Italy
From jeena
| Italian Republic
Repubblica italiana
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| Motto: Nata per Unire (Italian:Born to Unit) (Motto used for the 150th anniversary of the Italian Unification) |
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| Anthem: Il Canto degli Italiani The Song of the Italians  |
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![Location of Italy (dark green)– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the European Union (green) — [Legend]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/EU-Italy.svg/250px-EU-Italy.svg.png)
Location of Italy (dark green)
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| Capital | Rome 41°54′N 12°29′E |
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| Official language(s) | Italian[1] | |||||
| Demonym | Italian | |||||
| Government | Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic | |||||
| - | President | Giorgio Napolitano | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | Mario Monti | ||||
| Legislature | Parliament | |||||
| - | Upper house | Senate of the Republic | ||||
| - | Lower house | Chamber of Deputies | ||||
| Formation | ||||||
| - | Unification | 17 March 1861 | ||||
| - | Republic | 2 June 1946 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 301,338 km2 (71st) 116,346 sq mi |
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| - | Water (%) | 2.4 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 2011 estimate | 60,813,326[2] (23rd) | ||||
| - | 2011 (preliminary results) census | 59,570,581[3] | ||||
| - | Density | 201.8/km2 (61st) 522.7/sq mi |
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| GDP (PPP) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $1.847 trillion[4] (10th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $30,464[4] (30th) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $2.198 trillion[4] (8th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $36,267[4] (24th) | ||||
| Gini (2006) | 32[5] | |||||
| HDI (2011) |  0.874[6] (very high) (24th) |
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| Currency | Euro (€)2 (EUR) |
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| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |||||
| - | Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||||
| Drives on the | right | |||||
| ISO 3166 code | IT | |||||
| Internet TLD | .it3 | |||||
| Calling code | 394 | |||||
| 1 | French is co-official in the Aosta Valley; Slovene is co-official in the province of Trieste and the province of Gorizia; German and Ladin are co-official in the province of South Tyrol. | |||||
| 2 | Before 2002, the Italian Lira. The euro is accepted in Campione d'Italia, but the official currency there is the Swiss Franc.[7] | |||||
| 3 | The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states. | |||||
| 4 | To call Campione d'Italia, it is necessary to use the Swiss code +41. | |||||
i/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana[note 1]), is a unitary parliamentary republic 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 the Italian 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 are enclaves within Italy, while 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 60.8 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.Rome, the capital of Italy, has for centuries been a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured 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 became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance. Through much of its post-Roman history, Italy was fragmented into numerous city and regional states (such as the Republic of Venice and the Church State), but was unified in 1861.[8] In the late 19th century, through World War I, and to World War II, Italy possessed a colonial empire.[9]
Modern Italy is a democratic republic. It has been ranked as the world's 24th most-developed country[6] and its Quality-of-life Index has been ranked in the world's top ten in 2005.[10] Italy enjoys a very high standard of living, and has a high GDP per capita.[11][12] It is a founding member of what is now the European Union and part of the Eurozone. Italy is also a member of the G8, G20 and NATO. It has the world's third-largest gold reserves, eighth-largest nominal GDP, tenth highest GDP (PPP)[13] and the sixth highest government budget in the world.[14] 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 shares NATO'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.[15][16] The country has a high public education level and is a highly globalised nation.[17]
Contents
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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.[18] According to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin: Italia,[19] was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning "land of young cattle" (cf. Lat vitulus "calf", Umb vitlo "calf").[20] 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 Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus,[21] mentioned also by Aristotle[22] and Thucydides.[23]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: province of Reggio, and part of the provinces of Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia). But by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a larger region, but it was during the reign of Emperor Augustus (end of the first century BC) that the term was expanded to cover the entire peninsula until the Alps.[24]
History
Main article: History of Italy
Prehistory and antiquity
Main articles: Prehistoric Italy and Ancient Rome
Between the 17th and the 11th century BC Mycenaean Greeks established contacts with Italy[26][27][28][29][30][31][32] 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. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily.
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 2nd 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 the Franks, the Vandals, the Huns, the Goths and other populations from Eastern Europe – finally dissolved in 476 AD, when the last western Emperor was deposed by the Barbarian chief Odoacer.
Middle Ages
Main article: Italy in the Middle Ages
The Lombard reign of northern and central Italy was absorbed into the Frankish Empire by Charlemagne in the late 8th century. The Frankish kings also helped the formation of the Papal States in central Italy, extending from Rome to Ravenna, although for most of the Middle Ages the Papacy effectively controlled only Latium. The existence of this theocratic state hindered for centuries the unification of the peninsula. Until the 13th century, Italian politics were dominated by the relationship between the German Holy Roman Emperors and the popes, with most of the Italian cities siding for the former (Ghibellini) or for the latter (Guelfi) from momentary convenience.
It was during this vacuum of authority that the Italy saw the rise of a peculiar institution, the medieval commune. In the anarchic conditions that often prevailed in medieval Italian city-states, people organised themselves to restore order and disarm the feuding elites. In the 12th century, a league of comuni, the Lombard League, defeated the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, leading to a process granting effective independence to most of northern and central Italian cities. Despite the devastation of the numerous wars, Italy maintained, especially in the north and center, a relatively developed urban civilization.
During the same period, Italy saw the rise of numerous Maritime Republics, the most notable being Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi. Heavily involved in the Crusades, they took advantage of political and trading opportunities. Venice and Genoa soon became Europe's main gateways to trade with the East, establishing colonies as far as the Black Sea and often controlling most of the trade with the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Mediterranean world. The county of Savoy expanded its territory into the peninsula in the late Middle Ages, while Florence developed into a highly organized commercial and financial city-state, becoming for many centuries the European capital of silk, wool, banking and jewelry.
In the south, Byzantine Sicily had become an Islamic emirate in the 9th century, thriving until the Italo-Normans conquered it in the late 11th century together with most of the Lombard and Byzantine states of southern Italy. Through a complex series of events, southern Italy developed as a unified kingdom, first under the House of Hohenstaufen, then under the Capetian House of Anjou and, from the 15th century, the house of Aragon (although Sicily was a separate Aragonese kingdom from the late 13th to the 15th century). In Sardinia, the former Byzantine provinces became independent states known as giudicati, although most of the island was under Genoese or Pisan control until the Aragonese conquered it in the 15th century.
Early Modern
Main articles: Italian Renaissance, Italian Wars, and Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy
In the 14th and 15th centuries, Northern and upper Central Italy were divided into a number of warring city-states, the rest of the peninsula being occupied by the larger Papal States and Naples. The strongest among these city-states annexed the surrounding territories giving birth to the Signorie, regional states led by merchant families which founded local dynasties. Dominated by merchant oligarchies, they enjoyed a relative freedom and nurtured academic and artistic advancement. Warfare between the states was common, invasion from outside Italy confined to intermittent sorties of Holy Roman Emperors. These wars were primarily fought by armies of mercenaries known as condottieri, bands of soldiers drawn from around Europe, but especially Germany and Switzerland, led largely by Italian captains.[35]
Decades of fighting eventually saw Florence, Milan and Venice emerge as the dominant players that agreed to the Peace of Lodi in 1454, which saw relative calm brought to the region for the first time in centuries. This peace would hold for the next forty years, and Venice's unquestioned hegemony over the sea also led to unprecedented peace for much of the rest of the 15th century. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the mid-16th century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and even spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, and the English Renaissance.
In the meantime, the discovery of the Americas, the new routes to Asia discovered by the Portuguese and the rise of the Ottoman Empire—all factors which eroded the traditional Italian dominance in trade with the East – started the economic decline of the peninsula.
In the 18th century, as a result of the War of Spanish Succession, Austria replaced Spain as the dominant foreign power, while the House of Savoy emerged as a major regional power expanding to Piedmont and Sardinia. In this century, the ideas of the Enlightenment influenced the Italian rulers, paving the way to reforms which started an economic recovery in northern Italy and Tuscany.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the northern and central parts of the country were invaded and later partly annexed to the Empire and partly reorganized as a new Kingdom of Italy—essentially a client state of the French Empire —[38] while the southern half of the peninsula was administered by Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, who was crowned as King of Naples. The 1814 Congress of Vienna restored the situation of the late 18th century, but the ideals of the French Revolution could not be eradicated.
Italian unification and Liberal Italy
Main articles: Italian unification and Military history of Italy during World War I
In 1860–61, Giuseppe Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily,[39] allowing the Sardinian government led by the Count of Cavour to declare a united Italian kingdom on 17 March 1861. In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II allied with Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War, waging the Third Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to annex Venetia. Finally, as France during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870 abandoned its garrisons in Rome, the Savoy rushed to fill the power gap by taking over the Papal States.
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.[40] During World War I, Italy at first stayed neutral, but in 1915 signed the Treaty of London, entering the Entente on the promise of receiving Trento, Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca, Istria and northern Dalmatia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire—as well as parts of the Ottoman Empire. During the war, more than 650,000 Italian soldiers died,[41] and the economy collapsed. Under the Peace Treaties of Saint-Germain, Rapallo and Rome, Italy obtained most of the promised territories, including the Hungarian harbour of Fiume, but not Dalmatia (except Zara), allowing nationalists to define the victory as "mutilated".
Fascist regime
Main articles: Italian Fascism and Military history of Italy during World War II
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 June 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 hostilities ended on 2 May 1945. Nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) died in the conflict,[42] 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.[43]
Italian Republic
Main article: History of the Italian Republic
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 of Alcide De Gasperi, obtained a landslide victory. Consequently, in 1949 Italy became a member of NATO. The Marshall Plan helped to revive the Italian economy which, until the late 1960s, enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth commonly called the "Economic Miracle". In 1957, Italy was a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC), which became the European Union (EU) in 1993.
From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, the country experienced the Years of Lead, a period characterized by economic crisis (especially after the 1973 oil crisis), widespread social conflicts and terrorist massacres carried out by opposing extremist groups, with the alleged involvement of US intelligence.[46][47][48] The Years of Lead culminated in the assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978 and in the Bologna railway station massacre in 1980, where 85 people died; these events had deeply affected the whole country.[citation needed]
In the 1980s, for the first time since 1945, two governments were led by non-Christian-Democrat premiers: one liberal (Giovanni Spadolini) and one socialist (Bettino Craxi); the Christian Democrats remained, however, the main government party. During Craxi's government, the economy recovered and Italy became the world's fifth largest industrial nation, gaining entry into the G7 Group. However, as a result of his spending policies, the Italian national debt skyrocketed during the Craxi era, soon passing 100% of the GDP.
In the early 1990s, Italy faced significant challenges, as voters – disenchanted with political paralysis, massive public debt and the extensive corruption system (known as Tangentopoli) uncovered by the 'Clean Hands' investigation – demanded radical reforms. The scandals involved all major parties, but especially those in the government coalition: the Christian Democrats, who ruled for almost 50 years, underwent a severe crisis and eventually disbanded, splitting up into several factions. The Communists reorganized as a social-democratic force. During the 1990s and the 2000s (decade), centre-right (dominated by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi) and centre-left coalitions alternatively governed the country, which entered a prolonged period of economic stagnation.
Geography
Main article: Geography of Italy
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 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, four of which are active: Etna (the traditional site of Vulcan’s smithy), Stromboli, Vulcano 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.
Although the country comprises 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 Lei constitutes part of the Rhine's basin and the islands of Lampedusa and Lampione are on the African continental shelf.
Environment
See also: List of national parks of Italy and List of regional parks of Italy
Many watercourses and coastal stretches have also been contaminated by industrial and agricultural activity, while due to rising water levels, Venice 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, planning up to four French nuclear power plants. This was in turn struck down by a referendum following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.[60] 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 Messina mudslides.
Climate
Main article: Climate of Italy
Thanks to the great longitudinal extension of the peninsula and the
mostly mountainous inetrnal conformation, the climate of Italy is highly
diverse. In most of the inland northern and central regions, the
climate ranges from humid subtropical to humid continental and oceanic. In particular, the climate of the Po valley geographical region is mostly continental, with harsh winters and hot summers.[62][63] The coastal areas of Liguria, Tuscany and most of the South generally fit the Mediterranean climate 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.Politics
Government
Main article: Politics of Italy
Italy has a parliamentary government based on a proportional voting system. The parliament is perfectly bicameral: the two houses, the Chamber of Deputies (that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio) and the Senate of the Republic (that meets in Palazzo Madama), have the same powers. The Prime Minister, officially President of the Council of Ministers (Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is Italy's head of government.
The Prime Minister and the cabinet are appointed by the President of
the Republic, but must pass a vote of confidence in Parliament to become
in office.While the office is similar to those in most other parliamentary systems, the Italian prime minister has less authority than some of his counterparts. The prime minister is not authorized to request the dissolution of Parliament or dismiss ministers (that are exclusive prerogatives of the President of the Republic) and must receive a vote of approval from the Council of Ministers—which holds effective executive power—to execute most political activities.
Most of the remaining seats were won by minor parties that only contest election in one part of Italy, like the South Tyrolean People's Party and the Movement for Autonomies. However, during the last 3 years, a so called "Third Pole" emerged, merging the Christian Democrats of UDC with some dissident MPs coming from Mr. Berlusconi's cabinet.
A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italian citizens permanently living abroad (about 3.6 million people): 12 Deputies and 6 Senators elected in four distinct overseas constituencies. In addition, the Italian Senate is characterized also by a small number of senators for life, appointed by the President "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". Former Presidents of the Republic are ex officio life senators.
Law and criminal justice
Main articles: Judiciary of Italy and Law enforcement in Italy
A 2009 report identified 610 comuni which have a strong Mafia presence, where 13 million Italians live and 14.6% of the Italian GDP is produced.[68][69] The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, nowadays probably the most powerful crime syndicate of Italy, accounts alone for 3% of the country's GDP.[70] However, at 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate[71] (in a group of 62 countries) and the 43rd highest number of rapes per 1,000 people in the world (in a group of 65 countries), relatively low figures among developed countries.
Foreign relations
Main article: Foreign relations of Italy
Italy strongly supports multilateral international politics, endorsing 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 in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) from 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 operators and other civilian personnel. In August 2006 Italy deployed about 2,450 troops in Lebanon for the United Nations' peacekeeping mission UNIFIL.[72]
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