The climate in Italy is highly diverse and can be far from the stereotypical Mediterranean climate depending on the location. Most of the inland northern areas of Italy (for example Turin, Milan and Bologna) have a continental climate often classified as Humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa). The coastal areas of Liguria and most of the peninsula south of Florence generally fit the Mediterranean stereotype (Köppen climate classification Csa). The coastal areas of the peninsula can be very different from the interior higher altitudes 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.
The euro (currency sign: €; currency code: EUR) is the official currency of the European Union (EU). Fifteen member states have adopted it, known collectively as the Eurozone (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain).
Italy’s shaped like a boot. Most of the land is covered by mountains and is divided into eight different regions. One of the eight regions is the Alpine Slope, which runs up to the northern most part of Italy. The landscape has huge mountains and very deep valleys. Forests of beech, oak, and chestnut trees grow on the lower levels of the mountain. Low bushes still only grow on the higher levels of the mountains. The highest mountaintops just have rocks and glaciers. The rivers get their water from the melting snow. The hydroelectric plants along the coast of the Alpine River provide a lot of Italy’s electric power.
The Po Valley is the second land region. It’s also called the North Italian Plain. The Italian Plain stretches between the Alps in the north and the Apennine Mountains in the south. Waterways grow from the melting snow from those mountains when they cross the valley. They feed into Italy’s longest river. The Po floods periodically, but flooding is controlled by a system of dikes. The Po Valley is the richest and most modern agricultural region in Italy, and its land is almost totally cultivated. It is also Italy’s most densely populated region, with a lot of cities and a growing number of industrial suburban towns. Milan and Turin, in the western part of the valley, are at the center of the most heavily industrialized part of Italy. During the 1800’s, much of this land was drained and turned into farmland.
The Adriatic Plains is the third land region. It is a small region north of the Adriatic Sea. Its eastern edge borders Slovenia. The plain’s eastern half is known as the Carso. It is a limestone plateau and is not good for farming.
The Apennies is the fourth land region. It stretches almost the entire length of Italy. These mountains have steep inclines of soft rock that are constantly eroding as a result of heavy rains, overgrazing of sheep and goats, and the clearing of forests for wood and cropland. The lower mountain levels are covered with oak forests, which had been cleared in many places to allow farming. The middle levels show beech and conifer forests. The highest slopes have only wooded scrubland. The Arno and Tober rivers flow from the Apennies to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The northern Apennies have some of the largest forests in the country and lots of pastureland. The central part of the range has productive farmland and grazing. The southern Apennies include the poorest part of Italy from Molise to Calabria. This area has plateaus and high mountains. The high mountains offer a few natural resources.
The Apulia and the Southeastern Plains is the fifth land region. It is located in the heel of the boot-shaped Italian peninsula. This region has a lot of plateaus that end as cliffs at the Mediterranean Sea. It has a lot of farming room. Fishing is important along the coast of Italy. Bari and Taranto are the chief industrial centers.
The Western Uplands and Plains is the sixth land region. This region stretches along the Tyrrhenian Sea from La Spezia, a port city just south of Genoa, southward past Naples to Salerno. It is a rich agricultural region. The Western Uplands is second only to the Po Valley in agricultural production. The northern portion of the region includes the rich hill country of Tuscany and Umbria. This area is known especially for its grain crops. The southern half of the western uplands and plains include the cities of Rome and Naples. The plain along the coast doesn’t have a big populating. In the warm climate of the coastal plain, farmers grow lemons, peaches, and vegetables. Vineyards are found throughout the whole region.
Sicily is the seventh land region. Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is separated from mainland Italy by the strait of Messina. The island has mountains and plains. Mount Etna, one of the largest active volcanoes in the world, destroys the landscape of northeastern Sicily.
Sardinia is the eighth and final land region. Sardinia is an island to the west of the Italian peninsula in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The only good farmland is in the low-lying coastal plains, where cereals, artichokes, and grapes are grown. The heaviest population areas of Sardinia are along these plains.
By 500 BC, a number of groups shared Italy. Small Greek colonies dotted the southern coast and island of Sicily. Gauls, ancestors of today's modern French, roamed the mountainous north. While the Etruscans, a group originally hailing from somewhere in western Turkey, settled in central Italy, establishing a number of city-states, including what is now modern-day Bologna. Little is known about the Etruscans except that they thrived for a time, creating a civilization that would pass down a fondness for bold architecture (stone arches, paved streets, aqueducts, sewers) to its successor, Rome.
According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC by Romulus and Remus, twin brothers who claimed to be sons of the war god Mars and to have been raised as infants by a she-wolf. Romulus saw himself as a descendant of the defeated army of Troy, and wanted Rome to inherit the mantle of that ancient city, if not surpass it. When Remus laughed at the notion, Romulus killed his brother and declared himself the first king of Rome.
Rome went through seven kings until 509 BC when the last king was overthrown and the Roman Republic was formed. Rome then came to be ruled by two elected officials (known as consuls), a Senate made up of wealthy aristocrats (known as patricians), and a lower assembly that represented the common people (plebeians) and had limited power. This format of government worked well at first, but as Rome expanded beyond a mere city-state to take over territory not just in Italy, but overseas as well, the system of government came under severe strain. By the First Century BC, Rome was in crisis. Spartacus, a slave, led the common people in a revolt against the rule of the aristocratic patricians. Rome was able to put down the rebellion, but at great cost, as the Republic dissolved into a series of military of dictatorships that ended with the assassination of Julius Caesar.
In 29 BC, after a long power struggle, Julius Caesar's nephew, Octavius, seized power and declared himself Emperor Augustus. The Roman Empire was born. For the next two hundred years, Rome thrived, ruling over a vast territory stretching from Britain and the Atlantic coast of Europe in the north and west to North Africa and the Middle East in the south and east.
This Pax Romana, a time of peace, ended in 180 AD with the death of Marcus Aurelius, Rome's last great emperor. A combination of economic problems, barbarian invasions, domestic instability, and territorial rebellions, combined with a lack of strong leadership, resulted in the slow and gradual decline of Rome. In 380 AD, after three hundred years of persecution, Christianity became the one and only official religion. By the end of the Fourth Century AD, the Roman Empire split into two. The East, based out of the newly-built capital of Constantinople, in what is now Turkey, thrived, eventually becoming the long-lasting Byzantine Empire. Rome, capital of the West, continued to decline.
In 410 AD, Rome itself was sacked by barbarian hordes. The Eastern Empire invaded but failed to restore order and had to withdraw. The Roman Empire in the West completely collapsed. For the next thousand years, Italy once again became a patchwork of city-states, with Rome, home to the Catholic Church, being the most powerful. This long period of quiet stagnation was known as the Dark Ages.
Prosperity did not return to Italy again until the Fourteenth Century, when city-states such as Florence, Milan, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice became centers of trade. The influx of wealth and increased trade contact with foreign lands, transformed Italy into Europe's premier center of culture. Funded by wealthy patrons, figures such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli, and Galileo, among others, revolutionized the fields of art, literature, politics, and science. Italian explorers, such as Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus, introduced Italy and Europe to the rest of the world.
Italy remained a center of power until the Sixteenth Century, when trade routes shifted away from the Mediterranean and the Protestant Reformation resulted in the Catholic Church, which was based in Rome, losing influence over much of Northern Europe. Weakened, the various Italian city-states became vulnerable to conquest by Spain, France, and Austria. Italy remained a patchwork of principalities controlled through proxy by various European powers until the Nineteenth Century, when the French leader Napoleon supported the unification of Italy as a way of creating a buffer state against his many enemies. With the backing of France, Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi led a popular movement that took over much of Italy, ending in 1870 with the fall of Rome and complete unification of Italy.
Plagued by internal political divisions and with an economy devastated by war, the new Kingdom of Italy was no Roman Empire. In 1919, frustrated that Italy had received few gains despite having been a victor in the First World War, a politician named Benito Mussolini launched a movement that called for the restoration of Italy as a great power. In 1922, impatient with electoral politics, Mussolini led his supporters, known as Fascists, on a march on Rome to seize power directly through a coup. Spooked, the Italian king did not put up a fight and allowed Mussolini to become supreme ruler of Italy.
Mussolini spent the next twenty years consolidating power and building up the Italian economy, but he never gave up on the idea of restoring Italy as a great power. Calling himself "Il Duce" (meaning Leader), Mussolini dreamed of leading a new Roman Empire. In the 1930s, he indulged his dreams of conquest, by invading Ethiopia and Albania. When the Second World War broke out, Italy remained neutral at first. However, once it appeared through the Fall of France that Germany would win, Mussolini eagerly joined Hitler, a fellow Fascist and longtime ally, in the war effort and rushed to invade Greece, the Balkans, and North Africa. Overextended and unprepared for such a large-scale effort, Italy quickly found that it could not maintain its military position and had to ask Germany for help. Before long, Mussolini saw himself losing control of North Africa, the Mediterranean, and eventually his very own country to the Allies. Fleeing Rome, Mussolini tried to set up a puppet state in Northern Italy but failed. Abandoned by a disgusted Hitler, Il Duce and his mistress were captured and executed by Italian partisans.
After the Second World War, Italy abolished the monarchy and declared itself a republic. With the strong support of the United States, Italy rebuilt its economy through loans from the Marshall Plan, joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and became a strong supporter of what is now the European Union. Today, Italy is now one of the most prosperous and democratic nations in Europe.
On national holidays you may find information offices closed, museums open for shorter hours and public transport running a limited service. Be forewarned by checking the dates of your vacation against the list below.
(Note that Easter Monday is a mobile feast-day, and changes every year, while all the other holidays keep to the same date.)
(The dates marked ** are particularly difficult: practically all museums and monuments are shut and many restaurants too.)
As well as the above national holidays, each town celebrates the feast-day of its patron saint, which differs from town to town.
Dates for the major cities are as follows:
The population of Italy in 2003 was estimated by the United Nations at 57,423,000, which placed it as number 22 in population among the 193 nations of the world. In that year approximately 19% of the population was over 65 years of age, with another 14% of the population under 15 years of age. There were 94 males for every 100 females in the country in 2003. According to the UN, the annual population growth rate for 2000–2005 is -0.10%, with the projected population for the year 2015 at 55,507,000. The population density in 2002 was 193 per sq km (499 per sq mi). The Po Valley is one of the most densely populated areas of the country.
It was estimated by the Population Reference Bureau that 67% of the population lived in urban areas in 2001. The capital city, Rome, had a population of 2,685,000 in that year. Other major cities include Milan, 4,251,000; Naples, 3,012,000; Turin (Torino), 1,294,000; Genoa, 890,000; Palermo, 734,238; Bologna, 411,803; and Florence, 778,000. According to the United Nations, the urban population growth rate for 2000– 2005 was 0.1%.
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