People of Italy

The Italian population consists almost entirely of native-born people. Many identify themselves closely with a particular region of Italy.

The country can be divided into two major sections: the more urban north (the area from the northern border and the port of Ancona to the southern part of Rome) and the mostly rural south (everything below this line, which is called the “Ancona Wall” by Italians). The north is more prosperous and contains most of Italy's larger cities. It has about two-thirds of the country's population. The south is primarily agricultural. It has a smaller population and has a more limited economy.

In recent decades the population has generally migrated from rural to urban areas. The population was 67 percent urban in 1998.

According to the 1991 census, Italy had a population of 56,778,031. The 2000 estimated population is 56,686,568, giving the country an average population density of 188 persons per sq km (about 487 per sq mi).

A large majority of the people speak Italian. This is the Italian of the Romance group of languages of the Indo-European family of languages. German is spoken around Bolzano, in the north near the Austrian border. Other minority languages include French, Ladin, Albanian, Slovenian, Catalan, Friulian, Sardinian, Croatian, and Greek.

For political divisions, Italy is divided into 20 regions, each of which is subdivided into provinces and communes.

The capital and largest city of Italy is Rome (population, 1997 estimate, 2,651,503), which is a famous cultural and tourist center. Other cities with large populations include Milan (1,301,152), an important manufacturing, financial, and commercial city; Naples (1,046,797), one of the busiest ports in Italy; Turin (917,060), a transportation junction and major industrial city; Palermo (689,193), the capital and chief seaport of Sicily; Genoa (650,113), the leading port in Italy and a major trade and commercial center; Bologna (384,015), a major transportation center and agricultural market; Florence (379,681), a cultural, commercial, transportation, and industrial center; Bari (334,004), a major commercial center; Catania (341,909), a manufacturing and commercial city of Sicily; and Venice (294,547), a leading seaport and a cultural and manufacturing center.

These facts about the People of Italy, were gathered fromEncarta.

Other informative sites are InfoPlease and the CIA World Factbook.