Italy

Italy Background

Italy became a nation-state in 1861 when the city-states of the peninsula, along with Sardinia and Sicily, were united under King Victor EMMANUEL II. An era of parliamentary government came to a close in the early 1920s when Benito MUSSOLINI established a Fascist dictatorship. His disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany led to Italy's defeat in World War II. A democratic republic replaced the monarchy in 1946 and economic revival followed. Italy was a charter member of NATO and the European Economic Community (EEC). It has been at the forefront of European economic and political unification, joining the Economic and Monetary Union in 1999. Persistent problems include illegal immigration, organized crime, corruption, high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and the low incomes and technical standards of southern Italy compared with the prosperous north.

Italy Information

• Population: 58,057,477 (July 2004 est.)
• Nationality: noun: Italian(s) adjective: Italian
• Location:: Southern Europe, a peninsula extending into the central Mediterranean Sea, northeast of Tunisia
• Religions:: predominately Roman Catholic with mature Protestant and Jewish communities and a growing Muslim immigrant community
• Ethnic Groups:: Italian (includes small clusters of German-, French-, and Slovene-Italians in the north and Albanian-Italians and Greek-Italians in the south)
• Land Boundaries:: total: 1,932.2 km border countries: Austria 430 km, France 488 km, Holy See (Vatican City) 3.2 km, San Marino 39 km, Slovenia 232 km, Switzerland 740 km
• Area: total: 301,230 sq km note: includes Sardinia and Sicily water: 7,210 sq km land: 294,020 sq km
• Coast Line: 7,600 km
• Climate: predominantly Mediterranean; Alpine in far north; hot, dry in south
• Terrain: mostly rugged and mountainous; some plains, coastal lowlands
• Maritime Claims: territorial sea: 12 nm continental shelf: 200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation
• Land Use: arable land: 27.79% permanent crops: 9.53% other: 62.68% (2001)
• Environmental Issues: air pollution from industrial emissions such as sulfur dioxide; coastal and inland rivers polluted from industrial and agricultural effluents; acid rain damaging lakes; inadequate industrial waste treatment and disposal facilities
• Natural Resources: coal, mercury, zinc, potash, marble, barite, asbestos, pumice, fluorospar, feldspar, pyrite (sulfur), natural gas and crude oil reserves, fish, arable land
• Highways: total: 479,688 km paved: 479,688 km (including 6,621 km of expressways) unpaved: 0 km (1999)
• Railways: total: 19,507 km (11,651 km electrified) standard gauge: 18,070 km 1.435-m gauge (11,375 km electrified) narrow gauge: 123 km 1.000-m gauge (88 km electrified); 1,314 km 0.950-m gauge (188 km electrified) (2003)
• Ports & Harbours: Augusta (Sicily), Bagnoli, Bari, Brindisi, Gela, Genoa, La Spezia, Livorno, Milazzo, Naples, Porto Foxi, Porto Torres (Sardinia), Salerno, Savona, Taranto, Trieste, Venice (2001)
• Airports: 134 (2003 est.)