Italy

Italy sits in Southern and Western Europe, a boot-shaped peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean Sea. Its northern border is walled by the Alps, and the country includes nearly 800 islands—most famously Sicily and Sardinia. It shares land borders with France to the west, Switzerland and Austria to the north, Slovenia to the east, and completely surrounds the microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. By area, it’s Europe’s tenth-largest country (301,340 square kilometres) and the European Union’s third-most populous, home to nearly 59 million people.

Rome is the capital; other major cities are Milan, Naples, Turin, Palermo, Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Bari, and Venice. The name “Italy” has several possible origins. One theory traces it to an Ancient Greek term for the Italói, a tribe that lived in what is now Calabria. Some scholars think that tribe was originally called Vituli, with a calf (Latin vitulus) as its totem.

Ancient writers also claimed the land was named after a local ruler, Italus. For the Greeks, “Italy” initially meant only the southern part of the Bruttium peninsula and parts of Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia. Over time, the term Oenotria merged with “Italy,” and the name spread to cover most of Lucania. Before Rome’s expansion, Greeks used “Italy” for the land between the Strait of Messina and a line connecting the gulfs of Salerno and Taranto—roughly modern Calabria.

Later, they applied it to a larger region. Besides this “Greek Italy” in the south, historians also speak of an “Etruscan Italy” covering parts of central Italy. Roman Italy had clearer borders: Cato’s Origines describes it as the whole peninsula south of the Alps. By 264 BC, Roman Italy stretched from the Arno and Rubicon rivers in the centre-north down to the far south.

The northern area, Cisalpine Gaul, was geographically part of Italy but politically separate until it was legally merged into the administrative unit of Italy in 42 BC. In AD 292, Diocletian added Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and Malta, making late-ancient Italy match the modern geographical region. The Latin word Italicus meant “a man of Italy” (as opposed to a provincial). The adjective italianus—from which “Italian” comes—appeared in medieval Latin and was used alongside Italicus in the early modern period.

After the Western Roman Empire fell, the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy arose. Later, despite Lombard invasions, “Italia” remained the name for their kingdom and its successor within the Holy Roman Empire. Italy’s history reaches back to numerous Italic peoples, most famously the ancient Romans. They conquered the Mediterranean world during the Roman Republic and ruled it for centuries under the Roman Empire.

With Christianity’s spread, Rome became the seat of the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Barbarian invasions and other factors caused the Western Roman Empire to decline and fall between late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By the 11th century, Italian city-states and maritime republics were expanding, bringing renewed prosperity through trade and laying the groundwork for modern capitalism. The Italian Renaissance flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries and spread across Europe.

Italian explorers found new routes to the Far East and the New World, playing a major role in the Age of Discovery. After centuries of political and territorial fragmentation, the Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861, following wars of independence and the Expedition of the Thousand. From the late 19th into the early 20th century, Italy industrialised and built a colonial empire, while the south remained largely poor—sparking a huge emigrant diaspora to the Americas.

Italy fought in World War I from 1915 to 1918 on the side of the Entente against the Central Powers. In 1922, a fascist dictatorship took power. During World War II, Italy was first part of the Axis until an armistice with the Allies (1940–1943), then fought alongside the Allies during the Italian resistance and liberation from German occupation and the collaborationist Italian Social Republic (1943–1945). In 1946, the monarchy was replaced by a republic, and the country underwent a strong economic recovery.

Today, Italy is a developed country with an advanced economy. It has the world’s eighth-largest nominal GDP and Europe’s second-largest manufacturing sector. A founding and leading member of the European Union, it also belongs to many other international organisations and forums. As a cultural superpower, Italy has long been a global centre for art, music, literature, cuisine, fashion, science, and technology, and it is the source of numerous inventions and discoveries.

It boasts the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (62) and ranks as the fifth most visited country in the world by international tourist arrivals.