Hypotheses for the etymology of Italia are numerous.
Oscan: Víteliú).[14] Several ancient authors said it was named after a local ruler Italus.[15]
The ancient Greek term for Italy initially referred only to the south of the
Oenotria and "Italy" became synonymous, and the name applied to most of Lucania as well. Before the Roman Republic's expansion, the name was used by Greeks for the land between the strait of Messina and the line connecting the gulfs of Salerno and Taranto, corresponding to Calabria. The Greeks came to apply "Italia" to a larger region.[16] In addition to the "Greek Italy" in the south, historians have suggested the existence of an "Etruscan Italy", which consisted of areas of central Italy.[17]
ancient Romans, who conquered the Mediterranean world during the Roman Republic and ruled it for centuries during the Roman Empire.[35]
Ancient Rome, a settlement on the River Tiber in central Italy, founded in 753 BC, was ruled for 244 years by a monarchical system.[36] In 509 BC, the Romans, favouring a government of the Senate and the People (SPQR), expelled the monarchy and established an oligarchic republic.[37]
The Italian Peninsula, named Italia, was consolidated into a unified entity during Roman expansion, the conquest of new territories often at the expense of the other Italic tribes, Etruscans, Celts, and Greeks. A permanent association, with most of the local tribes and cities, was formed, and Rome began the conquest of Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. In the wake of Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Rome grew into a massive empire stretching from Britain to the borders of Persia, engulfing the whole Mediterranean basin, in which Greek, Roman, and other cultures merged into a powerful civilisation. The long reign of the first emperor, Augustus, began an age of peace and prosperity. Roman Italy remained the metropole of the empire, homeland of the Romans and territory of the capital.[38]
The Roman Empire was among the largest in history, wielding great economical, cultural, political, and military power.[39] At its greatest extent, it had an area of 5 million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles).[40] The Roman legacy has deeply influenced Western civilisation shaping the modern world. The widespread use of Romance languages derived from Latin, numerical system, modern Western alphabet and calendar, and the emergence of Christianity as a world religion, are among the many legacies of Roman dominance.[41]
Odoacer's kingdom, and was seized by the Ostrogoths.[42] Invasions resulted in a chaotic succession of kingdoms and the supposed "Dark Ages". The invasion of another Germanic tribe in the 6th century, the Lombards, reduced Byzantine presence and ended political unity of the peninsula. The north formed the Lombard kingdom, central-south was also controlled by the Lombards, and other parts remained Byzantine.[43]
Guelphs) for momentary advantage.[45] The Germanic emperor and Roman pontiff became the universal powers of medieval Europe. However, conflict over the Investiture Controversy and between Guelphs and Ghibellines ended the imperial-feudal system in the north, where cities gained independence.[46] In 1176, the Lombard League of city-states defeated Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa
, ensuring their independence.
City-states—e.g. Milan, Florence, Venice—played a crucially innovative role in financial development by devising banking practices, and enabling new forms of social organisation.[47] In coastal and southern areas, maritime republics dominated the Mediterranean and monopolised trade to the Orient. They were independent thalassocratic city-states, in which merchants had considerable power. Although oligarchical, the relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic and artistic advancement.[48] The best-known maritime republics were Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi.[49] Each had dominion over overseas lands, islands, lands on the Adriatic, Aegean, and Black seas, and commercial colonies in the Near East and North Africa.[50]
Venice and Genoa were Europe's gateways to the East, and producers of fine glass, while Florence was a centre of silk, wool, banking, and jewellery. The wealth generated meant large public and private artistic projects could be commissioned. The republics participated in the
Arab 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 principalities of southern Italy.[52] The region was subsequently divided between the Kingdom of Sicily and Kingdom of Naples.[d][53] The Black Death of 1348 killed perhaps a third of Italy's population.[54]
During the 1400s and 1500s, Italy was the birthplace and heart of the
Medici of Florence. After the end of the Western Schism, newly elected Pope Martin V returned to the Papal States and restored Italy as the sole centre of Western Christianity. The Medici Bank was made the credit institution of the Papacy, and significant ties were established between the Church and new political dynasties.[55][56]
. The Italian economy declined in the 1600s and 1700s.
Flag of the Cispadane Republic, the first Italian tricolour adopted by a sovereign Italian state (1797)
Risorgimento, emerged to unite Italy by consolidating the states and liberating them from foreign control. A radical figure was the patriotic journalist Giuseppe Mazzini, founder of the political movement Young Italy in the 1830s, who favoured a unitary republic and advocated a broad nationalist movement. 1847 saw the first public performance of "Il Canto degli Italiani", which became the national anthem in 1946.[66]
In 1860–1861, Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily.[72]Teano was the site of a famous meeting between Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II, the last king of Sardinia, during which Garibaldi shook Victor Emanuel's hand and hailed him as King of Italy. Cavour agreed to include Garibaldi's southern Italy in a union with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860. This allowed the Sardinian government to declare a united Italian kingdom on 17 March 1861,[73] with Victor Emmanuel II as its first king. In 1865, the kingdom's capital was moved from Turin to Florence. In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II, allied with Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War, waged the Third Italian War of Independence, which resulted in Italy annexing Venetia. Finally, in 1870, as France abandoned Rome during the Franco-Prussian War, the Italians captured the Papal States, unification was completed, and the capital moved to Rome.[67]
Sardinia's constitution was extended to all of Italy in 1861, and provided basic freedoms for the new state; but electoral laws excluded the non-propertied classes. The new kingdom was governed by a parliamentary constitutional monarchy dominated by liberals. As northern Italy quickly industrialised, southern and northern rural areas remained underdeveloped and overpopulated, forcing millions to migrate and fuelling
The fascist dictator Benito Mussolini titled himself Duce and ruled the country from 1922 to 1943.
The
mass demonstration and the "March on Rome" coup. King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini as prime minister, transferring power to the fascists without armed conflict.[82] Mussolini banned political parties and curtailed personal liberties, establishing a dictatorship. These actions attracted international attention and inspired similar dictatorships in Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain
, ending its war with the Allies. The Germans, with the assistance of Italian fascists, succeeded in taking control of north and central Italy. The country remained a battlefield, with the Allies moving up from the south.
liberation of Italy
in April 1945
In the north, the Germans set up the
Italian Resistance, who fought a guerrilla war against the Nazi German occupiers and collaborators.[85] This has been described as an Italian civil war due to fighting between partisans and fascist RSI forces.[86][87] In April 1945, with defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north,[88] but was captured and summarily executed by partisans.[89]
Hostilities ended on 29 April 1945,
when the German forces in Italy surrendered. Nearly half a million Italians died in the conflict,[90] society was divided, and the economy all but destroyed—per capita income in 1944 was at its lowest point since 1900.[91] The aftermath left Italy angry with the monarchy for its endorsement of the Fascist regime, contributing to a revival of Italian republicanism.[92]
Istrian-Dalmatian exodus, which involved the emigration of around 300,000 Istrian and Dalmatian Italians.[95] Italy lost all colonial possessions, ending the Italian Empire
1948, when the Christian Democrats, under Alcide De Gasperi, won a landslide victory.[96] Consequently, in 1949 Italy became a member of NATO. The Marshall Plan revived the economy, which, until the late 1960s, enjoyed a period called the Italian economic miracle. In the 1950s, Italy became a founding country of the European Communities, a forerunner of the European Union. From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, the country experienced the Years of Lead, characterised by economic difficulties, especially after the 1973 oil crisis; social conflicts; and terrorist massacres.[97]
The economy recovered and Italy became the world's fifth-largest industrial nation after it gained entry into the
With almost 200,000 victims, Italy was one of the countries with the most deaths in the
national unity government supported by most main parties,[108] pledging to implement an economic stimulus to face the crisis caused by the pandemic.[109] In 2022, Giorgia Meloni was sworn in as Italy's first female prime minister.[110]
biggest islands of the Mediterranean), and many smaller islands.[111] Some of Italy's territory extends beyond the Alpine basin, and some islands are located outside the Eurasian
continental shelf.
The country's area is 301,230 square kilometres (116,306 sq mi), of which 294,020 km2 (113,522 sq mi) is land and 7,210 km2 (2,784 sq mi) is water.[113] Including the islands, Italy has a coastline of 7,600 kilometres (4,722 miles) on the Mediterranean Sea, the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas,[114] the Ionian Sea,[115] and the Adriatic Sea.[116] Its border with France runs for 488 km (303 mi); Switzerland, 740 km (460 mi); Austria, 430 km (267 mi); and Slovenia, 232 km (144 mi). The sovereign states of San Marino and Vatican City (the smallest country in the world and headquarters of the worldwide Catholic Church under the governance of the Holy See) are enclaves within Italy,[117] while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland.[118] The border with San Marino is 39 km (24 mi) long, that with Vatican City, 3.2 km (2.0 mi).[113]
Padan plain to the Adriatic.[121] The Po Valley is the largest plain, with 46,000 km2 (18,000 sq mi), and contains over 70% of the country's lowlands.[119] The largest lakes are, in descending size: Garda (367.94 km2 or 142 sq mi), Maggiore (212.51 km2 or 82 sq mi), and Como (145.9 km2 or 56 sq mi).[122]
Italy's climate is influenced by the seas that surround the country on every side except the north, which constitute a reservoir of heat and humidity. Within the southern temperate zone, they determine a Mediterranean climate with local differences.
humid continental and oceanic. The Po Valley is mostly humid subtropical, with cool winters and hot summers.[125] The coastal areas of Liguria, Tuscany, and most of the south generally fit the Mediterranean climate stereotype, as in the Köppen climate classification
.
Conditions on the coast are different from those in the interior, particularly during winter when the higher altitudes tend to be cold, wet, and often snowy. The coastal regions have mild winters, and hot and generally dry summers; lowland valleys are hot in summer. Winter temperatures vary from 0 °C (32 °F) in the Alps to 12 °C (54 °F) in Sicily; so, average summer temperatures range from 20 °C (68 °F) to over 25 °C (77 °F). Winters can vary widely with lingering cold, foggy, and snowy periods in the north, and milder, sunnier conditions in the south. Summers are hot across the country, except at high altitude, particularly in the south. Northern and central areas can experience strong thunderstorms from spring to autumn.[126]
Garigue and Maquis shrubland, contribute to habitat diversity. As the peninsula is in the centre of the Mediterranean, forming a corridor between Central Europe and North Africa, and having 8,000 km (5,000 mi) of coastline, Italy has received species from the Balkans, Eurasia, and the Middle East. Italy has probably the highest level of faunalbiodiversity in Europe, with over 57,000 species recorded, representing more than a third of all European fauna,[127] and the highest level of biodiversity of animal and plant species within the EU.[128]
The Italian wolf is the national animal of Italy,[141] while the national tree is the strawberry tree.[142] The reasons for this are that the Italian wolf, which inhabits the Apennine Mountains and the Western Alps, features prominently in Latin and Italian cultures, such as the legend of the founding of Rome,[143] while the green leaves, white flowers, and red berries of the strawberry tree, native to the Mediterranean, recall the colours of the flag.[142] The national bird is the Italian sparrow,[144] while the national flower is the flower of the strawberry tree.[145]
After its quick industrial growth, Italy took time to address its environmental problems. After improvements, Italy now ranks 84th in the world for ecological sustainability.[146] The total area protected by national parks, regional parks, and nature reserves covers about 11% of Italian territory,[147] and 12% of Italy's coastline is protected.[148]
Italy has been one of the world's leading producers of renewable energy, in 2010 ranking as the fourth largest provider of installed solar energy capacity[149] and sixth largest of wind power capacity.[150] Renewable energy provided approximately 37% Italy's energy consumption in 2020.[151]
The country operated nuclear reactors between 1963 and 1990 but, after the Chernobyl disaster and referendums, the nuclear programme was terminated, a decision overturned by the government in 2008, with plans to build up to four nuclear power plants. This was in turn struck down by a referendum following the Fukushima nuclear accident.[152]
Air pollution remains severe, especially in the industrialised north. Italy is the
Deforestation, illegal building, and poor land-management policies have led to significant erosion in Italy's mountainous regions, leading to ecological disasters such as the 1963 Vajont Dam flood, the 1998 Sarno,[155] and the 2009 Messina mudslides.
, appointed by the president "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". Former presidents are ex officio life senators.
Palazzo Madama in Rome, seat of the Senate of the Republic, the upper house of the Italian Parliament
The prime minister of Italy is head of government and has executive authority, but must receive a vote of approval from the Council of Ministers to execute most policies. The prime minister and cabinet are appointed by the president, and confirmed by a vote of confidence in parliament. To remain as prime minister, one has to pass votes of confidence. The role of prime minister is similar to most other parliamentary systems, but they are not authorised to dissolve parliament. Another difference is that the political responsibility for intelligence is with the prime minister, who has exclusive power to coordinate intelligence policies, determine financial resources, strengthen cybersecurity, apply and protect State secrets, and authorise agents to carry out operations, in Italy or abroad.[159]
The law of Italy has several sources. These are hierarchical: the law or regulation from a lower source cannot conflict with the rule of an upper source (hierarchy of sources).
Supreme Court of Cassation
is the highest court for both criminal and civil appeals.
Italy lags behind other Western European nations in
LGBT rights.[162] Italy's law prohibiting torture is considered behind international standards.[163]
Law enforcement is complex with multiple police forces.
Since their appearance in the middle of the 19th century, Italian organised crime and criminal organisations have infiltrated the social and economic life of many regions in southern Italy; the most notorious is the Sicilian Mafia, which expanded into foreign countries, including the US. Mafia receipts may reach 9%[166] of GDP.[167] A 2009 report identified 610 comuni which have a strong Mafia presence, where 13 million Italians live and 15% of GDP is produced.[168] The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, probably the most powerful crime syndicate of Italy, accounts alone for 3% of GDP.[169]
At 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has the 47th highest murder rate,[170] compared to 61 countries, and the 43rd highest number of rapes per 1,000 people, compared to 64 countries in the world. These are relatively low figures among developed countries.
Italy strongly supports multilateral international politics, endorsing the UN and its international security activities. In 2013, Italy had 5,296 troops deployed abroad, engaged in 33 UN and NATO missions in 25 countries.
Italy supported international efforts to reconstruct and stabilise Iraq, but it had withdrawn its military contingent of 3,200 troops by 2006. In August 2006, Italy deployed about 2,450 troops for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.[172] Italy is one of the largest financiers of the Palestinian Authority, contributing €60 million in 2013 alone.[173]
High Council of Defence, presided over by the president, per the Constitution of Italy. According to Article 78, the Parliament
has the authority to declare a state of war and vest the necessary war-making powers in the government.
Despite not being a branch of the armed forces, the Guardia di Finanza has military status and is organised along military lines.[e] Since 2005, military service has been voluntary.[174] In 2010, the Italian military had 293,202 personnel on active duty,[175] of which 114,778 are Carabinieri.[176] As part of NATO's nuclear sharing strategy, Italy hosts 90 US B61 nuclear bombs located at the Ghedi and Aviano air bases.[177]
The Army is the national ground defence force. It was formed in 1946, when Italy became a republic, from what remained of the "
M113
armoured vehicles.
The Italian Navy is a blue-water navy. It was also formed in 1946 from what remained of the Regia Marina (the 'Royal Navy'). The Navy, being a member of the EU and NATO, has taken part in coalition peacekeeping operations around the world. In 2014, the Navy operated 154 vessels in service, including minor auxiliary vessels.[178]
The Italian Air Force was founded as an independent service arm in 1923 by King Victor Emmanuel III as the
C-27J Spartan. The acrobatic display team is the Frecce Tricolori
('Tricolour Arrows').
An autonomous corps of the military, the Carabinieri are the gendarmerie and military police of Italy, policing the military and civilian population alongside Italy's other police forces. While different branches of the Carabinieri report to separate ministries, the corps reports to the Ministry of Internal Affairs when maintaining public order and security.[179]
third-largest central bank gold reserve. As a founding member of the G7, the eurozone, and the OECD, it is one of the most industrialised nations and a leading trading nation.[183] It is a developed country ranked 30th on the Human Development Index. It performs well in life expectancy, healthcare,[184] and education. The country is well known for its creative and innovative businesses,[185] a competitive agricultural sector,[186] and its influential and high-quality automobile, machinery, food, design, and fashion industries.[187]
small- and medium-sized enterprises, clustered in industrial districts, which are the backbone of Italian industry. This has produced a niche-markets manufacturing sector often focused on the export of luxury products. While less capable of competing on quantity, it can compete with Asian economies that have lower labor costs through higher-quality products.[191] Italy was the world's 9th-largest exporter in 2023. Its closest trade ties are with other EU countries, and its largest export partners in 2019 were Germany (12%), France (11%), and the US (10%).[192]
hydrocarbon field in Europe.[198] Moderate natural gas reserves, mainly in the Po Valley and offshore under the Adriatic, have been discovered and constitute the country's most important mineral resource. Italy is one of the world's leading producers of pumice, pozzolana, and feldspar.[199] Another notable resource is marble, especially the famous white Carrara marble
from Tuscany.
Italy is part of a monetary union, the eurozone, which represents around 330 million citizens, and of the European single market, which represents more than 500 million consumers. Several domestic commercial policies are determined by agreements among EU members and EU legislation. Italy joined the common European currency, the euro, in 2002.[200] Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank.
Italy was hit by the
public debt, that stood at over 132% of GDP in 2017,[204] the second highest in the EU, after Greece.[205] The largest portion of Italian public debt is owned by national subjects, a major difference between Italy and Greece,[206] and the level of household debt is much lower than the OECD average.[207]
A gaping north–south divide is a major factor of socio-economic weakness;[208] there is a huge difference in official income between northern and southern regions and municipalities.[209] The richest province, Alto Adige-South Tyrol, earns 152% of the national GDP per capita, while the poorest region, Calabria, earns 61%.[210] The unemployment rate (11%) is above the eurozone average,[211] but the disaggregated figure is 7% in the north and 19% in the south.[212] The youth unemployment rate (32% in 2018) is extremely high.
largest wine producer, and has the widest variety of indigenous grapevines.[213]
According to the last agricultural census, there were 1.6 million farms in 2010 (−32% since 2000) covering 12,700,000 ha or 31,382,383 acres (63% are in south Italy).[214] 99% are family-operated and small, averaging only 8 ha (20 acres).[214] Of the area in agricultural use, grain fields take up 31%, olive orchards 8%, vineyards 5%, citrus orchards 4%, sugar beets 2%, and horticulture 2%. The remainder is primarily dedicated to pastures (26%) and feed grains (12%).[214]
Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (FSI), in 2008 totalled 16,529 km (10,271 mi), of which 11,727 km (7,287 mi) is electrified, and on which 4,802 locomotives and railcars run. The main public operator of high-speed trains is Trenitalia, part of FSI. High-speed trains are in three categories: Frecciarossa ('red arrow') trains operate at a maximum 300km/h on dedicated high-speed tracks; Frecciargento ('silver arrow') operate at a maximum 250km/h on high-speed and mainline tracks; and Frecciabianca
('white arrow') operate on high-speed regional lines at a maximum 200km/h. Italy has 11 rail border crossings over the Alpine mountains with neighbouring countries.
Italy is fifth in Europe by number of passengers using air transport, with about 148 million passengers, or about 10% of the European total in 2011.[220] In 2022, there were 45 civil airports, including the hubs of Milan Malpensa Airport and Rome Fiumicino Airport.[221] Since 2021, Italy's flag carrier has been ITA Airways, which took over from Alitalia.[222]
In 2004, there were 43 major seaports, including Genoa, the country's largest and second-largest in the Mediterranean. In 2005, Italy maintained a civilian air fleet of about 389,000 units and a merchant fleet of 581 ships.[218] The national inland waterways network had a length of 2,400 km (1,491 mi) for commercial traffic in 2012.[192] North Italian ports, such as the deep-water port of Trieste, with its extensive rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe, are the destination of subsidies and significant foreign investment.[223]
Solar panels in Piombino, Tuscany. Italy is one of the world's largest producers of renewable energy.[224]
Italy has become one of the world's
largest producers of renewable energy, ranking as the second largest producer in the EU and the ninth in the world. Wind power, hydroelectricity, and geothermal power are significant sources of electricity in the country. Renewable sources account for 28% of all electricity produced, with hydro alone reaching 13%, followed by solar at 6%, wind at 4%, bioenergy at 3.5%, and geothermal at 1.6%.[225] The rest of the national demand is supplied by fossil fuels (natural gas 38%, coal 13%, oil 8%) and imports.[225]Eni, operating in 79 countries, is one of the seven "Big Oil" companies, and one of the world's largest industrial companies.[226]
technology parks in Italy such as the Science and Technology Parks Kilometro Rosso (Bergamo), the AREA Science Park (Trieste), The VEGA-Venice Gateway for Science and Technology (Venezia), the Toscana Life Sciences (Siena), the Technology Park of Lodi Cluster (Lodi), and the Technology Park of Navacchio (Pisa),[236] as well as science museums such as the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci
in Milan.
The north–south large difference in income leads to a "digital divide".[237][238]
People have visited Italy for centuries, yet the first to visit the peninsula for tourism were aristocrats during the Grand Tour, which began in the 17th century, and flourished in the 18th and the 19th centuries.[240] This was a period in which European aristocrats, many of whom were British, visited parts of Europe, with Italy as a key destination.[240] For Italy, this was in order to study ancient architecture, local culture, and admire its natural beauty.[241]
Italy is the fourth most visited country, with a total of 57 million arrivals in 2023.[242] In 2014, the income from travel and tourism was EUR163billion (10% of GDP) and 1,082,000 jobs were directly related to it (5% of employment).[243]
Tourist interest is mainly in
Apennines,[245] while seaside tourism is widespread among locations along the Mediterranean.[246] Italy is the leading cruise tourism destination in the Mediterranean.[247] Small, historical, and artistic villages are promoted through the association I Borghi più belli d'Italia
(lit.'The most beautiful villages of Italy').
The most visited regions are Veneto, Tuscany, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, and Lazio.[248] Rome is the third most visited city in Europe, and 12th in the world, with 9.4 million arrivals in 2017.[249] Venice and Florence are among the world's top 100 destinations.
Map of Italy's population density at the 2011 censusItalian diaspora in the world
As of 2025, Italy has 58,934,177 inhabitants.[6] Its population density of 195 inhabitants per square kilometre (510/sq mi) is higher than most Western European countries. However, distribution is uneven: the most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (almost half the population) and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples, while vast regions such as the Alps and Apennine highlands, the plateaus of Basilicata, and the island of Sardinia, as well as much of Sicily, are sparsely populated.
Italy's population almost doubled during the 20th century, but the pattern of growth was uneven because of large-scale internal migration from the rural south to the industrial north, a consequence of the Italian economic miracle of the 1950–1960s. High fertility rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they started to decline; the total fertility rate (TFR) reached an all-time low of 1.2 children per woman in 1995, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 and considerably below the high of 5 in 1883.[252] Since 2008, when the rate climbed slightly to 1.4,[253][254] the number of births has consistently declined every year, reaching a record low of 379,000 in 2023—the fewest since 1861.[255] Although as of 2013 the TFR is expected to reach 1.6–1.8 in 2030,[256] in 2024, it stood at 1.2.[257]
As a result of these trends, Italy's population is rapidly aging and gradually shrinking. Nearly one in four Italians is over 65,[255] and the country has the fourth oldest population in the world, with a median age of 48 and an average age of 46.6.[192][258] The overall population has been falling steadily since 2014 and is estimated to have fallen just below 59 million in 2024, representing a cumulative loss of more than 1.36 million people over the span of a decade.[259]
From the late 19th century to the 1960s, Italy was a country of mass emigration. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000 Italians emigrated annually.[260] The diaspora included more than 25 million Italians and is considered the greatest mass migration of recent times.[261]
Foreign residents as a percentage of the regional population at the 2011 census
In the 1980s, until then a linguistically and culturally homogeneous society, Italy began to attract substantial flows of immigrants.[263] After the fall of the Berlin Wall, and enlargements of the EU, waves of migration originated from the former socialist countries of East Europe. Another source of immigration is neighbouring North Africa, with arrivals soaring as a consequence of the Arab Spring. Growing migration fluxes from Asia-Pacific (notably China[264] and the Philippines) and Latin America have been recorded.
In 2010, the foreign-born population was from the following regions: Europe (54%), Africa (22%), Asia (16%), the Americas (8%), and Oceania (0.06%). The distribution of the foreign population is geographically varied: in 2020, 61% of foreign citizens lived in the north, 24% in the centre, 11% in the south, and 4% on the islands.[265]
In 2021, Italy had about 5.2 million foreign residents,
illegal immigrants, which was estimated to be 670,000 in 2008.[269] About one million Romanian
citizens are registered as living in Italy, representing the largest migrant population.
Twelve "historical minority languages" are formally recognised: Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovene, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan, and Sardinian.[270] Four of these enjoy co-official status in their respective regions: French in the Aosta Valley;[275] German in South Tyrol, and Ladin as well in some parts of the same province and in parts of the neighbouring Trentino;[276] and Slovene in the provinces of Trieste, Gorizia, and Udine.[277] Other Ethnologue, ISO, and UNESCO languages are not recognised under Italian law. Like France, Italy has signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but has not ratified it.[278]
Due to recent immigration, Italy has sizeable populations whose native language is not Italian, nor a regional language. According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, Romanian is the most common mother tongue among foreign residents: almost 800,000 people speak Romanian as their first language (22% of foreign residents aged 6 and over). Other prevalent mother tongues are Arabic (spoken by over 475,000; 13% of foreign residents), Albanian (380,000), and Spanish (255,000).[279]
Italy has historically been dominated by Catholicism.[281] Most Catholics are nominal; the Associated Press describes Italian Catholicism as "nominally embraced but rarely lived".[281] Italy has the world's fifth-largest Catholic population and the largest in Europe.[282] Since 1985, Catholicism is no longer the official religion.[283]
In 2011, minority Christian faiths included an estimated 1.5 million Orthodox Christians, while Protestantism has been growing.[284] Italy has for centuries welcomed Jews expelled from other countries, notably Spain. However, about 20% of Italian Jews were killed during the Holocaust.[285] This, together with emigration before and after World War II, has left around 28,000 Jews.[286] There are 120,000 Hindus[287] and 70,000 Sikhs.[288]
The state devolves shares of income tax to recognised religious communities, under a regime known as eight per thousand. Donations are allowed to Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu communities; however, Islam remains excluded, as no Muslim communities have signed a concordat.[289] Taxpayers who do not wish to fund a religion contribute their share to the welfare system.[290]
Education is mandatory and free from ages six to sixteen,[291] and consists of five stages: kindergarten, primary school, lower secondary school, upper secondary school, and university.[292]
Primary school lasts eight years. Students are given a basic education in Italian, English, mathematics, natural sciences, history, geography, social studies, physical education, and visual and musical arts. Secondary school lasts for five years and includes three traditional types of schools focused on different academic levels: the liceo prepares students for university studies with a classical or scientific curriculum, while the istituto tecnico and the istituto professionale prepare pupils for vocations.
In 2018, secondary education was evaluated as being below the average among OECD countries.[293] Italy scored below the OECD average in reading and science, and near the OECD average in mathematics.[293] A wide gap exists between northern schools, which perform near average, and the south, which had much poorer results.[294]
Olive oil and vegetables are central to the Mediterranean diet.[299]
Italy's life expectancy in 2015 was 80.5 years for men and 84.8 for women, placing the country
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of Italy, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, and Croatia.[303]
The proportion of daily smokers was 22% in 2012, down from 24% in 2000 but above the OECD average.[304] Since 2005, smoking in public places has been restricted to "specially ventilated rooms".[305]
Since 1978, the state has run a universal public healthcare system.
Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, which is organised under the Ministry of Health and administered on a devolved regional basis. Healthcare spending accounted for 10% of GDP in 2020. Italy's healthcare system has been consistently ranked among the best in the world;[307] according to research by the World Health Organization (WHO) dating back to 2000, Italy had the second best healthcare system in the world in terms of spending efficiency and access to public care for citizens, after France.[308]
cultural superpower.[309] Its culture has been shaped by a multitude of regional customs and local centres of power and patronage.[310] The country has made substantial contributions to the cultural and historical heritage of Europe.[311]
and influenced designs of country houses all over the world, notably in the UK and US during the late 17th to early 20th centuries.
The first to begin a recognised sequence of designs were the Greeks and the Etruscans, progressing to classical Roman,[315] then the revival of the classical Roman era during the Renaissance, and evolving into the Baroque era. The Christian concept of the basilica, a style that came to dominate in the Middle Ages, was invented in Rome.[316]Romanesque architecture, which flourished from approximately 800 to 1100 AD, was one of the most fruitful and creative periods in Italian architecture, when masterpieces, such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan, were built. It was known for its usage of Roman arches, stained glass windows, and curved columns. The main innovation of Italian Romanesque architecture was the vault, which had never been seen in Western architecture.[317]
Italian architecture significantly evolved during the Renaissance. Filippo Brunelleschi contributed to architectural design with his dome for the Cathedral of Florence, a feat of engineering not seen since antiquity.[318] A popular achievement of Italian Renaissance architecture was St. Peter's Basilica, designed by Donato Bramante in the early 16th century. Andrea Palladio influenced architects throughout Western Europe with the villas and palaces he designed.[319]
Novecento movement" flourished, based on the rediscovery of imperial Rome. Marcello Piacentini, responsible for the urban transformations of cities, devised a form of simplified Neoclassicism.[323]
The history of Italian visual arts is significant to Western painting. Roman art was influenced by Greece and can be taken as a descendant of ancient Greek painting. The only surviving Roman paintings are wall paintings.[324] These may contain the first examples of trompe-l'œil, pseudo-perspective, and pure landscape.[325]
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the High Renaissance gave rise to a stylised art known as Mannerism. In place of the balanced compositions and rational approach to perspective that characterised art at the dawn of the 16th century, the Mannerists sought instability, artifice, and doubt. The unperturbed faces and gestures of Piero della Francesca and the calm Virgins of Raphael were replaced by the troubled expressions of Pontormo and emotional intensity of El Greco.
Formal Latin literature began in 240 BC, when the first stage play was performed in Rome.[327] Latin literature was, and is, highly influential, with numerous writers, poets, philosophers, and historians, such as Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Ovid, and Livy. The Romans were famous for their oral tradition, poetry, drama, and epigrams.[328] In the early 13th century, Francis of Assisi was the first Italian poet, with his religious song Canticle of the Sun.[329]
Emperor Frederick II in Sicily, in the 13th century, lyrics modelled on Provençal forms and themes were written in a refined version of the local vernacular. One of these poets was Giacomo da Lentini, inventor of the sonnet form; the most famous early sonneteer was Petrarch.[330]
Guido Guinizelli is the founder of the Dolce Stil Novo, a school that added a philosophical dimension to love poetry. This new understanding of love, expressed in a smooth style, influenced the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri, who established the basis of modern Italian. Dante's work, Divine Comedy, is among the finest in literature.[331] Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio sought and imitated the works of antiquity and cultivated their own artistic personalities. Petrarch achieved fame through his collection of poems, Il Canzoniere. Equally influential was Boccaccio's The Decameron, a very popular collection of short stories.[332]
Renaissance authors' works include
Arcadians began a movement to restore simplicity and classical restraint to poetry.[334]
Italian writers embraced Romanticism in the 19th century; it coincided with ideas of the
Risorgimento, the movement that brought Italian unification. Unification was heralded by the poets Vittorio Alfieri, Ugo Foscolo, and Giacomo Leopardi. Works by Alessandro Manzoni, the leading Italian Romantic, are a symbol of Italian unification for their patriotic message and because of his efforts in the development of modern, unified Italian.[335]
In the late 19th century, a literary movement called verismo, which extolled realism, played a major role in Italian literature. Emilio Salgari, a writer of action-adventure swashbucklers and a pioneer of science fiction, published his Sandokan series.[336] In 1883, Carlo Collodi published The Adventures of Pinocchio, which became the most celebrated children's classic by an Italian author and one of the world's most translated non-religious books.[337] A movement called futurism influenced literature in the early 20th century. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti wrote Manifesto of Futurism and called for the use of language and metaphors that glorified the speed, dynamism, and violence of the machine age.[338]
Italian theatre came about in the Middle Ages, with its antecedents dating back to ancient Greek colonies in southern Italy (Magna Graecia),[353] as well as the theatre of the Italic peoples[354] and the theatre of ancient Rome. There were two main lines along which theatre developed. The first, dramatization of Catholic liturgies, and the second, formed by pagan forms of spectacle, such as staging for city festivals, court preparations of jesters, and songs of the troubadours.[355] Renaissance theatre marked the beginning of modern theatre. Ancient theatrical texts were translated and staged at courts, and moved to public theatres. In the late 15th century, the cities of Ferrara and Rome were important for the rediscovery and renewal of theatre.[356]
During the 16th into the 18th century, commedia dell'arte was a form of improvisational theatre, and is still performed. Travelling troupes of players set up an outdoor stage and provided amusement in the form of juggling, acrobatics, and humorous plays. Plays did not originate from written drama, but scenarios called lazzi, loose frameworks around which actors would improvise. The characters of the commedia usually represent fixed social types and stock characters, each of which has a distinct costume.[357] The first recorded commedia dell'arte performances came from Rome as early as 1551.[358] Female roles were played by women, documented as early as the 1560s, making them the first known professional actresses in Europe since antiquity. Lucrezia Di Siena, named on a 1564 contract, has been referred to as the first Italian actress known by name, with Vincenza Armani and Barbara Flaminia as the first prima donnas.[359]
Ballet originated in Italy during the Renaissance, as an outgrowth of court pageantry.[360][361]
classical, music is an intrinsic part of Italian culture. Instruments associated with classical music, including the piano and violin, were invented in Italy,[362] and many prevailing forms, such as the symphony, concerto, and sonata
, trace their roots back to innovations in 16th- and 17th-century Italian music.
Italian futurism, took place in the late 1910s.[375]
Federico Fellini, considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century[376]
After decline in the 1920s, the industry was revitalised in the 1930s with the arrival of sound. A popular Italian genre, the Telefoni Bianchi, consisted of comedies with glamorous backgrounds.[377]Calligrafismo was a sharp contrast to the Telefoni Bianchi-American style comedies and is rather artistic, highly formalistic, expressive in complexity, and deals mainly with contemporary literary material.[378] Cinema was used by Mussolini, who founded Rome's renowned Cinecittà studio, for the production of Fascist propaganda.[379]
UEFA Euro victories (1968 and 2020).[393] Italian clubs have won 48 major European trophies, making Italy the second most successful country in Europe, after Spain. Italy's top league is Serie A and is followed by millions of fans around the world.[394]
Other popular team sports include basketball, volleyball, and rugby.
Italy has been successful in the Olympics, taking part from the first Olympiad and in 47 Games out of 48 (not 1904).[405]Italians have won 618 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, and 141 at the Winter Olympics, with 259 golds, the sixth most successful for total medals. The country hosted Winter Olympics in 1956 and 2006, and will host another in 2026; and a Summer games in 1960.
Italian fashion has a long tradition. Top Global Fashion Capital Rankings (2013), by
Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana—are among the finest fashion houses in the world. Jewellers such as Bulgari, Damiani, and Buccellati were founded in Italy. The fashion magazine Vogue Italia is one of the most prestigious fashion magazines in the world.[407]
Italy is prominent in the field of design, notably interior, architectural, industrial, and urban designs.
Italian cuisine is heavily influenced by Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Arabic, and Jewish cuisines.[412] Significant changes occurred with the discovery of the New World, with items such as potatoes, tomatoes, and maize becoming main ingredients from the 18th century.[413] The Mediterranean diet forms the basis of Italian cuisine, which is rich in pasta, fish, fruits, and vegetables and characterised by its simplicity and variety, with many dishes having only four to eight ingredients.[414] Italian cuisine is noted for its regional diversity,[415] abundance of difference in taste, and as one of the most popular in the world,[416] wielding strong influence abroad.[417][418][419]
Italian cuisine relies heavily on traditional products; the country has a large number of traditional specialties protected under
are among the most famous examples of Italian desserts.
The Italian meal structure is typical of the Mediterranean region and differs from North, Central, and East European meal structures, although it still often consists of breakfast (colazione), lunch (pranzo), and dinner (cena).[425] However, much less emphasis is placed on breakfast, which is often skipped or involves lighter portions than are seen in non-Mediterranean Western countries.[426] Late-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, called merenda (pl.: merende), are often included.[427]
Public holidays include religious, national, and regional observances. Italy's National Day, the Festa della Repubblica ('Republic Day'),[428] is celebrated on 2 June, with the main celebration taking place in Rome, and commemorates the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946.[429] The ceremony includes deposition of a wreath as a tribute to the Italian Unknown Soldier and a military parade along Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome.
folklore figure of Befana, a broomstick-riding old woman who, on the night of 5 January, brings good children gifts, and bad ones charcoal or bags of ashes.[431] The Assumption of Mary coincides with Ferragosto on 15 August, the summer vacation period.[432] The Italian national patronal day, on 4 October, celebrates Saints Francis and Catherine. Each city or town also celebrates a public holiday on the festival of the local patron saint.[429]Natale di Roma (lit.'Birthday of Rome') is an annual festival held in Rome on 21 April to celebrate the legendary founding of the city.[433] According to legend, Romulus is said to have founded the city of Rome on 21 April 753 BC. It was celebrated for the first time in 47 AD.[434]
^Kingdom of Naples is used by historians, but not by its rulers, who kept the original 'Kingdom of Sicily' (i.e., there existed two Kingdoms of Sicily).
^The Guardia di Finanza operates a large fleet of ships, aircraft and helicopters, enabling it to patrol Italy's waters and to participate in warfare scenarios.
^The Holy See's sovereignty has been recognised explicitly in many international agreements and is particularly emphasised in article 2 of the Lateran Treaty of 11 February 1929, in which "Italy recognises the sovereignty of the Holy See in international matters as an inherent attribute in conformity with its traditions and the requirements of its mission to the world" (Lateran Treaty, English translation).
from the original on 11 February 2024. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
ISBN 978-0-1981-5300-9. Archived from the original on 22 May 2020.; Long, George (1866). Decline of the Roman republic: Volume 2.; Aurigemma, Salvatore. "Gallia Cisalpina". treccani.it (in Italian). Enciclopedia Italiana. Archived
from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
^42.7–41.5 ka (1σ CI).
Douka, Katerina; et al. (2012). "A new chronostratigraphic framework for the Upper Palaeolithic of Riparo Mochi (Italy)". Journal of Human Evolution. 62 (2): 286–299.
^G. Benvenuti – Le Repubbliche Marinare. Amalfi, Pisa, Genova, Venezia – Newton & Compton editori, Roma 1989; Armando Lodolini, Le repubbliche del mare, Biblioteca di storia patria, 1967, Roma. Peris, Persi (1982). Conoscere l'Italia. Istituto Geografico De Agostini. p. 74.; "Repubbliche Marinare". Treccani.it (in Italian). Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Archived from the original on 29 August 2019. Retrieved 13 September 2019.; "Repubbliche marinare". thes.bncf.firenze.sbn.it (in Italian). National Central Library (Florence). Archived from the original on 1 January 2020. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
^Eleni Sakellariou, Southern Italy in the Late Middle Ages: Demographic, Institutional and Economic Change in the Kingdom of Naples, c.1440–c.1530 (Brill, 2012), pp. 63–64.
^Stéphane Barry and Norbert Gualde, "The Biggest Epidemics of History" (La plus grande épidémie de l'histoire), in L'Histoire n° 310, June 2006, pp. 45–46; "Plague". Brown University. Archived 31 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine
^ abStrathern, Paul The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance (2003)
^Napoleon Bonaparte, "The Economy of the Empire in Italy: Instructions from Napoleon to Eugène, Viceroy of Italy", Exploring the European Past: Texts & Images, Second Edition, ed. Timothy E. Gregory (Mason: Thomson, 2007), 65–66.
^Denis Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History, (University of Michigan Press, 1997) p. 15. A literary echo may be found in the character of Giorgio Viola in Joseph Conrad's Nostromo.
^Enrico Dal Lago, "Lincoln, Cavour, and National Unification: American Republicanism and Italian Liberal Nationalism in Comparative Perspective". The Journal of the Civil War Era 3#1 (2013): 85–113.; William L. Langer, ed., An Encyclopedia of World Cup History. 4th ed. 1968. pp 704–7.
^"The Italian Colonial Empire". All Empires. Archived from the original on 24 February 2012. Retrieved 17 June 2012. At its peak, just before WWII, the Italian Empire comprehended the territories of present time Italy, Albania, Rhodes, Dodecanese, Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the majority of Somalia and the little concession of Tientsin in China
^G. Bianchi, La Resistenza, in: AA.VV., Storia d'Italia, vol. 8, pp. 368-369.
^"Storia della guerra civile in Italia"(PDF). Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 October 2022. Retrieved 28 August 2023.; See the books from Italian historian Giorgio PisanòStoria della guerra civile in Italia, 1943–1945, 3 voll., Milano, FPE, 1965 and the book L'Italia della guerra civile ("Italy of civil war"), published in 1983 by the Italian writer and journalist Indro Montanelli as the fifteen volume of the Storia d'Italia ("History of Italy") by the same author.
from the original on 16 January 2024. Retrieved 5 January 2020.; Robert Ventresca (2004). From Fascism to Democracy: Culture and Politics in the Italian Election of 1948. University of Toronto Press. pp. 236–37.
^The so-called "Second Republic" was born by forceps: not with a revolt of Algiers, but formally under the same Constitution, with the mere replacement of one ruling class by another: Buonomo, Giampiero (2015). "Tovaglie pulite". Mondoperaio Edizione Online.
^"San Marino". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2012. Archived from the original on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 1 March 2011.; "Vatican country profile". BBC News. 2018. Archived from the original on 25 August 2018. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
^Adriana Rigutti, Meteorologia, Giunti, p. 95, 2009.; Thomas A. Blair, Climatology: General and Regional, Prentice Hall pp. 131–132
^"Climate Atlas of Italy". Network of the Air Force Meteorological Service. Archived from the original on 14 November 2012. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
^"Uccelli" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 11 March 2022. Retrieved 11 March 2022.
^Peter Uetz; Jakob Hallermann; Jiri Hosek. "Distribution: italy". The Reptile Database. Archived from the original on 9 January 2023. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
^United Nations Statistics Division, Millennium Development Goals indicators: Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), thousand metric tons of CO2Archived 25 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine (collected by CDIAC); Human-produced, direct emissions of carbon dioxide only. Excludes other greenhouse gases; land-use, land-use-change and forestry (LULUCF); and natural background flows of CO2 (See also: Carbon cycle)
^Gabriele Abbondanza, Italy as a Regional Power: the African Context from National Unification to the Present Day (Rome: Aracne, 2016); "Operation Alba may be considered one of the most important instances in which Italy has acted as a regional power, taking the lead in executing a technically and politically coherent and determined strategy." See Federiga Bindi, Italy and the European Union (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), p. 171.
from the original on 16 January 2024. Retrieved 13 June 2016. The great powers are super-sovereign states: an exclusive club of the most powerful states economically, militarily, politically and strategically. These states include veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council (United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia), as well as economic powerhouses such as Germany, Italy and Japan.
^"Gross domestic product (2015)"(PDF). The World Bank: World Development Indicators database. World Bank. 28 April 2017. Archived(PDF) from the original on 1 February 2017. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
^Marcus Hernig: Die Renaissance der Seidenstraße (2018) pp 112.; Bernhard Simon: Can The New Silk Road Compete with the Maritime Silk Road? in The Maritime Executive, 1 January 2020.; Chazizam, M. (2018). The Chinese Maritime Silk Road Initiative: The Role of the Mediterranean. Mediterranean Quarterly, 29(2), 54–69.; Guido Santevecchi: Di Maio e la Via della Seta: «Faremo i conti nel 2020», siglato accordo su Trieste in Corriere della Sera: 5. November 2019.; Linda Vierecke, Elisabetta Galla "Triest und die neue Seidenstraße" In: Deutsche Welle, 8 December 2020.; "HHLA PLT Italy starting on schedule". hellenicshippingnews.com. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
^Text taken directly from "Country Profile: Vatican City State". Archived from the original on 31 December 2010. Retrieved 5 February 2016. (viewed on 14 December 2011), on the website of the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
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^"The Global Catholic Population". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. 13 February 2013. Archived from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
^Nuria Sanz, Sjur Bergan: "The heritage of European universities", 2nd edition, Higher Education Series No. 7, Council of Europe, 2006. ISBN 978-92-871-6121-5. p. 136.
^Duarte, A.; Fernandes, J.; Bernardes, J.; Miguel, G. (2016). "Citrus as a Component of the Mediterranean Diet". Journal of Spatial and Organizational Dynamics. 4: 289–304. Archived from the original on 1 October 2018. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
ISBN 978-0-1921-1559-1 See p. 20. The claim for earliest fairy-tale is still debated, see for example Jan M. Ziolkowski, Fairy tales from before fairy tales: the medieval Latin past of wonderful lies, University of Michigan Press, 2007. Ziolkowski examines Egbert of Liège's Latin beast poem Fecunda natis (The Richly Laden Ship, c. 1022/24), the earliest known version of "Little Red Riding Hood". Further info: Little Red Pentecostal
.; Allen, Edward Heron (1914). Violin-making, as it was and is: Being a Historical, Theoretical, and Practical Treatise on the Science and Art of Violin-making, for the Use of Violin Makers and Players, Amateur and Professional. Preceded by An Essay on the Violin and Its Position as a Musical Instrument. E. Howe. Accessed 5 September 2015.
^"This record was a collaboration between Philip Oakey, the big-voiced lead singer of the techno-pop band the Human League, and Giorgio Moroder, the Italian-born father of disco who spent the '80s writing synth-based pop and film music." Evan Cater. "Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder: Overview". AllMusic. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
^Marshall, Lee (30 September 2009). "Italian coffee culture: a guide". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 10 October 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
^Squires, Nick (23 August 2013). "Tiramisu claimed by Treviso". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 29 August 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
Hibberd, Matthew. The media in Italy (McGraw-Hill International, 2007).
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58,934,177[6] (25th)
$3.719 trillion[7] (11th)
32.5[8]
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