 years old.[101] Despite this, thanks mainly to the massive immigration of the last two decades, in the first decade of the 21st century, Italy experienced a growth in the crude birth rate (especially in the northern regions) for the first time in many years.[102] The total fertility rate has also significantly grown in the past few years, thanks to rising births among both in foreign-born and Italian women, as it climbed from an all-time minimum of 1.18 children per woman in 1995 to 1.41 in 2008.[103]
Urbanization
See also: Metropolitan areas in Italy, List of cities in Italy by population, and Main cities of Italy
| Rank | City | Region | Population | Rank | City | Region | Population | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rome | Lazio | 2,724,347 | 11 | Venice | Veneto | 270,098 | |||
| 2 | Milan | Lombardy | 1,295,705 | 12 | Verona | Veneto | 265,368 | |||
| 3 | Naples | Campania | 963,661 | 13 | Messina | Sicily | 243,381 | |||
| 4 | Turin | Piedmont | 908,825 | 14 | Padua | Veneto | 211,936 | |||
| 5 | Palermo | Sicily | 659,433 | 15 | Trieste | Friuli-Venezia Giulia | 205,341 | |||
| 6 | Genoa | Liguria | 611,171 | 16 | Taranto | Apulia | 194,021 | |||
| 7 | Bologna | Emilia-Romagna | 374,944 | 17 | Brescia | Lombardy | 190,844 | |||
| 8 | Florence | Tuscany | 365,659 | 18 | Reggio Calabria | Calabria | 185,621 | |||
| 9 | Bari | Apulia | 320,677 | 19 | Prato | Tuscany | 185,091 | |||
| 10 | Catania | Sicily | 296,469 | 20 | Parma | Emilia-Romagna | 182,389 | |||
| Figures are ISTAT estimates for 31 December 2008 and represent the population of the communes, rather than of the urban areas. | ||||||||||
Migration
Main article: Immigration to Italy
Italy became a country of mass emigration soon after national reunification in the late 19th century. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000 Italians emigrated each year.[105] Italian communities once thrived in the former African colonies of Eritrea (nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II),[106] Somalia and Libya (150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting about 18% of the total population).[107] All of Libya's Italians were expelled from the North African country in 1970.[108]
In the decade after World War II, up to 350,000 ethnic Italians left Yugoslavia (see Istrian exodus).[109] Large numbers of people with full or significant Italian ancestry are found in Brazil (25 million),[110] Argentina (20 million),[111] US (17.8 million),[112] France (5 million),[113] Uruguay (1.5 million),[114] Canada (1.4 million),[115] Venezuela (900,000)[116] and Australia (800,000).[117]
At the start of 2010 there were 4,235,059 foreign nationals resident in Italy and registered with the authorities.[118] This amounted to 7.1% of the country’s population and represented a year-on-year increase of 388,000.[119] These figures include more than half a million children born in Italy to foreign nationals—second generation immigrants are becoming an important element in the demographic picture—but exclude foreign nationals who have subsequently acquired Italian nationality; this applied to 53,696 people in 2008.[120] They also exclude illegal immigrants, the so-called clandestini whose numbers are difficult to determine. In May 2008 The Boston Globe quoted an estimate of 670,000 for this group.[121]
Since the expansion of the European Union, the most recent wave of migration has been from surrounding European nations, particularly Eastern Europe, and increasingly Asia,[122] replacing North Africa as the major immigration area. Some 950,000 Romanians, around 10 percent of them being Romanis,[123] are officially registered as living in Italy, replacing Albanians and Moroccans as the largest ethnic minority group. The number unregistered Romanians is difficult to estimate, but the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network suggested that in 2007 that there might half been half a million or more.[124]
As of 2009, the foreign born population origin of Italy was subdivided as follows: Europe (53.5%), Africa (22.3%), Asia (15.8%), the Americas (8.1%) and Oceania (0.06%). The distribution of foreign born population is largely uneven in Italy: 87.3% of immigrants live in the northern and central parts of the country (the most economically developed areas), while only 12.8% live in the southern half of the peninsula.
| Origin | Population | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Italian | 56,118,099 | 92.98% |
| Romanian | 887,763 | 1.47% |
| North African | 646,624 | 1.07% |
| Albanian | 466,684 | 0.77% |
| Chinese | 188,352 | 0.28% |
| Ukrainian | 153,998 | 0.31% |
| Asian (non-Chinese) | 499,013 | 0.83% |
| Latin American | 324,917 | 0.54% |
| Sub-Saharan African | 285,169 | 0.47% |
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