Also check
out our Maps of Italy and
Regions of Italy related
pages
Facts about Italy
Italy, officially
the Italian
Republic or
Repubblica Italiana
in Italian, is a country situated in Western Europe comprising
the peninsula of Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, and several
smaller islands, including the islands o Capri and Ischia in
Campania.
Italy
shares its northern, Alpine border
with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia.
Enclaves of Italy include the independent states of San
Marino and the Vatican
City within the
Italian Peninsula, and Campione
d'Italia in
Switzerland.
Location:
Western Europe
Time Difference:
GMT+1
Area: 301,339
sq km (116,346 sq miles)
Population:
58.9m - UN estimate 2007
Capital: Rome
(Population 2.6m-2005)
Religion: Main
religion of Italy is Roman Catholicism
Curreny:
EUR
Italian Prime Minister:
Silvio Berlusconi
Italian president:
Giorgio Napolitano
Language:
Italian is the national language of Italy,
and a romance language deriving from latin, with
approximately
75% of Italian words being of Latin origin.
Several regional languages are also spoken to varying
degrees as well as Italian dialects e.g. Neapolitan and
Cisalpine raditionally spoken in Northern Italy.
There are also Italian immigrant languages and dialects eg.
Italkian, a Judaeo-Italian language spoken by the Jewish
community in Italy, and Arbėresh, Arbėrisht,
or Arbėrishte which
is the dialect of the Albanian
language spoken
by the Arbėreshė,
the group of Albanian-speaking minorities in Italy. For more
info about all the Dialects and Languages of Italy, click
here.
