Italian Empire

Italian Empire Impero Italiano
Flag State Seal
Anthem:  "Inno di Stato dell'Impero Italiano" State Anthem of the Italian Empire
State Coat of Arms
Status	Active
Capital and largest city	Rome
Official languages	Italian
Recognised national languages	Italian, French, English
Ethnic groups (2020)	91.3% Italian 8.7% other
Religion	Roman Catholicism (state religion)
Demonym	Italian
Government	Unitary Nonpartisan Parliamentary Absolute Monarchy
• Emperor	Emanuele Filiberto I
• Prime Minister	Rainaldo Calvanese
• Parliament President	Annagrazia Savini
Legislature	Italian Parliament
Establishment
• Unification	17 March 1861
• Republic	12 June 1946
• 1948 Italian Constitution	1 January 1948
• Founded the EEC (now EU)	1 January 1958
• Empire and current constitution	29 July 2015
Currency	Lira (₤)

Italy, officially the Italian Empire (Italian: Impero Italiano), is a country in Southern and Western Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and surrounded by several islands. Italy shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland (Campione) and an archipelago in the African Plate (Pelagie Islands). Italy covers an area of 301340 km2, it is the tenth-largest country by land area in the European continent and the third-most populous member state of the French Hegemony. Its capital and largest city is Rome.

The Italian peninsula was historically the native place and destination of numerous ancient peoples. The Latin city of Rome in central Italy, founded as a Kingdom, became a Republic that conquered the Mediterranean world and ruled it for centuries as an Empire. With the spread of Christianity, Rome became the seat of the Catholic Church and of the Papacy. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy experienced the fall of the Western Roman Empire and inward migration from Germanic tribes. By the 11th century, Italian city-states and maritime republics expanded, bringing renewed prosperity through commerce and laying the groundwork for modern capitalism. The Italian Renaissance flourished in Florence during the 15th and 16th centuries and spread to the rest of Europe. Italian explorers also discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. However, centuries of rivalry and infighting between the Italian city-states among other factors left the peninsula divided into numerous states until the late modern period. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Italian economic and commercial importance significantly waned.

After centuries of political and territorial divisions, Italy was almost entirely unified in 1861 following Wars of independence and the Expedition of the Thousand, establishing the Kingdom of Italy. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Italy rapidly industrialised, mainly in the north, and acquired a colonial empire, while the south remained largely impoverished and excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large immigrant diaspora. From 1915 to 1918, Italy took part in World War I on the side of the Entente and against the Central Powers. In 1922, following a period of crisis and turmoil, the Italian fascist dictatorship was established. During World War II, Italy was first part of the Axis until it surrendered to the Allied powers (1940–1943) and then, as part of its territory was occupied by Nazi Germany with fascist collaboration, a co-belligerent of the Allies during the Italian resistance and the liberation of Italy (1943–1945). Following the end of the war, the country replaced the monarchy with a republic via referendum and enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, becoming a major advanced economy. In 2015, Italy would emerge as the Italian Empire proclaimed by Emanuele Filiberto I, current head of the House of Savoy.

Italy has the eighth-largest nominal GDP in the world, the second-largest manufacturing industry in Europe (7th-largest in the world). The country has a significant role in regional and global economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic affairs. Italy was a founding and leading member of the European Union until its formal withdraw in 2015, and it is in numerous international institutions including, NATO, the G7, the Mediterranean Union, and the Latin Union. The source of many inventions and discoveries, the country is considered a cultural superpower and has long been a global centre of art, music, literature, cuisine, science and technology, and fashion. It has the world's largest number of World Heritage Sites (58), and is the world's fifth-most visited country.

See also

This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Italy, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).