Italy Facts and Figures
Capital
Rome is the capital and the largest city of Italy and has 2.7 million inhabitants.
Population
Population of Italy: 59,206,382
System of government
The Italian Republic or Italy is a democratic republic with a bicameral parliament consisting of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate, a separate judiciary, and an executive branch composed of a Council of Ministers, headed by the prime minister.
Regions in Italy
Italy is subdivided into 20 regions: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lazio, Liguria, Lombardy, Marche, Molise, Piedmont, Apulia, Sardinia, Aosta Valley, Tuscany, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Umbria, Sicily and Veneto.
It is further divided into 109 provinces and 8,101 municipalities or comuni.
Geography
Italy is a large South European country, located on a long, boot-shaped peninsula, surrounded on the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the east by the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia to the north.
Italy covers an area of 301,230 km² including Sardinia and Sicily - the largest islands of Italy.
Italy has land boundaries of 1,932.2 km in total and Italy has land boundaries of 1,932.2 km in total and a coastline of 7,600 km.
Climate of Italy
Italy’s climate depends on the location. Most of the inland northern areas of Italy have a continental climate. The coastal areas of Liguria and most of the peninsula south of Florence generally have the Mediterranean climate. 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 enjoy mild winters and warm and generally dry summers, although lowland valleys can be quite hot in summer.
Language in Italy
The official language of Italy is Standard Italian, the language spoken by the vast majority of Italians. There are parts of Italy with German speaking population and French speaking minority. Almost every region of Italy has its local dialect of Italian language.
English is not widely spoken and understood in Italy but it is spoken fairly commonly on the well-traveled path.
Religion in Italy
Roman Catholicism is the largest religion in the country, but it is no longer officially the state religion.
There are also other religious groups such as Christians, small Jewish community, Muslims and Buddhists.
Time zone
In Italy the local time is GMT +1 hour and GMT +2 hours between the last Sunday in March and the Saturday before the last Sunday in September
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