Italy

Italy is a country in Europe.

On a map, it looks like a long boot. The sea is almost all around it. Two big islands lie close by. The capital city is Rome.

Italy is in southern Europe. Most of it is a long peninsula, a piece of land with water on three sides, that stretches into the Mediterranean Sea. People often say it is shaped like a boot. At the bottom lie two big islands, Sicily and Sardinia.

Italy is a land of mountains and hills. Flat plains cover only about one-fifth of it, mostly in the valley of the Po River in the north. About 58.9 million people lived in Italy at the start of 2026, and its capital is Rome.

Italy occupies a peninsula in south-central Europe that juts deep into the Mediterranean, together with Sicily, Sardinia and many smaller islands. To the north the Alps separate it from France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia; elsewhere it is bordered by the Adriatic Sea to the northeast, the Ionian to the southeast, the Tyrrhenian to the southwest and the Ligurian to the northwest. Its total area is about 302,000 square kilometers.

Britannica notes that plains, almost all in the great triangle of the Po valley, cover only about one-fifth of the land, and the rest is roughly evenly split between hills and mountains. Britannica also observes that, with travel between them traditionally difficult, Italy's towns and cities have a long history of self-sufficiency and independence, and visitors notice marked differences in cuisine and dialect from one town to the next. ISTAT counted about 58.9 million residents on 1 January 2026 (provisional).

Rome is the capital of Italy.

It has a giant, very old stone arena called the Colosseum. Venice is a city built on lots of little islands. A wide canal of water runs through it.

Rome, the capital, is home to about 2.7 million people (2023). Its old center is full of ruins from ancient times. The Colosseum is a huge oval arena of stone and concrete, finished almost 2,000 years ago, that could hold as many as 50,000 people.

Venice is spread over 118 small islands in a lagoon, a shallow stretch of sea, and the Grand Canal, about 3.8 kilometers long, is a main waterway through it. Florence, in Tuscany, became famous for its art and buildings about 500 years ago, and in Pisa a bell tower leans sideways.

Rome's historic center, a World Heritage Site since 1980, layers the ancient city of the Roman Republic and Empire with the churches, palaces and squares of later centuries. The Colosseum, or Flavian Amphitheatre, was begun under Vespasian between 70 and 72 CE and dedicated in 80 CE; it measures 189 by 156 m and could hold up to 50,000 spectators. Surrounded by Rome is Vatican City, an independent state that is the seat of the Roman Catholic Church.

Venice, founded in the 5th century CE on 118 small islands in its lagoon, became a major sea power in the 10th century. Florence, built on an Etruscan settlement and the Roman colony of Florentia (59 BCE), became a symbol of the Renaissance under the early Medici in the 15th and 16th centuries. At Pisa, the cathedral, baptistery, cemetery and leaning bell tower of the Piazza del Duomo were built between the 11th and 14th centuries.

Italy has very tall mountains in the north.

A long line of mountains runs down the middle. Italy has volcanoes too. Mount Etna, on an island, often puffs smoke and lava.

Mountains higher than 700 meters cover more than a third of Italy. In the north, the Alps have peaks over 3,900 meters and more than 1,000 glaciers. Gran Paradiso, 4,061 meters, is the highest mountain whose base and peak are both inside Italy. The Apennines run about 2,000 kilometers down the peninsula like a backbone.

Italy has active volcanoes. Mount Etna, on Sicily, erupts very often, and Vesuvius rises above the city of Naples. The longest river, the Po, flows 645 kilometers across the northern plain to the Adriatic Sea.

Italy has two main mountain systems. The Alps arc from the Gulf of Genoa to beyond Trieste, with more than 1,000 glaciers that are retreating; more than 100 have disappeared in about the last half century. Italy's highest ground lies on the slopes of Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, whose summits are just over the borders in France (4,807 m) and Switzerland (4,634 m); Gran Paradiso, 4,061 m, is the highest mountain wholly in Italy. The Apennines run about 2,000 km from the Cadibona Pass to Calabria and on into Sicily.

Volcanism dates from the Pliocene and Quaternary and continues near Naples (the Phlegraean Fields and Vesuvius), in the Aeolian Islands and at Etna. UNESCO describes Etna as one of the world's most active volcanoes, with activity recorded by people for at least 2,700 years, and the Aeolian Islands gave volcanology the names of two eruption types, Vulcanian and Strombolian. Earthquakes can be severe in the central and southern Apennines and on Sicily.

Ibexes climb the rocky Alps.

Marmots sleep through the cold winter. Wolves and bears live in some wild mountains. Wild boars live on the island of Sardinia.

In the Alps, the Alpine ibex, a wild goat with long ridged horns, is protected in Gran Paradiso National Park. Marmots sleep through the winter, and some animals, such as the ermine, change color with the seasons.

Farther south, the wild parts of the Apennine mountains are home to wolves, wild boars and bears. In the Abruzzo region, brown bears can still be found. Golden eagles fly over the Alps, and in the sea live fish such as bluefin tuna and swordfish.

Britannica notes that long human presence has much reduced Italy's wildlife. In the Alps live hibernators such as the marmot and animals that change color with the seasons, such as the ermine; larger mammals include the ibex, protected in Gran Paradiso National Park, the chamois and the roe deer, while the lynx and the brown bear are now rare. The Alpine ibex (Capra ibex ibex) has greatly declined since it was common across the western and central Alps; adult males weigh about 100 kg.

Much of the lower Apennine chain is near-wilderness, with wild boars, wolves, asps and bears rarely seen elsewhere in western Europe, and brown bears survive in Abruzzo. Sardinia has fallow deer, mouflon and wild boar. Britannica lists the golden eagle among Alpine birds, and, especially in southern waters, white sharks, bluefin tuna and swordfish, with red coral on rocks of the warm southern seas.

About 59 million people live in Italy.

Most people speak Italian. Some also speak other languages at home. In Naples, bakers spin pizza dough and bake it in hot ovens.

About 58.9 million people lived in Italy at the start of 2026. Italian is the official language, and many places also have their own dialects, so towns that are close together can sound different. A few other languages are protected by law in some regions, such as French in the Aosta Valley, German in parts of the north, and Sardinian on Sardinia.

Food changes from town to town too. In Naples, pizza makers prepare the dough with a spinning movement and bake it in a wood-fired oven, a skill UNESCO lists as living heritage.

Italy had about 58.9 million residents on 1 January 2026 (ISTAT, provisional). Italian is the official language. Britannica notes that only a few languages of limited areas have legal protection or recognition: French in Valle d'Aosta, German and Ladino in parts of Trentino–Alto Adige and Slovene in the province of Trieste, while Friulian and Sardinian, spoken by Italy's two largest linguistic minorities, were officially recognized in 1992. Older communities speak Arbëresh (a dialect of Albanian), Greek, Croatian and, in Alghero on Sardinia, Catalan.

More than four-fifths of people declare themselves Roman Catholic, although Italy has had no state religion since 1985. In 2017 UNESCO inscribed the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo: four phases of preparing the dough and baking it in a wood-fired oven, with a rotating movement by the baker. About 3,000 pizzaiuoli live and work in Naples, the capital of the Campania region.