Italy, slightly larger than Arizona, is a long peninsula shaped like a boot, surrounded on the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the east by the Adriatic. It is bounded by France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia to the north. The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone; the Alps form its northern boundary. The largest of its many northern lakes is Garda (143 sq mi; 370 sq km); the Po, its principal river, flows from the Alps on Italy's western border and crosses the Lombard plain to the Adriatic Sea. Several islands form part of Italy; the largest are Sicily (9,926 sq mi; 25,708 sq km) and Sardinia (9,301 sq mi; 24,090 sq km).
Country lead by President: Giorgio Napolitano (2006)
Prime Minister: Romano Prodi (2006)
Population
58,133,509 (growth rate: 0.0%); birth rate: 8.7/1000; infant mortality rate: 5.8/1000; life expectancy: 79.8; density per sq mi: 512
Land Area
113,521 sq mi (294,019 sq km); total area: 116,306 sq mi (301,230 sq km)
Monetary unit
Euro (formerly lira) Language
Italian (official); German-, French-, and Slovene-speaking minorities
Ethnicity Italian (includes small clusters of German-, French-, and Slovene-Italians in the north and Albanian- and Greek-Italians in the south)
Religion Roman Catholic approx. 90%, Protestant, Jewish, Islamic
Transportation Railways: total: 19,319 km (2004). Highways: total: 479,688 km; paved: 479,688 km (including 6,621 km of expressways); unpaved: 0 km (1999). Waterways: 2,400 km; note: used for commercial traffic; of limited overall value compared to road and rail (2004). Ports and harbors: Augusta, Genoa, Livorno, Melilli Oil Terminal, Ravenna, Taranto, Trieste, Venice. Airports: 134 (2004 est.).
Pantheon
Colosseum