Levantine Federation الاتحاد الشامي (Arabic) al-Aytihad ash-Shamiyu הפדרציה הלבנטינית (Hebrew) haFederatsiah haLebentinit Federasyona Levantîn (Kurdish)
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: موطني Mawṭinī "My Homeland"
Location of Syria
Capital	Damascus 33°30′N 36°18′E / 33.500°N 36.300°E / 33.500; 36.300
Largest city	Tel Aviv-Jaffa
Official languages	Arabic, Hebrew, Kurdish
Recognized languages	Turkish, Aramaic, Circassian, Armenian
Ethnic groups	74.6% Arab 10.7% Jewish 4.6% Kurd 2.3 Turk or Turkoman 2.2% Assyrian 5.6% Other, including Circassians and Armenians
Religion	65.7% Islam 57.1% Sunni 8.6% Shia 15.3% Christianity 4.6% Judaism 3.7% Nusayrite 2.4% Druze 7.9% No religion 0.4% Other
Demonym(s)	Syrian, Levantine
Government	Federal parliamentary republic
• President	Riyad al-Maliki
• Prime Minister	George Sabra
• Speaker of Parliament	Bisher Khasawneh
• Chief Justice	Uzi Vogelman
Legislature	Levantine Parliament (unicameral)
Establishment	Independence from the Ottoman Empire
• Kingdom	26 November 1919
• French withdrawl	17 April 1921
• Federation	17 December 1951
Area
• Total	311,764 km2 (120,373 sq mi) (70th)
Population
• 2022 census	52,781,931 (27th)
• Density	169.3/km2 (438.5/sq mi) (58th)
GDP (PPP)	2023 estimate
• Total	$3.046 trillion (12th)
• Per capita	$57,714 (28th)
Gini (2018)	28.5 low (23rd)
HDI (2021)	0.897 very high (29th)
Currency	Levantine Dinar (LVD)
Time zone	UTC+2 (LST)
Driving side	right
Calling code	+963
ISO 3166 code	SY

Syria, officially the Levantine Federation is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the southeast, and the Red Sea and Egypt to the south and southwest. Cyprus lies to the west across the Mediterranean Sea. It is a federal republic that consists of 11 cantons (subdivisions). A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups. Syria is a member of the Arab League and various other international groups. The capital city is Damascus, while Amman is the largest city, followed by Beirut and Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, and Sunni Muslims are the largest religous group.

The name "Syria" comes from Assyria, an ancient civilization centered in northern Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq. Assyria was one of many civilizations and empires to control the region in whole or in part. These include, but are not limited to: Aram-Damascus, Egypt, Moab, Judah, Phoenicia, Babylonia, Persia, Rome, and the Arabs. By the late 13th centurty, Mamluk Egypt had control over the territory. However, in 1517 they were conquered by the Ottomans, who ruled over almost all of Syria for the next few hundred years. In World War I, France, Britain, and Arab rebels under the Sharif of Mecca took the territory from Ottoman hands. After the war, Faisal sucessfully appealled to Britain for the creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Syria. France, however, attempted to invade Syria, starting a brief war between the newly established kingdom and the superpower. Suprisingly to many at the time, Syria triumphed; France, lacking British support, was forced to withdrawl fully in 1921.

After having won independence, King Faisal embarked on a campaign to modernize and develoup his new nation. New roads and railways were built, which were then connected to new ports. He partially modernized agriculture while encouraging urbanization. He also accepted Zionist immigrants, allowing them to buy land in Syria. With the fall of the Weimar Republic in Europe, and the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933-34, Jewish emmigration from Germany increased massively, with Syria becoming an important refuge for them. As more Jews began to arrive however, the Arabs of Palestine, especially Muslims, began to consider them more of a threat, protesting and even attacking their homes and settlements. King Faisal I had to toe the line between protecting his new Jewish citizens and not angering the Arab Muslim majority in the country.

Syria remained neutral throughout the first part of World War II, joining in mid-1941. After the war, Jewish immigration reached yet another record height. Though it abated during the next few years, violence in Palestine exploded, with the king all but powerless to stop it. In 1951, the king reliquished power to parliament, resulting in the creation of the new Levantine Federation. The new constitution was drafted and signed by members of all the major ethnic and religious groups, including Muslim and Christian Arabs, Jews, Nusayrites, Kurds, Assyrians, and Druze. Syria was spared from the unstable and tumultuous times of it's neigbors, Iraq and Egypt, during the Cold War by the stablity this new constitution allowed for. Violence in Palestine continued through the 1950s and into the early 1960s, and in some ways persists to this day. However, through the creation of Jewish and Arab cantons in the region, violence decreased quite a lot, and the combined efforts of Jewish and Arab authorities, as well as the central government, quelled the worst of the terrorism and attacks on both sides.

Throughout the Cold War in the Arab world, Arab nationalists, Islamists, monarchists, Zionists, and other forces threatened to rip the country apart or descend it into a civil war. The majority of people, however, wanted to wealthy and prosperous federation to remain whole, and the country faced very little instablity compared to other states in the region. The worst challenge was the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser's popular brand of Arab nationalism. After Nasser's death in 1970, the movement decended into chaos, fracturing and its leaders fighting amongst themselves, drasticly decreasing its popularity. The Iranian Revoluton in 1979 threatened Syrian stability again, increasing Islamist thought amongst the people, especially Shi'ites, though only for a time; the country remained in tact and in relative peace through this troublesome period and into the much stabler world of today.

Syria in modern times is a prosperous hub for tourism and business, and a stable beacon of democracy in the MENA region. Through generous welfare programs and and a free society, the nation has achieved a level of wealth, both for its government and its people, that is unrivaled in the Middle East. Syria is an exporter of many goods, including oil, natural gas, wine, vegetables, meat, clothing, and electronics. It also has a large defence industry made nessesary by the tensions of the Cold War, and has been a major exporter of small arms, APCs, and IFVs; Syria has also begun exporting combat drones in recent years. Since 2003, Islamic terror has become a new challange for the Syrian security services. The Islamic State in 2014 began an invasion of Syria from western Iraq, causing a new war that would claims thousands of lives. Even after the fall of IS, small cells, both al-Qaeda affiliates and IS remnants have carried out numerous small-scale attacks, mostly in the eastern desert around Palmyra. Larger attacks, focused on major cities and especially minorities, have mostly been thwarted by Syrian security forces. Some exeptions were in the 2015 Jerusalem bus attack, and the 2016 suicide bombings across northern Syria. Since 2018, Syria has experienced far less attacks, as most of the remaining terrorist cells have been killed or captured.

Etymology

Main articles: Name of Syria, Names of the Levant

Several sources indicate that the name Syria is derived from the 8th century BC Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: Σύριοι, Sýrioi, or Σύροι, Sýroi, both of which originally derived from Aššūr (Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). However, from the Seleucid Empire (323–150 BC), this term was also applied to the Levant, and from this point the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favors the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, ultimately derived from the Akkadian Aššur. The Greek name appears to correspond to Phoenician ʾšr "Assur", ʾšrym "Assyrians", recorded in the 8th century BC Çineköy inscription.

Medieval Italians called the region Levante after its easterly location where the sun "rises"; this term was adopted from Italian and French into many other languages.

History

Main article: History of Syria

Prehistory and Ancient antiquity (Before 539 BC)

Anatomically modern humans are believed to have inhabited the Levant since at least 800,000 BC.

Since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of the centers of Neolithic culture, where agriculture and cattle breeding first began to appear. The Neolithic is traditionally divided to the Pre-Pottery (A and B), starting around 12,000 years ago, and Pottery Late Neolithic phases, beginning around 8,500 years ago. Pre-Pottery Neolithic A developed from the earlier Natufian cultures of the area. This is the time of the Neolithic Revolution and development of agricultural economies in the Near East. In addition, the Levant in the Neolithic was involved in large scale, far reaching trade. Trade on an impressive scale and covering large distances continued during the Chalcolithic (c. 4500–3300 BCE). Obsidian found in the Chalcolithic levels north of Khirbat Futais in Palestine have had their origins traced via elemental analysis to three sources in Southern Anatolia: Hotamis Dağ, Göllü Dağ, and as far east as Nemrut Dağ, 500 km (310 mi) east of the other two sources. This is indicative of a very large trade circle reaching as far as the Northern Fertile Crescent at these three Anatolian sites.

The urban development of Canaan lagged considerably behind that of Egypt and Mesopotamia and even that of northern Syria, where from 3,500 BC a sizable city developed at Hamoukar. This city, which was conquered, probably by people coming from the Southern Iraqi city of Uruk, saw the first connections between Syria and Southern Iraq that some have suggested lie behind the patriarchal traditions. Urban development again began culminating in Early Bronze Age sites like Ebla, which by 2,300 BC, was incorporated once again into the Empire of Sargon, and then Naram-Sin of Akkad (Biblical Accad). The archives of Ebla show reference to a number of Biblical sites, including Hazor, Jerusalem, and a number of people have claimed, also to Sodom and Gomorrah, mentioned in the patriarchal records. The collapse of the Akkadian Empire, saw the arrival of peoples using Khirbet Kerak Ware pottery, coming originally from the Zagros Mountains, east of the Tigris. It is suspected by some Ur seals that this event marks the arrival in Syria of the Hurrians, people later known in the Biblical tradition possibly as Horites.

The following Middle Bronze Age period was initiated by the arrival of "Amorites" from Syria into Southern Iraq, an event which some associated with the arrival of Abraham's family in Ur. This period saw the pinnacle of urban development in the area of Syria. Archaeologists show that the chief state at this time was the city of Hazor, which may have been the capital of the land of Israel. This is also the period in which Semites began to appear in larger numbers in the Nile delta region of Egypt.

The Early Bronze Age period was dominated by the East Semitic-speaking kingdoms of Ebla, Nagar and the Mari. Ebla has been described as the world's first recorded superpower, controlling much of present-day Syria. At its greatest extent, Ebla controlled an area roughly a quarter the size of modern Syria, from Ursa'um in the north, to the area around Damascus in the south, and from Phoenicia and the coastal mountains in the west, to Haddu in the east, and had more than sixty vassal kingdoms and city-states. Scholars believe the language of Ebla to be among the oldest known written Semitic languages after Akkadian. Ebla was weakened by a long war with Mari, and the whole of Syria became part of the Mesopotamian Akkadian Empire after Sargon of Akkad and his grandson Naram-Sin's conquests ended Eblan domination over Syria in the first half of the 23rd century BC.

The Akkadian Empire ruled northern parts of Syria until it collapsed due to the 4.2 kya aridification event. The event prompted large-scale movement of population from Upper Mesopotamia towards the Levant and Lower Mesopotamia, which brought about many Amorites to Sumer, and correlates with a subsequent influx and settlement expansion in many regions of Syria.

In northern Mesopotamia, the Amorite warlord Shamshi-Adad I conquered much of Assyria and formed the large, though short-lived Kingdom of Upper Mesoptamia. In the Levant, Amorite dynasties ruled various kingdoms of Qatna, Ebla and Yamhad, which also had a significant Hurrian population. Mari was similarly ruled by the Amorite Lim dynasty which belonged to the pastoral Amorites known as the Haneans, who were split into the Banu-Yamina (sons of the right) and Banu-Simaal (sons of the left) tribes. Mari was in direct conflict with another Semitic peoples, the Suteans who inhabited nearby Suhum.

By the 16th and 15th centuries bc, most of the major urban centers in the Levant had been overran and went into steep decline. Mari was destroyed and reduced in a series of wars and conflicts with Babylon, while Yamhad and Ebla were conquered and completely destroyed by Hittite king Mursili I in about 1600 bc. In northern Mesopotamia, the era ended with the defeat of the Amorite states by Puzur-Sin and Adasi between 1740 and 1735 bc, and the rise of the native Sealand Dynasty. In Egypt, Ahmose I managed to expel the Levantine Hyksos rulers from power, pushing Egypt's borders further into Canaan. The Amorites were eventually absorbed by another West Semitic-speaking people known collectively as the Ahlamu. The Arameans rose to be the prominent group amongst the Ahlamu, and from c. 1200 bc on, the Amorites disappeared from the pages of history.

Between 1550 and 1170 bc, much of the Levant was contested between Egypt and the Hittites.

During the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150, all of these powers suddenly collapsed. Centralized state systems collapsed, and the region was hit by famine. Chaos ensued throughout the region, and many urban centers were burnt to the ground by famine-struck natives and an assortment of raiders known as the Sea Peoples, who eventually settled in the Levant. The Sea Peoples' origins are ambiguous and many theories have proposed them to be Trojans, Sardinians, Achaeans, Sicilians or Lycians. The Hittite empire was destroyed, and its capital Tarḫuntašša was razed to the ground. Egypt repelled its attackers with only a major effort, and over the next century shrank to its territorial core, its central authority permanently weakened.

Aramaeans came to dominate much of Syria, establishing kingdoms and tribal polities throughout the land. Accompanied by the Suteans, the Aramaeans overran large parts of Mesopotamia around 1100 BC bar Assyria itself. It was around this time that Assyrian texts of the 9th century BC first mention the Arabs (Aribi), who inhabited swaths of land in the Levant and Babylonia. Their presence intermingled with the Aramaeans, and they are variously mentioned in the Babylon border region, Orontes valley, Homs, Damascus, Hauran, Bekaa valley in Lebanon and Wadi Sirhan, where the Arab king Gindibu of Qedar ruled from. One such example is the land of Laqē near Terqa, mentioned in a inscription by Adad-nirari II (911–891 BC), where Aramaean and Arab clans formed a confederacy.

Further west, the Levantine coast was settled by the Sea Peoples, notably the Philistines around today's Gaza Strip. The Phoenician city-states in Canaan managed to escape the destruction that ensued in the Late Bronze age collapse, and developed into commercial maritime powers with established colonies across the Mediterranean Sea.

In the southern Levant, new Canaanite groups emerged in the southern Levant during early Iron Age. In Palestine, the Israelites gradually established many small communities that dotted the central highlands, while the Philistines, a group of Aegean immigrants arrived in the southern shore of Canaan around 1175 BCE and settled there. In Transjordan, three Canaanite kingdoms—Moab, Ammon and Edom—began to arose at about the same period. The 10th and 9th centuries BCE saw the emergence of several territorial kingdoms in the southern Levant. Two Israelite kingdoms emerged: the Kingdom of Israel, which ruled over the areas of Samaria, Galilee, Sharon and parts of Transjordan, and had its capital for the most of its history in the city of Samaria, and the Kingdom of Judah, which controlled the Judaean Mountains, most of the Shfela, and the northern Naqab, and had its capital in Jerusalem.

Unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Iron age Levant was characterized by patches of scattered kingdoms and tribal confederations which originated from the same cultural and linguistic milieu, and was much less densely populated than either. Occasionally, these closely related entities united against expanding outer forces. The Assyrians only managed to subdue the Levantine states after multiple attempts and campaigns, finalized under Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC).

At their height, the Assyrians dominated all of the Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, and sponsored the Scythians under Madyes, their half-Assyrian king, in West Asia. However, the empire began to collapse toward the end of the 7th century BC, and was obliterated by an alliance between a resurgent Chaldean New Kingdom of Babylonia and the Iranian Medes. After the Battle of Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar II besieged Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple (597 BC), starting the period of the Babylonian captivity, which lasted about half a century. Nebuchadnezzar also besieged the Phoenician city of Tyre for 13 years (586–573 BC), setting one of the longest sieges in history. The subsequent balance of power was, however, short-lived. In the 550s BC, the Achaemenids revolted against the Medes and gained control of their empire, and over the next few decades annexed the realms of Lydia, Damascus, Babylonia, and Egypt into their empire, consolidating control as far as India. This vast kingdom was divided up into various satrapies and governed roughly according to the Assyrian model, but with a far lighter hand.

Classical antiquity (539 BC - 636 AD)

Achaemenid Empire took over the Levant after 539 BC, but by the 4th century the Achaemenids had fallen into decline. The Phoenicians frequently rebelled against the Persians, who taxed them heavily, in contrast to the Judeans who were granted return from the exile by Cyrus the Great. Alexander the Great conquered the Levant in 333-332 BC. However, Alexander did not live long enough to consolidate his realm, and soon after his death in 323 BC, the greater share of the east eventually went to the descendants of Seleucus I Nicator.

When Alexander and later the Diadochi came to Syria, unlike Egypt, they found a sparsely populated region with no major urban center, most of which had been abandoned following the Bronze Age collapse or destroyed by the Assyrians. Alexander and his Seleucid successors founded many urban centers in the area and moved in locals and troops into the cities. The Seleucids also sponsored Greek settlement to the area. Koine Greek was largely used for administration, whereas Aramaic remained the lingua franca for much of the region and even the Hellenistic urban centers, where bilingualism was prevalent.

The Seleucids gradually lost their domains in Bactria to the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and in Iran and Mesopotamia to the rising Parthian Empire. Eventually, this limited Seleucid domains to the Levant, and the power decline would lead to the formation of several breakaway states in the Levant. The Maccabean Revolt in Palestine inaugurated the Hasmonean kingdom in 140 BC.

The Romans gained a foothold in the region in 64 BC after permanently defeating the Seleucids and Tigranes. Pompey deposed to the last Seleucid king Philip II Philoromaeus, and incorporated Syria into Roman domains. However, the Romans only gradually incorporated local kingdoms into provinces, which gave them considerable autonomy in local affairs. The Herodian Kingdom of Judea replaced the Hasmonians in 37 BC until their full incorporation of the province of Judaea in 44 AD after Herod Agrippa II. Commagene and Osroene were incorporated in 72 and 214 AD respectively, while Nabatea was incorporated as Arabia Petraea in 106 AD.

The first to second centuries saw the emergence of a plethora of religions and philosophical schools. Neoplatonism emerged with Iamblichus and Porphyry, Neopythagorianism with Apollonius of Tyana and Numenius of Apamea, and Hellenic Judaism with Philo of Alexandria. Christianity initially emerged as a sect of Judaism and finally as an independent religion by the mid-second century. Gnosticism also took significant hold in the region.

The region of Palestine or Judea experienced abrupt periods of conflict between Romans and Jews. The First Jewish–Roman War (66-73) erupted in 66, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70. Province forces were directly engaged in the war; in 66 AD, Cestius Gallus sent the Syrian army, based on Legio X Fretensis and Legio XII Fulminata reinforced by vexillationes of IV Scythica and VI Ferrata, to restore order in Judaea and quell the revolt, but suffered a defeat in the Battle of Beth Horon. However, XII Fulminata fought well in the last part of the war, and supported its commander Vespasian in his successful bid for the imperial throne. Two generations later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-136) erupted once again, after which the province Syria Palaestina was created in 132.

During the Crisis of the Third Century, the Sassanids under Shapur I invaded Syria and captured Roman emperor Valerian in the Battle of Edessa. A Syrian notable of Palmyra, Odaenathus assembled the Palmyrene army and Syrian peasants, and marched north to meet Shapur I. The Palmyrene monarch fell upon the retreating Persian army between Samosata and Zeugma, west of the Euphrates, in late summer 260, defeating and expelling them. Odaenathus was succeeded by his son Vaballathus under the regency of his mother Queen Zenobia. In 270, Zenobia detached from Roman authority and declared the Palmyrene Empire, rapidly conquering much of Syria, Egypt, Arabia Petraea and large parts of Asia Minor, reaching present-day Ankara. However, by 273, Zenobia was decisively defeated by Aurelian and his Arab Tanukhid allies in Syria.

With the consolidation of Christianity, Jews had become a minority in southern Levant, remaining a majority only in Southern Judea, Galilee and Golan. Jewish revolts had also become much rarer, mostly with the Jewish revolt against Constantius Gallus (351–352) and Jewish revolt against Heraclius (617). This time the Samaritans, whose population swelled to over a million, insurrected the Samaritan revolts (484–572) against the Byzantines, which killed an estimated 200,000 Samaritans, after the civil uprising of Baba Rabba and his subsequent execution in 328/362. The devastating Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 ended with Byzantine recapture of the land, but left the empire rather exhausted, which taxed the inhabitants heavily. The Levant became the frontline between the Byzantines and the Persian Sassanids, which devastated the region.

Middle Ages (636 - 1516)

Eastern Roman control over the Levant lasted until 636 when Arab armies conquered the Levant, after which it became a part of the Rashidun Caliphate and was known as Bilād ash-Shām.

Under the Umayyads, the capital was moved to Damascus. However, the Levant did not experience wide-scale Arabian tribal settlement unlike in Iraq, where the focus of Arabian tribal migration was. Archaeological and historical evidence strongly suggest there was smooth population continuity and no large-scale abandonment of major sites and regions of the Levant after the Muslim conquest. Moreover, in contrast to Iran, Iraq and North Africa, where Muslim soldiers established separate garrison cities (amsar), Muslim troops in the Levant settled alongside locals in pre-existing cities such as Damascus, Homs, Jerusalem and Tiberias. Abbasid focus on Iraq and Iran neglected the Levant, which in turn experienced a period of frequent uprisings and revolts. Syria became fertile grounds for anti-Abbasid sentiments, in various contrasting pro-Umayyad and pro-Shiite forms. In 841, al-Mubarqa lead a rebellion against the Abbasids in Palestine, declaring himself the Umayyad Sufyani. In 912, a revolt against the Abbasids arose in the Damascus region, this time by an Alid descendant of tenth Shiite Imam Ali al-Hadi.

Arabic – made official under Umayyad rule – became the dominant language, replacing Greek and Aramaic of the Byzantine era. In 887, the Egypt-based Tulunids annexed Syria from the Abbasids, and were later replaced by once the Egypt-based Ikhshidids and still later by the Hamdanids originating in Aleppo founded by Sayf al-Dawla. Seljuk expansion into eastern Anatolia triggered the Byzantine–Seljuk wars, with the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 marking a decisive turning point in the conflict in favour of the Seljuks, undermining the authority of the Byzantine Empire in the remaining parts of Anatolia and gradually enabling the region's Turkification. The Seljuk Empire united the fractured political landscape in the non-Arab eastern parts of the Muslim world.

During the late 11th century, in response to the rise of the Sejuk Turks, European Christians launched a series of Crusades on Muslim lands, especially Syria. Sections of Syria were held by French, English, Italian and German overlords between 1098 and 1291 AD during the Crusades and were known collectively as the Crusader states among which the primary one was the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The coastal mountainous region was also occupied in part by the Nizari Ismailis, the so-called Assassins, who had intermittent confrontations and truces with the Crusader States.

After a century of Seljuk and Christian rule, Syria was largely conquered (1175–1185) by the Kurdish liberator Salah ad-Din, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt. Aleppo fell to the Mongols of Hulegu in January 1260, and Damascus in March, but then Hulegu was forced to break off his attack to return to China to deal with a succession dispute.

A few months later, the Mamluks arrived with an army from Egypt and defeated the Mongols in the Battle of Ain Jalut in Galilee. The Mamluk leader, Baibars, made Damascus a provincial capital. When he died, power was taken by Qalawun. In the meantime, an emir named Sunqur al-Ashqar had tried to declare himself ruler of Damascus, but he was defeated by Qalawun on 21 June 1280, and fled to northern Syria. Al-Ashqar, who had married a Mongol woman, appealed for help from the Mongols. The Mongols of the Ilkhanate took Aleppo in October 1280, but Qalawun persuaded Al-Ashqar to join him, and they fought against the Mongols on 29 October 1281, in the Second Battle of Homs, which was won by the Mamluks.

In 1400, the Muslim Turco-Mongol conqueror Tamurlane invaded Syria, in which he sacked Aleppo, and captured Damascus after defeating the Mamluk army. The city's inhabitants were massacred, except for the artisans, who were deported to Samarkand. Tamurlane also conducted specific massacres of the Aramean and Assyrian Christian populations, greatly reducing their numbers. By the end of the 15th century, the discovery of a sea route from Europe to the Far East ended the need for an overland trade route through Syria.

Ottoman Syria (1516 - 1920)

Main article: Ottoman Syria

In 1516, the Ottoman Empire invaded the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, conquering Syria, and incorporating it into its empire. The Ottoman system was not burdensome to Syrians because the Turks respected Arabic as the language of the Quran, and accepted the mantle of defenders of the faith. Damascus was made the major entrepot for Mecca, and as such it acquired a holy character to Muslims, because of the beneficial results of the countless pilgrims who passed through on the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Ottoman administration followed a system that led to peaceful coexistence. Each ethno-religious minority—Arab Shia Muslim, Arab Sunni Muslim, Aramean-Syriac Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Maronite Christians, Assyrian Christians, Armenians, Kurds and Jews—constituted a millet. The religious heads of each community administered all personal status laws and performed certain civil functions as well. In 1831, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt renounced his loyalty to the Empire and overran Ottoman Syria, capturing Damascus. His short-term rule over the domain attempted to change the demographics and social structure of the region; he brought thousands of Egyptian villagers to populate the plains of Southern Syria, rebuilt Jaffa and settled it with veteran Egyptian soldiers aiming to turn it into a regional capital, and he crushed peasant and Druze rebellions and deported non-loyal tribesmen. By 1840, however, he had to surrender the area back to the Ottomans.

From 1864, Tanzimat reforms were applied on Ottoman Syria, carving out the provinces (vilayets) of Aleppo, Zor, Beirut and Damascus; the Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon was created as well, and soon after, the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem was given a separate status.

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire entered the conflict on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It ultimately suffered defeat and loss of control of the entire Near East. During the conflict, genocide against indigenous Christian peoples was carried out by the Ottomans and their allies in the form of the Armenian genocide and Assyrian genocide, of which Deir ez-Zor, in Ottoman Syria, was the final destination of these death marches. During the later part of the war, Ottoman Syria was occupied by Arab forces inland, joined by British and French units along the coast. In August 1917, Great Britain officially recognized the Hashemite Kingdom of Syia, under King Faisal I.

France, however, lauched an invasion of Syria on 8 March 1920. Despite many predictions that Syria would be quickly overcome by the French Empire, Syria prevailed at the Battle of Maysaloun. Following this, France withdrew to Lebanon, where the local Christians were becoming less supportive of France due to Faisal's intention to establish a secular state. In late November 1920, the United Kingdom sent a telegram to the French Prime Minister to withdraw from Syria and establish relations with their govenment. Seing the diplomatic situation was against them, and with Syrian raids increasing in both agressiveness and effectiveness, France withdrew over the course of the next few months. The last French soldier left Beirut on 17 April 1921.

With the Ottoman surrender in 1918, Syria was able to take control over the north, including Aleppo and Antioch. During the Turkish War of Independence, Syria lost some of the cities they hoped to gain even further north, such as Urfa and Antep. Still, they had achieved independence from the great powers, a feat few nations could boast of.

Independent monarchy (1920 - 1951)

King Faisal created a parliament and worked to create a new constitution, which was signed by the leaders of all major political forces in the country, including minorities such as Kurds and Jews, on 27 November 1920. The constitution provided for a relatively weak parliament, angering many liberals and socialists, who felt the king had too much power. Dispite these concerns, the country remained remakably stable during and after the first elections in 1922. On 27 February, Hashim al-Atassi and his People's Party were elected. Dispite this, Faisal had almost all the real power in the country, especially since al-Atassi largely suppoted his rule.

From the 1920s to his death in 1933, Faisal embarked on a massive moderniztion process similar to, and at times inspired by, Atatürk's reforms in Turkey, though it differed in being more liberal and less ethno-nationalist. He somewhat secularized the country, focusing on unity between the various religions in Syria. The King also supported peace between the different ethnic groups in the country. This was especially meaningful, as the Kurds had revolted in every country they viewed as occuping their land, exept Syria. King Faisal also modernized education, focusing on the secular French model. New roads were built to connect the country as old ones were modernized. Railways were built, connecting major cities both inland and running along the coast. Ports were expanded, and they began industrializing on a scale that rivals even Turkey during this same period. New arms manufactories were made, and they formed a combat-capable navy by 1930.

In 1928, King Faisal agreed to allow the Jews to buy land in Syria, and the government began giving out land grants for Jews in Palestine. Beginning in 1932, and continually reaching record heights for the next 14 years, Jews began immigrating to Palestine en massé to remove themselves from an increasingly anti-semetic Germany, and were later joined by Jews from other parts of Europe fleeing World War II and the Holocaust.

On 8 September 1933, King Faisal died, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Ghazi. He ruled as King for the next six years, continuing his fathers reforms and trying to create peace in Palestine, to little avail. Syria was finally admited to the League of Nations on 29 April 1936. On 4 April 1939, Ghazi was assassinated by an Islamist from Palestine named Khalid al-Faraj. Ghazi was succeeded by his son Faisal II, though true power now layed with his regent, Abd al-llah; just months later, WWII began in Europe.

For a time, things stayed much the same in Palestine. The Second World War saw the neutral, but pro-allied government link anti-semetic attacks to German alliegence. The Arab leaders in Palestine however, believed that the Jews were planning to seize all Arab and Muslim lands, and kill any who resisted. Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, frequently made anti-semetic comments and encouraged Arabs to attack Jews, even expressing sympathy for Nazi Germany. The government decided against arresting him, worringing that may cause a Palestinian Arab rebellion, or revolution by the Muslim Arabs across Syria. In 1941, al-Husseini visited Nazi Germany, met with Joachim von Ribbentrop and Adolf Hitler, and spoke to Muslim SS units.

Just months after this, the Golden Square under Rashid Gaylani launched a coup to overthrow the Iraqi government. In response, the United Kingdom demanded Syria allow British forces to invade Iraq from the west. To counter this and preserve Syrian sovreignty, Abd al-llah decided to invade Iraq alongside Britain. Churchill accepted, and Iraq was defeated in just two weeks. Following this, Syria offically declared war on Germany. Al-Husseini was arrested for treason, and put on public trial in Jerusalem. Al-Husseini's supporters protested and rioted in the streets across not just Jerusalem, but also Syria in general; many attacks on Jewish towns and settlements were recorded during this time. Due to this pressure, al-llah agreed to release al-Husseini on the condition that he never leave the country. Syria played a role in the North Africa campaign, though their forces would only take limited part in the fighting in Europe, sending one division to the Italian Front in 1943.

After the war had ended, tens of thousands of Jews left Europe for Syria, and Palestine in particular. Due to this mass immigration, inter-communal violence exploded, brought on mainly by Arab attacks and Jewish reprisals of equally brutal measure. Government forces attempted to quell the fighting, but it was unabating for several more years. Abd al-llah attempted to keep control through increasingly authoritarian methods, and the elected officials were becoming ever more angry, especially as they began to be sidelined even more. Due to this pressure, Abd al-llah gave up control to the King's cousin Prince Mohammad. The King finally abdicated on 17 December 1951. This marked the beginning of the new democratic republic, as elected officials and politcal activists from across the country came to Damascus to draft a new, more liberal constitution.

Early federation and Cold War (1951 - 1987)

Following the creation of a new constitution, the Levantine Federation had its first elections on 27 February 1952, won narrowly by al-Atassi. The new government made it a top priority to slow, and eventually stop, violence in Palestine. To do this, they decided to create a Jewish and Arab canton in the region, while people of either ethnicity would still be able to live in either canton. They also created new security forces, and gave more funding to local police. Over the next decade, violence would decrease massively, and civil war was narrowly avoided.

1952 in Egypt saw the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser, an Arab nationalist who would go on to become one of, if not the most popular and influential politicians of the Arab world. His rise to power marked the beginning of the Arab Cold War, a time of tension between monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and Morocco, and Arab nationalist regimes like Egypt and later Libya. Syria was largely neutral in the conflics that took place during this time, though they tended to side politically with the monarchies due to their mutual relationship with the United States.

The worst effect of the Cold War in Syria, was internal. Political tensions rose massively between Arab nationalists and liberals, and later Islamists. Many Arabs, mainly poorer urban ones, supported Nasser, while Bedouins were largely Islamist. Minorities, especially Jews and Kurds, almost always sided with liberals, along with most upper and middle-class Arabs. The response from the largely liberal govenments of this time was to expand the welfare state to bring more people out of poverty and, the hope was, make them less socialist. While there were many outbursts of political violence, such as in 1963, the democratic system held strong during this troublesome time.

During the late 1960s, and continuing to the present, Syria became a major hotspot for tourism. Its many beaches, historical buildings, and religous significance made it a top destination for all sorts of people from all over the world. While never a member of NATO, Syria maintained a close and friendly relationship with the United States and Western World in general. The Syrian arms industry became a major producer of weapons for many NATO and US-friendly Middle Eastern countries. The 1970s represent a very stable time in the federation's history. The war in North Yemen ended in 1969, with Nasser dying the next year, and there was relative calm in the Middle East for another decade. Arab nationalist sentiment began to decrease after this point, already weakened by the chaos it had brought to Iraq. The government took this time to invest more in the civilian economy and began sponsering a new program to give housing to the homeless. This helped reduce political tensions further.

However, a new force would begin its rise in 1979, with the Iranian Revolution and replacal of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with Ruhollah Khomenei's Islamists. The creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran marked a turning point in Middle Eastern politics, shifting the revolutionary spirit away from Arab nationalism and giving new life to the ideas of political Islam. During the 1980s, many Bedouins, Palestinian Arabs, and rural Arabs across Syria began flocking to these ideals. Though they never won more than a third of seats in parliament, their acceptance of violence by many in the movement caused fear among the government and people alike. They started to sharply decrease in popularity after the 1986 Damascus car bomb attack, and the response of the Islamic Dawa Party - Syria that led many to believe they endorsed it, though they deny such accusations to this day. Much of their original popularity came from the People's Party's neoliberal stance after the 1977 elections. In 1987, they were defeated by the more left-wing Syrian Democratic People's Party.

Post Cold War challenges (1987 - present)

In 1990, Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded and conquered Kuwait, beginning the Gulf War. Syria immediately condemned the invasion, and during the war launched airstrikes and raids into Iraq. As the war developed in the Coalition's favor, Syria expanded the attacks and took the cities of Qa'im, Rutba, Haditha, and Sinjar; they were also in range of Mosul and Ramadi by the war's end. After the war, Syria left all Iraqi territory. During the 1991 uprisings, nearly 200,000 Kurds fled to Syria, where they recieved refuge and assistance. Syria also participated in Operation Provide Comfort, airdroping supplies and helping to enforce the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, and later participating in Operation Northern Watch.

Despite the conflict with Iraq, internally, Syria was largely peaceful after the end of the Gulf War. Helped along by the global economy, Syria experienced an economic boom in this time, from the early 1990s to 2007. More infrastructure was built, and the government spent more money subsidizing the IT sector.

In 2001, the United States suffered an unprecedented terrorist attack on its soil. Following this attack the US demanded countries around the world to choose between supporting them, or being considered allies of terrorism. Syria, always being a close partner to America, publically sided with them. They supported the invasion and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, though they never sent soldiers. In 2003, the US invaded and occupied Iraq. Syria, like France and many other countries, didn't support the invasion, although they would go on to help with logistics as the war intensified.

Beginning in 2007, and finally being completed in 2011, the United States withdrew from Iraq, hoping the government could keep the situation stable. This withdraw occured around the time the Arab Spring began, which saw protests across the Arab world, and in Muslim countries in general. Syria remained mostly stable during this period, as the people had little complaints. Iraq, on the other hand, further decended into chaos as protests gripped the country. This culminated in December 2013, when the newly formed Islamic State launched a rebellion against the Iraqi government. They were quickly joined by disgruntled Arab tribesmen and Saddam Hussein loyalists, and their numbers grew massively in the first few months of the rebellion.

Almost from the beginning of the conflict, IS launched raids and terrorist attacks into Syria. In July 2014, after having taken control over much of western Iraq, they invaded Syria. The Islamists were quickly pushed back, and in just a few weeks, Syrian forces had entered Iraq. Despite this, it would take many more years to fully end the insurgency in the desert. In early 2015 the Islamic State began to be pushed back by Iraqi government forces, the Syrian military, and a multi-national coalition. They lost most of their holdings in the Middle East by December of that year, shifting their focus mainly to Somalia, Libya, and West Africa in general.

During the war and in the following years, Syria experienced numerous terrorist attacks carried out mainly by the Islamic State. Some of these include the 2015 Jerusalem bus attacks, and the 2016 bombings in Damascus and across the north of Syria. The Syrian Security Forces have in the past prevented and stopped many terrorist attacks, and their military fully put down the IS insurgency in 2018.

Despite the many challenges the state has been forced to undure, the Levantine Federation remains a stable and prosperous democracy in the heart of an unstable and autocratic region. The nation is considered one of the greatest post-colonial successes for its many achiements in science, art, and statecraft.

Geography

Syria is a Middle Eastern country, lying at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean. The country is bounded in the north by Turkey, to the east by Iraq, to the southeast by Saudi Arabia, and to the south and southwest by the Red Sea and Egypt. Syria lies between latitudes 29° and 38° N, and longitudes 34° and 43° E. The climate varies from the humid Mediterranean coast, through a semiarid steppe zone, to arid desert in the east. Important agricutural areas include the Jazira region in the northeast, Hawran south of Damascus to the region of Transjordan, most of northern Palestine, western parts of Transjordan along the Jordan River Valley, and some parts of the Lebanon. The Eurphrates cuts through the country in the northeast, while the Jordan River flows through Syria in the south, into the Dead Sea. The country is an important part of the Fertile Crescent. Its land stradles the northwestern part of the Arabian Plate.

The country first struck petroleum in 1956; since then numerous oil deposits have been found. Oil is mostly concentrated around al-Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor in the north (natural extentions of the Iraqi oil fields around Mosul and Kirkuk), and in the south, in the Negev and the southwestern deserts of Transjordan. Natural gas has been discovered off the coast, and inland sites such as the field of Jbessa, discovered in 1940.

Panoramic view of Ayn al-Bayda, Latakia, a village in northwestern Syria

Biodiversity

Syria contains five terrestrial ecoregions: Syrian xeric grasslands and shrublands, Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests, Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests, Mesopotamian shrub desert, and the Arabian Desert. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 3.76, ranking it 141st globally out of 172 countries.

Climate

Temperatures in Syria vary widely, especially during the winter. Coastal areas, such as those of Tel Aviv and Beirut, have a typical Mediterranean climate with cool, rainy winters and long, hot summers. The northern Negev and more inland regions have a semi-arid climate with hot summers, cool winters, and fewer rainy days than the Mediterranean climate. The outlying desert areas have a desert climate with very hot, dry summers, and mild winters with few days of rain. The highest temperature in the world outside Africa and North America as of 2021, 54 °C (129 °F), was recorded in 1942 in the Tirat Zvi kibbutz in the northern Jordan River valley.

At the other extreme, mountainous regions can be windy and cold, and areas at elevation of 750 metres (2,460 ft) or more (same elevation as Jerusalem) will usually receive at least one snowfall each year. From May to September, rain in Syria is rare. With scarce water resources in many regions, Syria has developed various water-saving technologies, including drip irrigation. Syrians also take advantage of the considerable sunlight available for solar energy, making Syria a leading nation in solar energy use per capita—many houses across the country use solar panels for water heating.

The Syrian Ministry of Environmental Protection has reported that climate change "will have a decisive impact on all areas of life, including: water, public health, agriculture, energy, biodiversity, coastal infrastructure, economics, nature, national security, and geostrategy", and will have the greatest effect on vulnerable populations such as the poor, the elderly, and the chronically ill.

Government and politics

The Levantine Federation is a federal democratic republic with a unicameral legislature. The country has a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. A member of parliament supported by a parliamentary majority becomes the prime minister—usually this is the chair of the largest party. The prime minister is the head of government and head of the cabinet.

President
Riyad al-Maliki

Prime Minister
George Sabra

The Syrian Parliament is composed of 200 MPs elected via proportional representation, with a 3% threshold. The country has a few main parties, meaning that coalitions are usually required. Elections are schedualed for every 5 years, though they can happen sooner if the ruling coalition collapses or a vote of no confidence passes.

The President of Syria is head of state, with largely ceremonial duties.

The constitution created in 1952 ensures that no one ethnic or religious group can have total control, and grants equal rights and protection under the law to all citizens. Muslim Arabs make up a large majority of the population, and so have a major role in the country's politics however. This has led minorities, especially the Jews and Kurds, to seek greater autonomy and for some, outright independence.

Legal System

Syria has a four-tier court system. At the lowest level are magistrate courts, situated in most cities across the country. Above them are district courts, serving as both appellate courts and courts of first instance; they are situated in Syrian districts. Above district courts are cantonal courts, with one situated in each canton. The third and final tier is the Supreme Court in Damascus; it serves a dual role as the highest court of appeals and the High Court of Justice. In the latter role, the Supreme Court rules as a court of first instance, allowing individuals, both citizens and non-citizens, to petition against the decisions of state authorities.

Syrian law is based mostly on English common law and French civil code, with elements of Sharia law. It is based on the principle of stare decisis (precedent) and is an adversarial system, where the parties in the suit bring evidence before the court. Court cases are decided by professional judges with no role for juries.

Administrative divisions

Syria is split into 11 cantons: Rojava, Aleppo, Latakia, Homs, Damascus, Druzia, Lebanon, Jewish Palestine, Arab Palestine, Jerusalem, and Transjordan. Two of these, Jerusalem and Damascus, are cities with enough signifigance to warant their own cantons.

Foreign relations

Main article: Foreign Relations of Syria

Syria has been a close ally of the United States and Western World since the start of the Cold War, and has enjoyed very close relations with the US and with EU member states. Dispite their conflict during the Turkish War of Independence, Turkey and Syria have since kept a friendly relationship with one another; Recep Tayyip Edoğan's leadership has at times challenged this friendship, however.

Much of the country's foreign focus has been the creation of a wide bulwark against Iran. To do this, Syria has formed strong relations with the Gulf monarchies and Egypt. Iran, for its part, has sponsered numerous terrorist groups across the region, most notably with the Houthis in Yemen. Syria has friendships with Morocco, Tunisia, and Armenia as well; in part due to anti-Iran unity, but also because of the close relationships the people of these nations have with one another.

Syria is a founding member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and of the Arab League. It enjoys "advanced status" with the European Union and is part of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which aims to increase links between the EU and its neighbours.

Military

Main article: Leventine Armed Forces

The Levantine army grew out of the Arab rebels who defeated the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It was first organized in 1920 into the Royal Syrian Army. During the reforms of the 1920s and '30s, the Royal Syrian Navy was developed and made into a real fighting force. The air force was created around the same time, and during World War II bought a large number of Spitfires from the British. After the abdication of King Faisal, the military arms took on their present names: the Levantine Army, Levantine Navy, and Levantine Air Force.

The forces, especially the army, have long been lauded for their professionalism and displine; a rare sight in Middle Eastern militaries. The military enjoys strong support and aid from the United States, United Kingdom, and France. This is in large part due to Syria's critical position in the Middle East. The development of Special Operations Forces has been particularly significant, enhancing the capability of the military to react rapidly to threats to homeland security, as well as training special forces from the region and beyond. Syria provides extensive training to the security forces of several Arab countries. The army currently has around 380,000 personnel.

The country's military-industrial complex is also very developed, as the country has been near constantly threatened by outside powers since the Cold War. Syria has created a number of high-quality armored vehicles in the past such as the Arlaba, Samid, and Fahd. They also produce small-arms designs like the Tavor Bullpup Assault Rifle.

There are about 52,000 Levantine troops working with the United Nations in peacekeeping missions across the world. Syria ranks third internationally in participation in U.N. peacekeeping missions, with one of the highest levels of peacekeeping troop contributions of all U.N. member states. The nation has dispatched several field hospitals to conflict zones and areas affected by natural disasters across the region. Since 2014, Syria has been directly involved in the War on Terror, though its role has diminished since 2018.

Law enforcement

Main article: Law enforcement in Syria, Leventine police

Syria's law enforcement is under the control of the Levantine Ministry of Public Safety, and by extension, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There are numerous police departments across the country, including municipal police departments, district offices, cantonal police, and federal law enforcement.

The number of female police officers is rising, being the first Middle Eastern country to allow them in the 1970s. Syria's law enforcement is ranked 29th globally and 1st in the Middle East, in terms of police services' performance, by the 2016 World Internal Security and Police Index.

Economy

Syria is considered the most advanced country in the Middle East in economic and industrial development. In 2023, the IMF estimated the country's wealth to be at 1.715 trillion dollars; their GDP per capita is $57,714 (ranking 28th worldwide), a figure comparable to other highly developed and rich countries. Syria has the highest average wealth per adult in the Middle East. The Economist ranked Syria as the 4th most successful economy among the developed countries for 2022. It has the highest number of billionaires in the Middle East, and the 18th highest number in the world. In recent years Syria had one of the highest growth rate in the developed world along with Ireland. Syria's quality university education and the establishment of a highly motivated and educated populace is largely responsible for spurring the country's high technology boom and rapid economic development. In 2010, it joined the OECD. The country is ranked 20th in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report and 35th on the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business index. Syria was also ranked fifth in the world by share of people in high-skilled employment.

An abundance of natural resources and intensive development of Syrian agricultural and industrial sectors have mad ethe country largly self-sufficient. Imports to Syria, totaling $86.5 billion in 2020, include raw materials, military equipment, investment goods, rough diamonds, and consumer goods. Leading exports include machinery and equipment, software, cut diamonds, agricultural products, chemicals, fuels, and textiles and apparel. The Bank of Syria holds $201 billion of foreign-exchange reserves, the 17th highest in the world. Since the 1980s, Syria has received military aid from the United States, as well as economic aid in the form of loan guarantees, which now account for nearly a fifth of the country's external debt. Syria has one of the lowest external debts in the developed world, and is a lender in terms of net external debt (assets vs. liabilities abroad), which in 2015 stood at a surplus of $69 billion.

Syria has the second-largest number of startup companies in the world after the United States, and the third-largest number of NASDAQ-listed companies after the U.S. and China. It is the world leader for number of start-ups per capita. Syria has been dubbed the "Start-Up Nation". Intel and Microsoft built their first overseas research and development facilities in Syria, and other high-tech multi-national corporations, such as IBM, Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Facebook and Motorola have opened research and development centres in the country. In 2007, American investor Warren Buffett's holding company Berkshire Hathaway bought the Syrian company Iscar for $4 billion, its first acquisition outside the United States.

The days which are allocated to working times in Syria are Monday - Friday (for a five-day workweek), or Monday - Saturday (for a six-day workweek). In observance of Shabbat, in places where Friday is a work day and the majority of population is Jewish, Friday is a "short day", usually lasting until 14:00 in the winter, or 16:00 in the summer.

Science and technology

Syria's development of cutting-edge technologies in software, communications and the life sciences, particularly in Jewish Palestine, have evoked comparisons with Silicon Valley. Syria is third in the world in expenditure on research and development as a percentage of GDP. It is ranked 14th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023, down from tenth in 2019 and fifth in the 2019 Bloomberg Innovation Index. Syria has produced four Nobel Prize-winning scientists since 2004 and has been frequently ranked as one of the countries with the highest ratios of scientific papers per capita in the world. Syrian universities are ranked among the top 50 world universities in computer science (Tel Aviv University), mathematics (Damascus University) and chemistry (Weizmann Institute of Science).

The ongoing shortage of water in the country has spurred innovation in water conservation techniques, and a substantial agricultural modernization, drip irrigation, was invented in Syria. Syria is also at the technological forefront of desalination and water recycling. The Sorek desalination plant is the largest seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination facility in the world. By 2014, Syria's desalination programmes provided roughly 35% of the country's drinking water and it is expected to supply 40% by 2015 and 70% by 2050. As of 2015, more than 50 percent of the water for Syrian households, agriculture and industry is artificially produced. The country hosts an annual Water Technology and Environmental Control Exhibition & Conference (WATEC) that attracts thousands of people from across the world. In 2011, Syria's water technology industry was worth around $2 billion a year with annual exports of products and services in the tens of millions of dollars. As a result of innovations in reverse osmosis technology, the federation is set to become a net exporter of water in the coming years.

In 2012, Syria was ranked ninth in the world by the Futron's Space Competitiveness Index. The Levantine Space Agency coordinates all Syrian space research programmes with scientific and commercial goals, and have indigenously designed and built at least 13 commercial, research and spy satellites. Some of Syria's satellites are ranked among the world's most advanced space systems. Shavit is a space launch vehicle produced by Syria to launch small satellites into low Earth orbit. It was first launched in 1988, making Syria the eighth nation to have a space launch capability. In 2003, Ilan Ramon became Syria's first astronaut, serving as payload specialist of STS-107, the fatal mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

Syria has embraced solar energy; its engineers are on the cutting edge of solar energy technology and its solar companies work on projects around the world. Over 70% of Syrian homes use solar energy for hot water, among the highest per capita in the world. According to government figures, the country saves 6% of its electricity consumption per year because of its solar energy use in heating. The high annual incident solar irradiance at its geographic latitude creates ideal conditions for what is an internationally renowned solar research and development industry in the Negev Desert.

Energy

Syria has historically been very oil-dependent since before independence. The oil fields in the eastern and northeastern deserts have historically been able to supply the country with much of its needs. However, with the increasingly pressing issue of non-renewablity, the country has successfully diversified its energy sources over the past few decades. Since the 1960s, the country has saught to create nuclear power, working with French scientists in order to do so. From the 1990s, Syria has invested heavily into solar power stations in the Negev and the deserts of Transjordan. In 2009, a natural gas reserve, Tamar, was found off the coast of Palestine. A second natural gas reserve, Leviathan, was discovered in 2010. In 2013, Syria began commercial production of natural gas from the Tamar field. As of 2014, Syria produced over 7.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas a year. Syria had 199 billion cubic meters (bcm) of proven reserves of natural gas as of the start of 2016. The Leviathan gas field started production in 2019.

Ketura Sun is Syria's first commercial solar field. Built in early 2011 by the Arava Power Company on Kibbutz Ketura, Ketura Sun covers twenty acres and is expected to produce green energy amounting to 4.95 megawatts (MW). The field consists of 18,500 photovoltaic panels made by Suntech, which will produce about 9 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity per year. In the next twenty years, the field will spare the production of some 125,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The field was inaugurated on 15 June 2011. On 22 May 2012 Arava Power Company announced that it had reached financial close on an additional 58.5 MW for 8 projects to be built in the Arava and the Negev valued at 780 million Dinars or approximately $204 million.

Transportation

Syria is a well-developed country with a modern transport system. The road system is 97,403 kilometres long. The number of motor vehicles per 1,000 persons is 365, relatively low with respect to developed countries. Syria has 17,715 buses on scheduled routes, operated by several carriers. The railways are also very well developed, with over 18,000 kilomteres built, and over 200 milion passengers per year.

Syria is served by 13 international airports: Wurtzburg, Ramon, and Haifa in Jewish Palestine, Jerusalem, Nablus in Arab Palestine, Beirut in Lebanon, Aqaba, Amman Civil, and Hussein bin Ali in Transjordan, Al-Atassi in Damascus, Aleppo, Ghazi ibn Faisal in Latakia, and Kamishly in Rojava. The country has 8 main ports: Latakia, Tartous, Tripoli, Beirut, Haifa, Ashdod, Gaza, and Aqaba.

Tourism

Tourism, especially religious tourism, is an important industry in Syria. The country's temperate climate, beaches, archaeological, other historical and biblical sites, and unique geography draw many tourists. Syria's security problems have taken their toll on the industry, but the number of incoming tourists is on the rebound. In 2019, more than 20 million tourists visited the country, making it the most visited country in the Middle East and one of the most in the world. Tourism has generated around 30 billion Dinars for the Syrian economy.

Demographics

The 2019 census showed a population of 52,781,931 (female: 49%; male: 51%). There were 10,996,236 households in Syria in 2019, with an average of 4.8 persons per household (compared to 6.7 persons per household for the census of 1979). The capital of Syria is Damascus, considered by many to be the oldest capital in the world, and has a population of 2,193,000. The largest city, Amman, has a population of 4,237,000.

Arabs make up 74.6% of the population, followed by Jews at 10.7%, Kurds at 4.6%, and Turks and Turkmen at 2.3%. The remaining 7.8% include Assyrians, Circassians, and various other groups. About 91% of Syrians live in urban areas.

Major urban areas

Syria has a number of major metropolitan areas, including the Tel Aviv-Jaffa metropolitan area (Gush Dan region; population 4,900,000), Damascus canton (2,603,000), Aleppo metropolitan area (population 2,198,210), and Jerusalem Canton (Greater Jerusalem; population 1,853,900).

Syria's largest municipality by population is Amman at 4,237,000, while the largest by area is Jerusalem at 125 square kilometres (48 sq mi). Beirut and Damascus rank as Syria's next largest cities, with populations of 2,567,000 and 2,193,000 respectively. The (mainly Haredi) city of Bnei Brak is the most densely populated city in the country and one of the 10 most densely populated cities in the world. Syria has 12 cities with populations over 500,000 people.

v t e Largest cities or towns in Syria According to the 2022 Census
	Rank	Name	Canton	Pop.
Tel Aviv-Jaffa Amman	1	Tel Aviv-Jaffa	Jewish Palestine	4,900,000	Beirut Damascus
	2	Amman	Transjordan	4,542,000
	3	Beirut	Lebanon	2,800,000
	4	Damascus	Damascus	2,603,000
	5	Aleppo	Aleppo	2,198,210
	6	Irbid	Transjordan	2,050,300
	7	Jerusalem	Jerusalem	1,853,900
	8	Haifa	Jewish Palestine	1,203,000
	9	Zarqa	Transjordan	929,300
	10	Homs	Homs	875,404

Religion

Islam is the predominant faith in Syria, making up 65.7% of the total population. Sunni Muslims make up 57.1%, while Shias make up the other 8.6%. The second largest faith is Christianity, followed by Judaism and Nusayrite. Irreligion is a major force as well, making up 7.9% of the Levantine population.

Syria, being the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, has the oldest-known communities of these two groups in the world. Christians today make up 15.3% of the populous, while practicing Jews make up 4.6%. Christians and Jews are exceptionally well integrated in Syrian society and enjoy a high level of freedom. Christians traditionally occupy at least two cabinet posts, while Jews tend to get at least one. The current Prime Minister, George Sabra, is a Christian Arab. Jews are also very influential in the media, especially cinema.

Irreligion has become more popular among young Syrians, especially Jews and urban Arabs.

Smaller religious minorities include Druze, Baháʼís and Mandaeans. It is estimated that 1,400 Mandaeans live in Amman, and 800 in Deir ez-Zour; they came from Iraq after the 2003 invasion fleeing persecution.

The Umayyad Mosque - The Dome of the Eagle (Qubbat Al-Nisr), Damascus

Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery, Homs Canton

Languages

The Levantine Federation has three official languages: Modern Standard Arabic, Hebrew, and Kurmanji Kurdish. Arabic is usually considered the lingua franca, although some have called for English to be used instead. Locally recognized languages include Turkish and Aramaic. English is currently considered a co-official language in the education system, as well as sometimes being used in banking in commerce. Almost all schools from primary up to university level teach English and French alongside Arabic and, depending on canton and sometimes district, the local language.

In Jewish Palestine, many languages can be heard on the streets. Due to mass immigration from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia (some 132,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Palestine), Russian and Amharic are widely spoken. More than one million Russian-speaking immigrants arrived in Palestine from the post-Soviet states between 1990 and 2004. French is spoken by around 700,000 Jews, mostly originating from France and North Africa (see Maghrebi Jews).

Health and Education

Life expectancy in Syria was around 76.8 years in 2017. The leading cause of death is cardiovascular diseases, followed by cancer. Childhood immunization rates have increased steadily over the past 15 years; by 2002 immunisations and vaccines reached more than 95% of children under five. In 1950, water and sanitation was available to only 28% of the population; in 2015, it reached 98% of Syrians.

Syria prides itself on its health services, some of the best in the region. Qualified medics, a favourable investment climate and Syria's stability has contributed to the success of this sector. The country's health care system is divided between public and private institutions. On 1 June 2007, Damascus Hospital (as the biggest private hospital) was the first general specialty hospital to gain the international accreditation JCAHO. The King Faisal Cancer Center in Amman is a leading cancer treatment centre. 86% of Syrians have medical insurance.

The Levantine educational system comprises 2 years of pre-school education, 10 years of compulsory basic education, and two years of secondary academic or vocational education, after which the students sit for the General Certificate of Secondary Education Exam (Tawjihi or Bagrut exams). Scholars may attend either private or public schools. According to the UNESCO, the literacy rate in 2015 was 98.41% and is considered to be the highest in the Middle East and the Arab world, and one of the highest in the world. UNESCO ranked Syria's educational system 18th out of 94 nations for providing gender equality in education. The country has the highest number of researchers in research and development per million people among all the 57 countries that are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). In Syria, there are 8,060 researchers per million people, while the world average is 2,532 per million. Primary education is free in Syria.

Maariv described the Christian Arab sectors as "the most successful in the education system", since Christians fared the best in terms of education in comparison to any other religion in Syria.

Culture

Syria is a land rich with many cultures and ethnicities. The largest religious group in Syria are Muslims and the largest ethnic group are Arabs. Syrians predominantly speak Levantine Arabic, a dialect of Arabic descended from a mix of local pre-Islamic Arabic dialects and Hejazi Arabic. These derive their ancestry from the many ancient Semitic-speaking peoples who inhabited the ancient Near East during the Bronze and Iron ages. Other Arabs include Bedouin Arabs who inhabit the Syrian Desert and Naqab, and speak a dialect known as Bedouin Arabic that originated in Arabian Peninsula. Other minor ethnic groups in the Levant include Jews, Circassians, Chechens, Turks, Turkmens, Assyrians, Kurds, Nawars and Armenians.

Ethnicities

In the majority Arab regions, importance is placed on family, religion, education, self-discipline and respect. Their taste for the traditional arts is expressed in dances such as the al-Samah, the Dabkeh in all their variations, and the sword dance. Marriage ceremonies and the births of children are occasions for the lively demonstration of folk customs.

In Jewish Palestine, the local culture is shaped by the many cultures early settlers left behind. Jews from diaspora communities around the world brought their cultural and religious traditions back with them, creating a melting pot of Jewish customs and beliefs. Arab influences are still present in many cultural spheres, such as architecture, music, and cuisine.

Kurdish culture, seen mainly in Rojava, is a legacy from the various ancient peoples who shaped modern Kurds and their society. As most other Middle Eastern populations, a high degree of mutual influences between the Kurds and their neighbouring peoples are apparent. Therefore, in Kurdish culture elements of various other cultures are to be seen. However, on the whole, Kurdish culture is closest to that of other Iranian peoples, in particular those who historically had the closest geographical proximity to the Kurds, such as the Persians and Lurs. Kurds, for instance, also celebrate Newroz (21 March) as New Year's Day.

Assyrian culture is largely influenced by Christianity. There are many Assyrian customs that are common in other Middle Eastern cultures. Main festivals occur during religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas. There are also secular holidays such as Kha b-Nisan (vernal equinox).

Literature

The literature of Syria has contributed to Arabic literature and has a proud tradition of oral and written poetry. Syrian-Arab writers, many of whom migrated to Egypt, played a crucial role in the nahda or Arab literary and cultural revival of the 19th century. Prominent contemporary Syrian-Arab writers include, among others, Adonis, Muhammad Maghout, Haidar Haidar, Ghada al-Samman, Nizar Qabbani and Zakariyya Tamer.

In literature, Kahlil Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi. He is particularly known for his book The Prophet (1923), which has been translated into over twenty different languages. Ameen Rihani was a major figure in the mahjar literary movement developed by Arab emigrants in North America, and an early theorist of Arab nationalism. Mikhail Naimy is widely recognized as among the most important figures in modern Arabic letters and among the most important spiritual writers of the 20th century.

Jewish literature is primarily poetry and prose written in Hebrew, as part of the renaissance of Hebrew as a spoken language since the mid-19th century, although a small body of literature is published in other languages, such as English. In 1966, Shmuel Yosef Agnon shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with German Jewish author Nelly Sachs. Leading Syrian-Jewish poets have been Yehuda Amichai, Nathan Alterman, Leah Goldberg, and Rachel Bluwstein. Internationally famous contemporary Syrian-Jewish novelists include Amos Oz, Etgar Keret and David Grossman. The Arab satirist Sayed Kashua (who writes in Hebrew and Arabic) is also internationally known. Jewish Palestine was also the home of Emile Habibi, whose novel The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist, and other writings, won him a prize for Arabic literature.

Music

The Syrian-Arab music scene, in particular that of Damascus, has long been among the Arab world's most important, especially in the field of classical Arab music. Syria has produced several pan-Arab stars, including Asmahan, Farid al-Atrash and singer Lena Chamamyan. The city of Aleppo is known for its muwashshah, a form of Andalous sung poetry popularized by Sabri Moudallal, as well as for popular stars like Sabah Fakhri.

While traditional folk music remains popular in Lebanon, especially Beirut, modern music reconciling Western and traditional Arabic styles, pop, and fusion are rapidly advancing in popularity. Lebanese artists like Fairuz, Majida El Roumi, Wadih El Safi, Sabah, Julia Boutros or Najwa Karam are widely known and appreciated in Lebanon and in the Arab world. Radio stations feature a variety of music, including traditional Lebanese, classical Arabic, Armenian and modern French, English, American, and Latin tunes.

Jewish music contains musical influences from all over the world; Mizrahi and Sephardic music, Hasidic melodies, Greek music, jazz, and pop rock are all part of the music scene. Among Syria's world-renowned orchestras is the Tel Aviv Philharmonic Orchestra, which has been in operation for over seventy years and today performs more than two hundred concerts each year. Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Ofra Haza are among the internationally acclaimed musicians born in Jewish Palestine. Eilat has hosted its own international music festival, the Red Sea Jazz Festival, every summer since 1987. The canton's folk songs, known as "Songs of the Land of Israel", deal with the experiences of the pioneers in building the Jewish homeland.

Traditionally, there are three types of Kurdish classical performers: storytellers (çîrokbêj), minstrels (stranbêj), and bards (dengbêj). No specific music was associated with the Kurdish princely courts. Instead, music performed in night gatherings (şevbihêrk) is considered classical. Several musical forms are found in this genre. Many songs are epic in nature, such as the popular Lawiks, heroic ballads recounting the tales of Kurdish heroes such as Saladin. Heyrans are love ballads usually expressing the melancholy of separation and unfulfilled love. One of the first Kurdish female singers to sing heyrans is Chopy Fatah, while Lawje is a form of religious music and Payizoks are songs performed during the autumn. Love songs, dance music, wedding and other celebratory songs (dîlok/narînk), erotic poetry, and work songs are also popular.

Assyrian music is a combination of traditional folk music and western contemporary music genres, namely pop and soft rock, but also electronic dance music. Instruments traditionally used by Assyrians include the zurna and davula, but has expanded to include guitars, pianos, violins, synthesizers (keyboards and electronic drums), and other instruments.

Media and theater

Television was introduced to Syria in 1960. It broadcast in black and white until 1976. Syrian soap operas have considerable market penetration throughout the eastern Arab world.

Ten Syrian-Jewish films have been final nominees for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards since the establishment of Levantine Federation. The 2009 movie Ajami was the fourth consecutive nomination of an Syrian film.

The cinema of Lebanon, according to film critic and historian, Roy Armes, was the only cinema in the Arabic-speaking region, besides the dominant Egyptian cinema, that could amount to a national cinema. Cinema in Lebanon has been in existence since the 1920s, and the country has produced over 500 films with many films including Egyptian filmmakers and film stars. The media of Lebanon is not only a regional center of production but also the most liberal in the Arab world. Despite its small population and geographic size, the Lebanon plays an influential role in the production of information in the Arab world and is "at the core of a regional media network with global implications".

The arts

Although Syria's role in the world art scene has been relatively minor, the federation has several unique artistic traditions. Syrian-Jewish art, which is particularly impactful in the country, has been particularly influenced by the Kabbalah, the Talmud and the Zohar. Another art movement that held a prominent role in the 20th century was the School of Paris. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the Yishuv's art was dominated by art trends emanating Bezalel. Beginning in the 1920s, the local art scene was heavily influenced by modern French art, first introduced by Isaac Frenkel. Jewish masters of the school of Paris (École de Paris), such as Soutine, Kikoine, Frenkel, Chagall heavily influenced the subsequent development of Syrian art.

Common themes in Syrian art are the mystical cities of Safed and Jerusalem, the bohemian café cultures of Tel Aviv and Beirut, agricultural landscapes, quranic/biblical stories and war. Today Syrian art has delved into Optical art, AI art, digital art and the use of salt in sculpture.

Architecture

Architecture in Syria is unique in the scope and diversity of architectural movements and fruitions of utopian plans in the 20th century. Due to the multicultural nature of the country, increased by Jewish immigration, architecture has come to reflect many different styles. In the early 20th century Jewish architects sought to combine Occidental and Oriental architecture producing buildings that showcase a myriad of infused styles. The eclectic style gave way to the modernist Bauhaus style with the influx of German-Jewish architects (among them Erich Mendelsohn) fleeing Nazi persecution. The White City of Tel Aviv-Jaffa is a UNESCO heritage site thanks to its white international style buildings. Following the creation of a separate canton, multiple local projects were commissioned, a grand part built in a brutalist style with heavy emphasis on the use of concrete and the acclimatization to the Palestine's desert climate. Today Syrian architecture continues to reflect world trends in architecture as well as the different backgrounds and heritage of its architects.

Cuisine

Syrian cuisine is rich and varied in its ingredients, linked to the regions of Syria where a specific dish has originated. The cuisine has similarities with Egyptian cuisine, North African cuisine and Ottoman cuisine. It is particularly known for its meze spreads of hot and cold dishes, most notably among them ful medames, hummus, tabbouleh and baba ghanoush, accompanied by bread. Syrian food mostly consists of Southern Mediterranean, Greek, and Southwest Asian dishes. Some Syrian dishes also evolved from Turkish and French cooking: dishes like shish kebab, stuffed zucchini/courgette, and yabraʾ (stuffed grape leaves, the word yabraʾ deriving from the Turkish word yaprak, meaning leaf).

The main dishes that form Syrian cuisine are kibbeh, hummus, tabbouleh, fattoush, labneh, shawarma, mujaddara, shanklish, pastırma, sujuk and baklava. Baklava is made of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and soaked in honey. Syrians often serve selections of appetizers, known as meze, before the main course. Za'atar, minced beef, and cheese manakish are popular hors d'œuvres. The Arabic flatbread khubz is always eaten together with meze.

Drinks in Syria vary, depending on the time of day and the occasion. Arabic coffee is the most well-known hot drink, usually prepared in the morning at breakfast or in the evening. It is usually served for guests or after food. Arak, an alcoholic drink, is a well-known beverage, served mostly on special occasions. Other Syrian beverages include ayran, jallab, white coffee, and a locally manufactured beer called Al Shark.

Syrian cuisine also includes Jewish cuisine brought to the country by immigrants from the diaspora. Since the late 1970s, a Syrian fusion cuisine has developed. It incorporates many foods traditionally eaten in the Levantine, Arab, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, such as falafel, hummus, shakshouka, couscous, and za'atar. Schnitzel, pizza, hamburgers, French fries, rice and salad are also common in Syria.

Sports

The most popular spectator sports in Syria are association football and basketball. The Levantine Premier League is the country's premier football league, and the Levantine Basketball Premier League is the premier basketball league. Syria has competed in the UEFA Champions League and reached the UEFA Cup quarter-finals. Syria hosted and won the 1964 AFC Asian Cup; in 1970 the Levantine national football team qualified for the FIFA World Cup, the only time it participated in the World Cup. The national football team came within a play-off of reaching the 2014 World Cup in Brazil when they lost a two-legged play-off against Uruguay. They previously reached the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup in 2004 and 2011.

Syria has won nine Olympic medals since its first win in 1992, including a gold medal in windsurfing at the 2004 Summer Olympics. The federation has won over 100 gold medals in the Paralympic Games and is ranked 20th in the all-time medal count. The 1968 Summer Paralympics were hosted by Syria. Syrian tennis champion Shahar Pe'er ranked 11th in the world on 31 January 2011. Krav Maga, a martial art developed by Jewish ghetto defenders during the struggle against fascism in Europe, has been used by the Syrian security forces and police since 1957. Its effectiveness and practical approach to self-defense, have won it widespread admiration and adherence around the world. The Maccabiah Games, an Olympic-style event for Jewish athletes, was inaugurated in the 1930s, and has been held every four years since then.

Chess is a leading sport in Syria and is enjoyed by people of all ages. There are many Syrian grandmasters, especially Jews, and Syrian chess players have won a number of youth world championships. Syria stages an annual international championship and hosted the World Team Chess Championship in 2005. The Ministry of Education and the World Chess Federation agreed upon a project of teaching chess within Syrian schools, and it has been introduced into the curriculum of some schools. The city of Beersheba has become a national chess center, with the game being taught in the city's kindergartens. Owing partly to Soviet immigration, it is home to the largest number of chess grandmasters of any city in the world. The Syrian chess team won the silver medal at the 2008 Chess Olympiad and the bronze, coming in third among 148 teams, at the 2010 Olympiad. Syrian grandmaster Boris Gelfand won the Chess World Cup 2009 and the 2011 Candidates Tournament for the right to challenge the world champion. He lost the World Chess Championship 2012 to reigning world champion Anand after a speed-chess tie breaker.

While both team and individual sports are widely played in Syria, the federation has enjoyed its biggest international achievements in taekwondo. The highlight came at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games when Ahmad Abu Ghaush won Syria's first ever medal of any colour at the Games by taking gold in the −67 kg weight. Medals have continued to be won at World and Asian level in the sport since to establish Taekwondo as the federation's favourite sport alongside football and chess.

Syria has a strong policy for inclusive sport and invests heavily in encouraging girls and women to participate in all sports. The women's football team gaining reputation, and in March 2016 ranked 38th in the world. In 2016, Syria hosted the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, with 16 teams representing six continents. The tournament was held in four stadiums in the three Syrian cities of Beirut, Tyre, and Haifa.

Basketball is another sport that Syria continues to punch above its weight in, having qualified to the FIBA 2010 World Basketball Cup and more recently reaching the 2019 World Cup in China. Syria came within a point of reaching the 2012 Olympics after losing the final of the 2010 Asian Cup to China by the narrowest of margins, 70–69, and settling for silver instead. Syria's national basketball team is participating in various international and Middle Eastern tournaments.

Russo-Georgian War
Part of the Abkhaz–Georgian conflict, Georgian–Ossetian conflict, and Post-Soviet conflicts
Situation in Georgia before the war
Date 7 August 2008 - 18 June 2009 (11 months, 1 week, and 4 days) Location Kingdom of Georgia Result Georgian victory Georgia gains total control over its internationally recognized territory Georgia admited to NATO and the EU Severance of Georgia–Russia relations Territorial changes Georgia regains control over all its recognized territory
Belligerents
Russia  South Ossetia  Abkhazia	Georgia
Commanders and leaders
Dmitry Medvedev Vladimir Putin Anatoliy Serdyukov Nikolay Makarov Vladimir Boldyrev Marat Kulakhmetov Vladimir Shamanov Vyacheslav Borisov A. Khrulyov † Eduard Kokoity (POW) Mikhail Mindzaev (POW) Vasily Lunev [ru] (POW) Anatoly Barankevich [ru] (POW) Sergei Bagapsh Mirab Kishmaria (POW) Anatoly Zaitsev [ru]  †	Levan Sharvandze King Davit Irakli Okruashvili Zaza Gogava David Nairashvili Mamuka Kurashvili Vano Merabishvili Alexandre Lomaia
Strength
In Abkhazia: Russian Armed Forces 58th Army (about 140,000 soldiers) Russian Airborne Troops 4th Air Force Command 42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division Spetsnaz GRU Chechen Battalions "Vostok" and "Zapad" 7th Guards Airborne Division 76th Guards Air Assault Division Black Sea Fleet Abkhazian Armed Forces (about 7,000 soldiers) In South Ossetia: Russian Armed Forces 90 soldiers South Ossetian Armed Forces ~1,000	Georgian Armed Forces: 230,000 Ministry of Internal Affairs: 15,000 police officers
Casualties and losses
Russia Russian Armed Forces: Killed: 65–67,000 Wounded: 83,000 MIA: 91 POWs: 12,512 North Ossetian and Cossack volunteers: Killed: 1,000–1,500 Wounded: 753 Missing: 27  South Ossetia Killed: 236 POWs: 700  Abkhazia Killed: 2,673 Wounded: 3,459 Missing: 287 Captured: 396 Total: 68,909 - 71,409 killed, 87,212+ wounded, 405 missing, 13,608 captured	Georgia Georgian Armed Forces: Killed: 47,169[3] Wounded: 63,947[4] MIA: 1,831[3] POWs: 239[5] Ministry of Internal Affairs: Killed: 1,811[4] Wounded: 6,257[4] MIA: 153[4] POWs: 150[5] Total: 48,980 killed, 70,204 wounded, 1,984 missing, 389 captured
Civilian casualties: Abkhazia and South Ossetia: 11,562 civilians killed, according to Russia; 25,425 wounded, according to Russia3,276 civilians killed and 6,456 injured, according to the UN Georgia: 22,534 civilians killed and 425 missing, 55,147 injured according to Georgia Twelve foreign civilians killed and 23 wounded Refugees: 220,000 civilians displaced (including 30,000 South Ossetians that moved to Russia, 20,000 Abkhaz, and 157,000 Georgians per UNHCR) Estimate by Georgian official: at least 230,000

Russo-Georgian War
Main topics
Background Prelude Timeline Responsibility Information war Cyberattacks International reaction Protests Humanitarian impact / response Financial impact Infrastructure damage Reconstruction efforts International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia Occupied territories of Georgia
Related topics
Georgian–Ossetian conflict Abkhaz–Georgian conflict Transnistria conflict Belarusian–Russian Milk War Russo–Ukrainian War Second Cold War
v t e

The 2008-2009 Russo-Georgian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Georgia, was a war between Russia, alongside the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and Georgia. The war took place following a diplomatic crisis between Russia and Georgia, both formerly constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The fighting took place in the strategically important South Caucasus region. It is regarded as the first European war of the 21st century. This was the first war in history in which cyber warfare coincided with military action. An information war was also waged during and after the conflict.

The Republic of Georgia declared its independence in March 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. However, fighting between Georgia and separatists left parts of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast under the de facto control of Russian-backed but internationally unrecognised separatists. In 1992, a joint peacekeeping force of Georgian, Russian, and Ossetian troops was stationed in the territory. A similar stalemate developed in the region of Abkhazia, where Abkhaz separatists had waged a war in 1992–1993. Following the election of Vladimir Putin in Russia in 2000 and a pro-Western change of power in Georgia in 2003, relations between Russia and Georgia began to deteriorate. Relations reached a full diplomatic crisis by 2008, when Levan Sharvandze was elected Prime Minister, and NATO promised to consider Georgia's bid for membership.

On 1 August 2008, the Russian-backed South Ossetian forces started shelling Georgian villages, with a sporadic response from Georgian soldiers in the area. Intensifying artillery attacks by the South Ossetian separatists broke a 1992 ceasefire agreement. To put an end to these attacks, Georgian army units were sent into the South Ossetian conflict zone on 7 August and took control of most of Tskhinvali, a separatist stronghold, within hours. A few Russian troops had illicitly crossed the Georgia–Russia border through the Roki Tunnel and advanced into the South Ossetian conflict zone by 7 August before the Georgian military response. Russia falsely accused Georgia of committing "genocide" and "aggression against South Ossetia"—and launched a full-scale land, air and sea invasion of Georgia, including its undisputed territory, on 8 August, referring to it as a "peace enforcement" operation.

Georgian special forces quickly drove up to the Roki Tunnel and destroyed it, burying many Russians alive. On the 9th, Russian and Abkhaz forces opened a second front by attacking the Kodori Gorge held by Georgia. Russian naval forces blockaded part of the Georgian Black Sea coastline. The Russian air force attacked targets both within and beyond the conflict zone, though Georgian air defence shot down a signifigant number of jets, forcing Russia to slow down its attacks. With Georgian forces having almost fully retaken South Ossetia, and succesfully defending against the assault of the Kodori Gorge, Russia decided to attack mainland Georgia. The UN peacekeepers began withdrawing on the 10th due to both sides showing unwillingness to negotiate, so Russia lauched its assault two days later, towards the cities of Zugdidi and Poti, with the eventual aim of pushing on to Kutaisi.

Within a week and a half, Russian and Abkhaz forces took Zugdidi, but Russian marines were unable to capture most of Poti, and barely managed to hold the port they had taken in Batumi. From Zugdidi, Russia moved toward Senaki in order to relieve their naval units, however, Georgian military units and civilians had set up an ambush at the two entrences to the town. The battle in and around the town lasted four months, and ended in a Georgian victory. Russian gains were also undone in Poti and Batumi, and Georgian units had pushed into parts of rural Abkhazia from the Kodori Gorge. In January, Georgia launched an operation to retake all of Abkhazia. Sokhumi was taken on 14 April, and Russian forces were pushed all the way to Gagra shortly thereafter.

On 18 June 2009, Russia agreed to fully withdrawl from Georgian territory; Georgia was admitted to NATO just a month later, and was cleared to join the European Union on 8 August, the anniversary of the Russian invasion.

The invasion met international condemnation. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the invasion and demanding a full Russian withdrawal in September 2008. The International Court of Justice ordered Russia to suspend military operations and the Council of Europe expelled Russia. Many countries imposed sanctions on Russia, and provided humanitarian and military aid to Georgia. Protests occurred around the world, along with mass arrests of anti-war protesters in Russia, which also enacted a law enabling greater media censorship. Over 200 companies closed their operations in Russia as a result of the invasion. The International Criminal Court (ICC) opened investigations into possible crimes against humanity, war crimes, abduction of children, and genocide, issuing an arrest warrant for Putin in April 2009.

Background

Main article: Background of the Russo-Georgian War

See also: Georgian–Ossetian conflict and Georgia–Russia relations

History

In the 10th century AD, Georgia for the first time emerged as an ethnic concept in the territories where the Georgian language was used to perform Christian rituals. After the Mongol invasions of the region, the Kingdom of Georgia eventually was split into several states. In the 19th century, the Russian Empire gradually took over the Georgian lands. In the aftermath of the Russian revolution, Georgia declared independence on 26 May 1918.

The Ossetians are indigenous to North Ossetia, located in the North Caucasus. Controversy surrounds the date of Ossetian arrival in Transcaucasia. According to one theory, they first migrated there during the 13th and 14th centuries AD, and resided alongside the Georgians peacefully for hundreds of years. In 1918, conflict began between the landless Ossetian peasants living in Shida Kartli, who were affected by Bolshevism and demanded ownership of the lands they worked, and the Menshevik government backed ethnic Georgian nobility, who were legal owners. Although the Ossetians were initially discontented with the economic stance of Tbilisi authorities, the tension shortly transformed into ethnic conflict. Ossetian insurgents repelled the Georgian troops in 1918 and proceeded to occupy the town of Tskhinvali and assault the Georgian natives. During uprisings in 1919 and 1920, the Ossetians were covertly supported by Soviet Russia, but even so, were defeated.

The independent Democratic Republic of Georgia was invaded by the Red Army in 1921 and a Soviet government was installed. The government of Soviet Georgia created an autonomous administrative unit for Transcaucasian Ossetians in April 1922, called the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. Historians such as Stephen F. Jones, Emil Souleimanov and Arsène Saparov believe that the Bolsheviks awarded this autonomy to the Ossetians in exchange for their help against the Democratic Republic of Georgia, since this area had never been a separate entity prior to the Russian invasion.

Nationalism in Soviet Georgia gained momentum in 1989 with the weakening of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin endorsed South Ossetian nationalism as a counter against the Georgian independence movement. On 11 December 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Georgia, responding to South Ossetia's attempt at secession, annulled the region's autonomy. A military conflict broke out between Georgia and South Ossetian separatists in January 1991. Georgia declared its restoration of independence on 9 April 1991, thus becoming the first non-Baltic state of the Soviet Union to do so. The South Ossetian separatists were aided by the former Soviet military units now controlled by Russia. By June 1992, the possibility of a full-scale war between Russia and Georgia increased as bombing of Georgian capital Tbilisi in support of South Ossetian separatists was promised by Russian authorities. Georgia endorsed a ceasefire agreement on 24 June 1992 to prevent the escalation of the conflict with Russia. Georgian, South Ossetian, Russian and North Ossetian peacekeepers were posted in South Ossetian conflict zone under the Joint Control Commission's (JCC) mandate. Some, mostly ethnically Georgian parts of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast remained under the Georgian control. The Tskhinvali-based separatist authorities of the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia were in control of one third of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast before the 2008 war, Georgia controlled another third and the rest was not controlled by anyone.

This situation was mirrored in Abkhazia, an autonomous republic in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, where the Abkhaz separated from Georgia during the war in the early 1990s. By 2003, the population of Abkhazia was reduced from 525,000 to 216,000 after an ethnic cleansing of Georgians, the single largest ethnic group in the region. The upper Kodori Gorge in northeast Abkhazia remained beyond the Abkhaz separatist government's sway.

Russian interests and involvement

Transcaucasia lies between the Russian region of the North Caucasus and the Middle East, constituting a "buffer zone" between Russia and the Middle East. It borders Turkey and Iran. The strategic importance of the region has made it a security concern for Russia. Significant economic reasons, including access to major petroleum reserves, further affects interest in Transcaucasia. Rule over Transcaucasia, according to Swedish academic Svante Cornell, would allow Russia to manage Western involvement in Central Asia, an area of geopolitical importance. Russia saw the Black Sea coast and being adjacent to Turkey as invaluable strategic attributes of Georgia. Russia had more vested interests in Abkhazia than in South Ossetia, since the Russian military deployment on the Black Sea coast was seen as vital to Russian influence in the Black Sea. Before the early 2000s, South Ossetia was originally intended as a tool to retain a grip on Georgia.

Vladimir Putin became president of the Russian Federation in 2000, which had a profound impact on Russo-Georgian relations. The conflict between Russia and Georgia began to escalate in December 2000, when Georgia became the first and sole member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on which the Russian visa regime was enforced. Eduard Kokoity, an alleged member of the mob, became the de facto president of South Ossetia in December 2001; he was endorsed by Russia since he would subvert the peaceful reunification of South Ossetia with Georgia. The Russian government began massive allocation of Russian passports to the residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2002 without Georgia's permission; this "passportization" policy laid the foundation for Russia's future claim to these territories. In 2003, President Putin began to consider the possibility of a military solution to the conflict with Georgia.

After Georgia deported four suspected Russian spies in 2006, Russia began a full-scale diplomatic and economic war against Georgia, followed by the persecution of ethnic Georgians living in Russia.

By 2008, most residents of South Ossetia had obtained Russian passports. According to Reuters, Russia supplied two-thirds of South Ossetia's yearly budget before the war. South Ossetia's de facto government predominantly employed Russian citizens, who had occupied similar government posts in Russia, and Russian officers dominated South Ossetia's security organisations.

Unresolved conflicts

The conflicts in Georgia remained at a stalemate until 2004, when Mikheil Saakashvili came to power after Georgia's Rose Revolution, which ousted president Eduard Shevardnadze. Restoring South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Georgian control was a first concern of Saakashvili.

The Georgian government launched an initiative to curb smuggling from South Ossetia in 2004 after its success in restoring control in Adjara. Tensions were further escalated by South Ossetian authorities. Intense fighting took place between Georgian forces and the South Ossetians between 8 and 19 August. Around this time Saakashvili began heavily inveasting in the modernization of the military.

At the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in January 2005, Georgian president Saakashvili proposed a peace settlement for South Ossetia within a unified Georgian state. The proposal was rejected by South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity.^{[citation needed]} In 2006, Georgia sent security forces to the Kodori Valley region of Abkhazia, when a local militia leader rebelled against Georgian authorities. In 2007, Georgia restored it's monarchy under the House of Bagration, following this, Saakashvili became Prime Minister, rather than President. Months later, Georgia established what Russia called a "puppet government" in South Ossetia, led by Dmitry Sanakoyev (former South Ossetian prime minister), calling it a provisional administration.

In early March 2008, three months after Sharvandze was elected, Abkhazia and South Ossetia submitted formal requests for their recognition to Russia's parliament shortly after the West's recognition of Kosovo which Russia had been resisting. Dmitry Rogozin, Russian ambassador to NATO, hinted that Georgia's aspiration to become a NATO member would cause Russia to support the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Russian State Duma adopted a resolution on 21 March, in which it called on the President of Russia and the government to consider the recognition.

Georgia began proposing the placement of international peacekeepers in the separatist regions when Russia began to apply more force on Georgia after April 2008. The West launched new initiatives for peace settlement, with peace proposals being offered and discussions being organised by the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Germany. The separatists dismissed the German project for Abkhazia approved by Georgia. Russia and the separatists did not attend an EU-backed meeting regarding Abkhazia. They also dismissed an OSCE offer to renew talks regarding South Ossetia.

Relations between Georgia and the West

See also: Second Cold War

One of Saakashvili's primary aims for Georgia was to become a member state of NATO, which has been one of the major stumbling blocks in Georgia–Russia relations.

Although Georgia has no notable gas or oil reserves, its territory hosts part of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline supplying oil to Turkey. Russia, Iran and the Persian Gulf countries opposed the construction of the pipeline. The pipeline circumvents both Russia and Iran. Because it has decreased Western dependence on Middle East's oil, the pipeline has been a major factor in the United States' backing for Georgia.

During the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, American president George W. Bush campaigned for offering a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Georgia and Ukraine. However, Germany and France said that offering a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia would be "an unnecessary offence" for Russia. NATO stated that Ukraine and Georgia would be admitted in the alliance and pledged to review the requests for MAP in December 2008. Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Bucharest during the summit. At the conclusion of the summit on 4 April, Putin said that NATO's enlargement towards Russia "would be taken in Russia as a direct threat to the security of our country". Following the Bucharest summit, Russian hostility increased and Russia started to actively prepare for the invasion of Georgia. The Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Yuri Baluyevsky said on 11 April that Russia would carry out "steps of a different nature" in addition to military action if Ukraine and Georgia join NATO. General Baluyevsky said in a documentary in 2012 that President Putin played a decisive role both in preparing a plan to repel a Georgian attack and then in ordering its execution. According to Van Herpen the documentary shows that the invasion was a "carefully planned operation," rather than a reaction to a Georgian attack.

Prelude

Main article: 2008 Russo-Georgian diplomatic crisis

April–July 2008

On 16 April 2008, official ties between the Russian authorities and the separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia were sanctioned by an order of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The separatist-authored legislative documents and the separatist-accredited bodies were also recognised. After a United Nations Security Council session on 23 April convened at Georgia's demand, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany stated in a declaration: "We call on the Russian Federation to revoke or not to implement its decision." However, this was labelled a "tall order" by Vitaly Churkin, Russian Ambassador to the UN.

A Georgian reconnaissance drone flying over Abkhazia was shot down by a Russian warplane on 20 April. However, Russia denied responsibility for the incident and Abkhazia claimed that an "L-39 aircraft of the Abkhaz Air Force" shot down the UAV. An allegation of an attack by a NATO MiG-29 was made by the Russian Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer commented that "he'd eat his tie if it turned out that a NATO MiG-29 had magically appeared in Abkhazia and shot down a Georgian drone." On 26 May, a United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) inquiry concluded that the Russian warplane, either a MiG-29 "Fulcrum" or a Su-27 "Flanker", was responsible for the downing.

In late April, the Russian government said that Georgia was assembling 1,500 troops and policemen in the upper Kodori Gorge area and was planning to "invade" Abkhazia, and that Russia would "retaliate" against Georgian offensive and had deployed more military in the separatist regions. No boost in the Kodori Gorge or near the Abkhaz border by either party was confirmed by the UNOMIG.

The number of Russian peacekeepers deployed in Abkhazia was boosted to 2,542 in early May. But Russian troop levels remained under the cap of 3,000 troops imposed by a 1994 decision of CIS heads of state. Georgia demonstrated video footage captured by a drone to the BBC allegedly proving that Russian forces used heavy weaponry in Abkhazia and were combat troops, rather than peacekeepers; Russia rejected the accusations. On 15 May, the United Nations General Assembly passed a motion calling for the return of all exiled and uprooted people to Abkhazia. Russia opposed the Georgian-advocated motion. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the resolution was "a counterproductive move".

Russia deployed railroad troops on 31 May to repair a rail line in Abkhazia. According to the Russian defence ministry, railroad troops were not armed. Georgia stated that the development was an "aggressive" act. The European Parliament adopted a resolution on 5 June which condemned the deployment of Russian forces to Abkhazia. The resolution stated that the peacekeeping structure should be changed because Russia was no longer an unbiased player. Russian railroad troops started to withdraw from Abkhazia on 30 July after attending the inauguration of the railroad. The fixed railroad was used to transport military equipment by at least a part of the 9,000 Russian soldiers who entered Georgia from Abkhazia during the war.

In late June, Russian military expert Pavel Felgenhauer predicted that Vladimir Putin would start a war against Georgia in Abkhazia and South Ossetia supposedly in August. Aleksandr Dugin, known for his strong ties with the Russian military and intelligence, suggested at a press conference in South Ossetia on 30 June that the existence of Georgian enclaves in South Ossetia was the last remaining barrier to the recognition and South Ossetia had to solve this problem. He further stated that South Ossetia's independence would block Georgia's NATO membership and the recognition must take place before December 2008. The Kavkaz Center reported in early July that Chechen separatists had intelligence data that Russia was preparing a military operation against Georgia in August–September 2008 which mainly aimed to expel Georgian forces from the Kodori Gorge; this would be followed by the expulsion of Georgian units and population from South Ossetia.

In early July, the conditions in South Ossetia aggravated, when a South Ossetian separatist militia official was killed by blasts on 3 July and several hours later an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Dmitry Sanakoyev, the leader of the Georgian-backed Ossetian government, wounded three police officers. On 7 July, two Georgian servicemen were captured by South Ossetian separatists, though a few of the militants were killed. The next day, the Georgian law enforcement was ordered by the president to arrange the liberation of the soldiers. Four Russian Air Force jets flew over South Ossetia on 8 July. A scheduled visit of Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to Georgia on the next day nearly coincided with the timing of the flight. Georgia summoned back its ambassador to Russia after Russia admitted its jets had flown in Georgia's airspace to "let hot heads in Tbilisi cool down". This was the first time in the 2000s that Russia had confessed to an overflight of Georgia.

On 15 July, the United States and Russia began two parallel military trainings in the Caucasus, though Russia denied that the identical timing was intentional. The joint US-Georgian exercise was called Immediate Response 2008 and also included servicemen from Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia. A total of 1,630 servicemen, including 1,000 American troops, took part in the exercise, which concluded on 31 July. Counter-insurgency action was the focal point of the joint exercise. The Georgian brigade was trained to serve in Iraq. The Russian exercise was named Caucasus 2008 and units of the North Caucasus Military District, including the 58th Army, took part. The exercise included training to aid peacekeeping forces stationed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. During exercises, a pamphlet named "Soldier! Know your probable enemy!" was circulated among the Russian soldiers. The pamphlet described the Georgian Armed Forces. Russian troops stayed near the border with Georgia after the end of their exercise on 2 August, instead of going back to their barracks. Later, Dale Herspring, an expert on Russian military affairs at Kansas State University, described the Russian exercise as "exactly what they attempted to execute in Georgia just a few weeks later [...] a complete dress rehearsal."

Hostilities

Main article: Timeline of the Russo-Georgian War

Early August

At 8:00 am on 1 August, an improvised explosive device detonated on the road near Tskhinvali near a Georgian police vehicle, wounding five police officers. In response, Georgian snipers fired on South Ossetian positions, killing four Ossetians and wounding seven. According to the majority of reports, the South Ossetians were responsible for instigating the bomb explosion which marked the opening of hostilities.

South Ossetian separatists began intensively shelling Georgian villages on 1 August. This caused Georgian peacekeepers and servicemen in the area to return fire. Grenades and mortar fire were exchanged during the night of 1/2 August. The total Ossetian fatalities became eight and the total wounded were now nineteen, among them one civilian; the Georgian casualties were six wounded civilians and one wounded policeman. According to the OSCE mission, the incident was the worst outbreak of violence since 2004. On 2–3 and again on 3–4 August, firing recommenced during the night. A 1992 ceasefire agreement was breached by Ossetian artillery attacks.

Nikolay Pankov, the Russian deputy defence minister, had a confidential meeting with the separatist authorities in Tskhinvali on 3 August. An evacuation of Ossetian women and children to Russia began on the same day. According to researcher Andrey Illarionov, the South Ossetian separatists evacuated more than 20,000 civilians, which represented more than 90 per cent of the civilian population of the future combat zone. On 4 August, South Ossetian president Eduard Kokoity said that about 300 volunteers had arrived from North Ossetia to help fight the Georgians and thousands more were expected from the North Caucasus. On 5 August, South Ossetian presidential envoy to Moscow, Dmitry Medoyev, declared that South Ossetia would start a "rail war" against Georgia. The razing of the village of Nuli was ordered by South Ossetian interior minister Mikhail Mindzaev. Georgian authorities organised a tour for diplomats and journalists to demonstrate the damage supposedly caused by separatists. That day, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Yuri Popov declared that his country would be involved in the conflict on the side of South Ossetia. About 50 Russian journalists had come to Tskhnivali for "something to happen". A pro-government Russian newspaper reported on 6 August: "Don Cossacks prepare to fight in South Ossetia". Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that Russian military was being deployed to the Georgian border on 6 August and that "there is no doubt that Russia thus demonstrates determination to protect its citizens in South Ossetia. Up until the operation to enforce peace is carried out." On the evening of 6 August, an attempt by Sharvandze to contact the President of Russia about the conflict was curbed by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which said: "the time for negotiations has not yet arrived."

Mortar and artillery exchange between the South Ossetian and Georgian forces erupted in the afternoon of 6 August across almost the entire front line, which lasted until the dawn of 7 August. Exchanges resumed following a brief gap in the morning. South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity announced that the South Ossetian armed forces were ready to go on the offensive in the next few hours. At 14:00 on 7 August, a Georgian peacekeeper in Avnevi became a casualty of Ossetian shelling. At about 14:30, Georgian tanks, 122 mm howitzers and 203 mm self-propelled artillery began heading towards South Ossetia to dissuade separatists from additional attacks. During the afternoon, OSCE monitors noted Georgian military traffic, including artillery, on roads near Gori. In the afternoon, Georgian personnel left the Joint Peacekeeping Force headquarters in Tskhinvali.

At 16:00, Temur Iakobashvili (the Georgian Minister for Reintegration) arrived in Tskhinvali for a previously arranged meeting with South Ossetians and Russian diplomat Yuri Popov; however, Russia's emissary, who blamed a flat tire, did not appear; and neither did the Ossetians. One day earlier the South Ossetians rejected direct negotiations with Georgian authorities, demanding a meeting of the Joint Control Commission for Georgian–Ossetian Conflict Resolution. Tbilisi had left the Commission in March, demanding that a new mediation scheme included the European Union, the OSCE and the Provisional Administrative Entity of South Ossetia. Iakobashvili contacted General Marat Kulakhmetov (the Russian commander of the Joint Peacekeeping Force) who said that Ossetians could not be restrained by Russian peacekeepers and Georgia should implement a ceasefire. "Nobody was in the streets – no cars, no people," Iakobashvili later told journalists.

At around 19:00, Georgian President Saakashvili announced a unilateral ceasefire and no-response order. The ceasefire reportedly held for about three hours. The separatists bombarded Tamarasheni and Prisi. They razed Avnevi and a police building in Kurta, the centre of the Provisional Administrative Entity of South Ossetia. The escalated assaults forced Georgian civilians to flee their homes. A high-ranking officer of the Georgian Ministry of Defence said late on 7 August that his country was going to "restore constitutional order" in response to the shelling. Georgian Interior Ministry official later told Russian newspaper Kommersant on 8 August that after Ossetians had responded to the ceasefire by shelling, "it became clear" that South Ossetians wouldn't stop firing and that the Georgian casualties were 10 killed and 50 wounded. According to Pavel Felgenhauer, the Ossetians intentionally provoked the Georgians, so Russia would use the Georgian response as a pretext for premeditated military invasion. According to Felgenhauer's analysis, Russia could not wage the war against Georgia after August since the Caucasus mountains would be covered with snow already in October. Russian military was participating in the attacks on Georgian villages.

According to Georgian intelligence, and several Russian media reports, parts of the regular (non-peacekeeping) Russian Army had already moved to South Ossetian territory through the Roki Tunnel before the Georgian military operation. Even the state-controlled Russian TV aired Abkhazia's de facto president Sergei Bagapsh on 7 August as saying: "I have spoken to the president of South Ossetia. It has more or less stabilized now. A battalion from the North Caucasus District has entered the area." Georgian authorities did not announce Russian military incursion in public on 7 August since they relied on the Western guidance and did not want to aggravate tensions. The entrance of second batch of Russian military through the Roki Tunnel during the night of 7/8 August pressured Georgian president Saakashvili to respond militarily around 23:00 to check Russian all-out incursion near the Roki Tunnel before the Western response would be late.

Assault on Georgia (August - September)

Georgian conquest of South Ossetia

Main article: Battle of Tskhinvali

Georgian artillery launched smoke bombs into South Ossetia at 23:35 on 7 August. This was followed by a 15-minute intermission, which purportedly enabled the civilians to escape, before the Georgian forces began bombarding hostile positions. Georgian military intentionally targeted South Ossetian military objects, not civilian ones. Although Georgian military had pledged safety to the Russian peacekeepers for their neutrality, the Russian peacekeepers had to follow the Russian command to attack the Georgian troops.

Georgian forces started moving in the direction of Tskhinvali following several hours of bombardment and engaged South Ossetian forces and militia near Tskhinvali at 04:00 on 8 August, with Georgian tanks remotely shelling South Ossetian positions. Georgian military units took the village of Kvaysa from the west of South Ossetia, despite the South Ossetian troops occupying reinforced posts, and several Georgians being wounded. The Georgian 4th Brigade advanced on the left side of Tskhinvali early in the morning on 8 August; the 3rd Brigade advanced on the right side. The purpose of these actions was to advance to the north after capturing key positions. The Georgian troops secured the Gupta bridge and the road to the Roki Tunnel, barring the Russian military from moving southward. By the morning, the South Ossetian authorities had reported that the Georgian shelling had killed at least 15 civilians.

Georgian forces, among them special troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, entered Tskhinvali after taking the high points near the town. The centre of the town was reached by 1,500 Georgian infantrymen by 10:00. The Russian air force began raiding targets inside South Ossetia and Georgia proper after 10:00 on 8 August. According to Russia, it suffered its first casualties at around 12:00 when seven servicemen were killed and fifteen injured in the Georgian seizure of the northern peacekeeping base in Tskhinvali. Georgia has stated that it only targeted Russian peacekeepers in self-defence, after coming under fire from them. Most of Tskhinvali and several villages had been secured by Georgian troops by the afternoon, and they took the key roads linking Tshkinvali with the Roki Tunnel and the Russian military base in Java. One Georgian diplomat told Kommersant on the same day that by taking control of Tskhinvali, Tbilisi wanted to demonstrate that Georgia wouldn't tolerate the killing of Georgian citizens.

By 15:00 MSK, an urgent session of Security Council of Russia had been convened by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and Russia's options regarding the conflict had been discussed. Russia accused Georgia of "aggression" against South Ossetia. Russia has stated it was defending both peacekeepers and South Ossetian civilians who were Russian citizens. While Russia claimed that it had to conduct peacekeeping operations according to the international mandates, in reality such accords had only arranged the ceasefire observer status; according to political scientist Roy Allison, Russia could evacuate its peacekeepers if attacked.

Around 15:30, a large Georgian force overran the small Russian base in Java, and entered the Roki Tunnel shortly thereafter. A Russian advance column, led by Lieutenant-General Anatoly Khrulyov, was ambushed by Georgian special forces inside the tunnel, Khrulyov, along with much of his unit, was killed; next, the Georgians rigged the tunnel to blow and left. The Russians regrouped and attempted to enter the tunnel once again. This time, however, they were buried inside of it when Georgian troops set off the explosives. The destruction of the Roki Tunnel shattered Russian plans to reinforce and take Tskhinvali, and South Ossetia in general. Following this, Russian attacks shifted to the west, and a new air campaign began.

Ossetian forces, along with the remnants of Russian units and volunteer forces continued to resist the offensive over the next few days, but air resuply attemps were thrawted by Georgian anti-air guns, and they were largly destroyed by the 10th of August. South Ossetian militias waged a low-intensity insurgancy that lasted for years to come.

Invasion of Svaneti and Mingrelia

On the 8th of August, Russian and Abkhaz forces attempted to take the Kodori Valley, but took heavy losses and made vary little progress. A Georgian attack would push them back to pre-war positions on the 12th.

On the 10th of August, UN peacekeepers left their posts, ending the observation mission. That same day, Russian and Abkhazian forces moved towards the key cities of Zugdidi and and Poti, with the eventual aim of moving to Kutaisi and Batumi. After about a week of fighting, Zugdidi fell on the 19th, and Russian-Abkhaz forces continued their push into Georgia. They moved in along the the main road towards the town of Senaki, where Georgian forces along with armed civilians prepared an ambush. A small Georgian unit faught a delaying action in Khobi, after which they withdrew along the E-97 and then moved south towards the forest, where they linked up with reinforcements.

The first attack on Senaki came on the 21st, when the first unsupported Russian tank units moved in. After advancing a small distance into the town, both their northern and southern collumns came under intense anti-tank and RPG fire from the houses, and the hills north of the city. Georgian tanks came out from side roads and garages to strike the Russians from the side and front, as anti-tank fire disabled tanks further back. About 30 Russian tanks were destroyed and dozens of personel were killed or captured.

As Russian-Abkhaz collumns supported by infantry arrived over the next few hours, they were able to push the Georgians back somewhat, though they failed to make into the city center. Further south, Russian forces took the town's airbase after hours of intense combat with special police units stationed there. The fighting rendered the base unsuable for transport, meaning they would have to rely on the road network, subject to consistant attacks by guerillas and partisans.

Even further south, on the 27th, a Russian unit attempted to move into the forest between west of Poti, but found themselves in brutal combat, and were forced to withdrawl.

In Senaki itself, fighting continued mainly in the northern part of the city, as Russian tanks and IFVs tried in vain to break through Georgian defensive lines into the center of the city. Georgian forces in the south saw comparitvely little combat, though some Russian and especially Abkhaz units did try to break through on occasion.

Futher north, Russian forces attempted to take the hills and mountains of northern Mingrelia and southern Svaneti around the 25th of August. They were able to take Narazeni and Jikhashkari, and took Zubi on the 27th. From Senaki, Russian troops tried to move north towards Satskhvitao, and were pushed to Satsuleitskirio on the 28th. Further north, Russian forces assaulted Jvari on the 26th, but failed to take the city. In response, the Russian Air Force struck the Enguri Dam, causing severe flooding in a few villages, and depiving thousands of drinking water from the reservoir, but doing nothing to aid the Russian military. Russian forces were defeated in their attempt to take the town of Chkhorotsku on the 30th.

Naval landings

From the sea, Russian marines landed in the ports of Poti and Batumi on the 12th of August, though they made little progress in the latter. The marines took control of about half of Poti, and naval shelling and air strikes destroyed most of the remainder. In Batumi the landing force was stopped just outside the port, and Georgian artillery made the port all but unusable, and kept them in place. Russian forces have been accused, and a few convicted, of severe cases of looting, rape, and murder in the areas they took, particularly Russian soldiers in Poti.

Fighting in Mingrelia (September - November)

Diplomatic front

Beginning on August 7th, the United States, European Union, and nations around the world condemned the Russian invasion. Turkey was the first country to give military aid on the 8th, followed by the US, UK, and France two days later. Armenia refused to endorse the Russian assault, while Azerbaijan promised aid to Georgia on the 28th. On the 1st of September, aid began arriving to Georgia in real numbers. They recieved hundreds of anti-tank weapons from Turkey, and American Patriot SAM systems arrived shortly afterwards.

Russia recieved some support from CSTO (barring Armenia), China, North Korea, Cuba, and a few other countries, but they gave little to no support outside of trying to trivialise, or ocassionaly defend it. From the outset, Russia launched a total blockade of Georgia. This recieved international condemnation, as Georgia relied very much on food imports despite its agricultural resources.

The war also caused a schism in the Eastern Orthodox Church; Ilia II, Patriarch of the Georgian Autocephalous Church called for Patriarch Kirill of the Russian church to be expelled on 26th of August, following his support for Russia's invasion. On the 15th of September, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople severed communion with the Russian Orthodox Church, and called on other branches to do the same. The Greek, Cypriot, and Egyptian branches all did so as well, while the Ukrainian church split into competing camps, one endorsed by the Ecumenical Patriarch, and one controlled by Moscow.

Gains and losses in the hill country

Fighting for the next few months remained largely concentrated in the hill country of northern Mingrelia and southern Svaneti, though mostly in Mingrelia. For months, Russian forces attempted to break the Georgian defenders in order to assault Senaki from the north and rear. The Georgians, however, put up staunch resistance, especially on the road south of Sashurghaio, which leads to the northwestern entrance to Senaki.

The Russian Air Force remained the only effective weapon that Russia had at this point, and they were able to clear Georgian defenders from the hills in northwest Mingrelia. As the Russian Army moved east, they continued to encounter Georgian resistance from mountains, caves, and gorges. NATO member states began sending more anti-air systems to Georgia in mid-October, and the Georgian military began deploying Patriot SAMs in the hill country around this time. These systems quickly proved effective in countering Russian airplanes, just as NATO anti-tank guns showed effectiveness in destroying Russian vehicles.

Assaults into Abkhazia

From the start of the war, Russian-Abkhaz forces had been attempting to force the Georgian military from the Kodori Gorge. Despite some initial setbacks, reinforcements allowed the Georgian Army to push them back to pre-war positions. In early October, Georgian forces pushed west in the northern part of Abkhazia, securing a local valley. They pushed Abkhazian militias south from the eastern Kodori on 17 October. Georgian forces also occupied some border areas near the Enguri Dam on 29 October.

Georgian counteroffensive in Mingrelia (November - January)

Russian retreat from Senaki

Russia tried yet another attack on Senaki in early November, this attack failed, with heavy losses on both sides. Georgia was able to replenish these losses with troops from South Ossetia as the fighting there died down, but Putin and Medvedev still refused to begin conscription, as they believed it would destablize the country. As Russian forces were unable to take Senaki, they decided to retreat from the city on 17 November.

Georgian Army pushes west

Georgian forces chased them immeadiately, fighting the Russian in Khobi and then at Larchva from the 19th to early december, when the Russian army retreated again to Zugdidi. Fighting died down for about two weeks before picking up again on the 16th, when the Georgian army launched a major attack that evening. Fighting in the city lasted over a week before concluding on the 24th. Russian forces retreated over the E97 highway into Abkhazia, destroying the bridge behind them.

Raids and assaults into Abkhazia

Georgia then paused its campaign briefly to replenish its forces and plan their attack on Abkhazia. Many allied countries expressed their disaproval at the idea of Georgia retaking Abkhazia, believing it could destablize the situation. Sharvandze decided to ignore them, and lauched a raid on Lata, in northern Abkhazia, on 12 January. Throughout the next few weeks, Georgian forces launched raids on Akarmara, Zemo Ghumurishi, and Cheghali. They then took multiple towns, including Cheghali, up to the Gali Resivoir. They also seized control of the coastal area west of Gali. They also fought Russian and Abkhaz forces further north and attacked supplies heading south through Achigvara to Gali. Georgian forces from Kodori moved south and took Lata, before moving down to where the Kodori and Amtkeli rivers merge.

Reconquest of Abkhazia (February - June)

Initial attacks

Following their assaults into Abkhazia, Georgian forces moved in on two sides at the Russian and Russian-allied forces in Gali, taking the city in just a few days, on 7 February. They took Achigvara the same day, before pausing at the Ghalidzga river, just before Ochamchire. Russian forces were in disaray, and the few Abkhaz forces that existed had very poor morale, training, and equipment. Georgian forces were more professional and better equiped than even the Russians, thanks to western support before and during the war. This gave the Georgians a decisive advantage as they pushed into Abkhazia.

Georgian units from Kodori pushed even further into the region, seizing control of Tsebelda on 8 March, and pusing north to the Amtkelis lake soon after, on the 10th. Georgia then launched a major attack north of Ochamchire and Achigvara, taking Tkvarcheli on the 16th. Georgia then attacked Ochamchire on the 20th, taking the town in two days of fighting, as they pushed closer to Sokhumi. They launched a lighting offensive, crossing the Mokvi, Dghamishi, Kodori, Machara, and Kelasuri rivers by early-April. They seized control of the Abkhazia State University building on 7 April. The Georgian army also took the Pskhu-Gumista nature reserve, and lauched an attack on Russian territory from the Magana and Laba passes. They then broke out from the nature reserve to takethe village of Bitaga and the Pskhu Airport.

Battle of Sokhumi

Russian surrender and withdrawl

"Italia" redirects here. For other uses, see Italy (disambiguation) and Italia (disambiguation).

Kingdom of Italy Regno d'Italia (Italian)
Flag Greater coat of arms
Motto: FERT (Motto for the House of Savoy)
Anthem: Marcia Reale d'Ordinanza ("Royal March of Ordinance")
Location of Italy (dark green) – in Europe (green & dark grey) – in the European Union (green)
Capital and largest city	Rome 41°54′N 12°29′E / 41.900°N 12.483°E / 41.900; 12.483
Official languages	Italian
Native languages	See main article
Religion (2020)	84.4% Christianity 11.6% no religion 1.0% Islam 3.0% other
Demonym(s)	Italian
Government	Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy
• King	Emmanuel Philibert
• Prime Minister	Matteo Renzi
• President of the Senate of Italy	Carlo Calenda
• President of the Chamber of Deputies	Elly Schlein
Legislature	Parliament
• Upper house	Senate of Italy
• Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
Formation
• Unification	17 March 1861
• Postwar Constitution	1 January 1948
• Founded the EEC (now EU)	1 January 1958
• Current constitution	1 January 2017
Area
• Total	301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi) (71st)
• Water (%)	1.24
Population
• 2022 census	67,853,482 (22nd)
• Density	225.2/km2 (583.3/sq mi) (67th)
GDP (PPP)	2023 estimate
• Total	$4.193 trillion (9th)
• Per capita	61,795 (22nd)
GDP (nominal)	2023 estimate
• Total	$3.187 trillion (7th)
• Per capita	$46.969 (23rd)
Gini (2020)	30.5 medium
HDI (2021)	0.912 very high (26th)
Currency	Euro (€) (EUR)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Driving side	right
Calling code	+39
ISO 3166 code	IT

Italy (Italian: Italia, Italian: [iˈtaːlja] ^ⓘ), officially the Kingdom of Italy (Italian: Regno d'Italia, Italian: [ˈreɲɲo diˈtaːlja]), 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 301,340 km² (116,350 sq mi), with a population of nearly 70 million; it is the tenth-largest country by land area in the European continent and the third-most populous member state of the European Union. 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 enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, becoming a major advanced economy.

Italy has the seventh-largest nominal GDP in the world, the second-largest manufacturing industry in Europe (6th-largest in the world). The country has a significant role in regional and global economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic affairs. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Union, 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 fourth-most visited country.

Name

Main article: Name of Italy

Hypotheses for the etymology of the name "Italia" are numerous. One is that it was an Ancient Greek term used to describe the land of the Italói, a tribe living in what is now Calabria, the tip of the Italian peninsula; they were perhaps originally named Vituli, as some scholars have suggested that their totemic animal was the calf (Lat vitulus, Umbrian vitlo, Oscan Víteliú). Several ancient authors (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiochus of Syracuse, Aristotle) give instead the account that Italy was named after a local ruler named Italus.

According to Antiochus of Syracuse, the term Italy was used by the ancient Greeks to initially refer only to the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula corresponding to the modern province of Reggio and part of the provinces of Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia in southern Italy. Nevertheless, by his time the larger concept of Oenotria and "Italy" had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. According to Strabo's Geographica, before the expansion of the Roman Republic, the name was used by ancient Greeks to indicate the land between the strait of Messina and the line connecting the gulf of Salerno and gulf of Taranto, corresponding roughly to the current region of Calabria. The ancient Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a larger region In addition to the "Greek Italy" in the south, historians have suggested the existence of an "Etruscan Italy" covering variable areas of central Italy.

The borders of Roman Italy, Italia, are better established. Cato's Origines, the first work of history composed in Latin, described Italy as the entire peninsula south of the Alps. According to Cato and several Roman authors, the Alps formed the "walls of Italy". In 264 BC, Roman Italy extended from the Arno and Rubicon rivers of the centre-north to the entire south. The northern area of Cisalpine Gaul was occupied by Rome in the 220s BC and became considered geographically and de facto part of Italy, but remained politically and de jure separated. It was legally merged into the administrative unit of Italy in 42 BC by the triumvir Octavian as already planned by Julius Caesar. The islands of Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and Malta were added to Italy by Diocletian in 292 AD, coinciding with the whole Italian geographical region. All its inhabitants were considered Italic and Roman.

The Latin term Italicus was used to describe "a man of Italy" as opposed to a provincial, or one from the Roman province. For example, Pliny the Elder notably wrote in a letter Italicus es an provincialis? meaning "are you an Italian or a provincial?".The adjective italianus, from which are derived the Italian (and also French and English) name of the Italians, is from medieval Latin and was used alternatively with Italicus during the early modern period.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Italy was created. After the Lombard invasions, Italia was retained as the name for their kingdom, and for its successor kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire, which nominally lasted until 1806, although it had de facto disintegrated due to factional politics pitting the empire against the ascendant city republics in the 13th century.

History

Main article: History of Italy

Prehistory and antiquity

Main articles: Prehistoric Italy, Italic peoples, Etruscan civilisation, Greek colonisation, Magna Graecia, and Nuragic civilisation

See also: List of ancient peoples of Italy

The Sassi cave houses of Matera are believed to be among the first human settlements in Italy dating back to the Paleolithic.^[10]

Etruscan fresco in the Monterozzi necropolis, 5th century BC

Thousands of Lower Paleolithic artefacts have been recovered from Monte Poggiolo, dating as far back as 850,000 years.Excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Middle Palaeolithic period some 200,000 years ago, while modern humans appeared about 40,000 years ago at Riparo Mochi. Archaeological sites from this period include Addaura cave, Altamura, Ceprano, and Gravina in Puglia.

The Ancient peoples of pre-Roman Italy – such as the Umbrians, the Latins (from which the Romans emerged), Volsci, Oscans, Samnites, Sabines, the Celts, the Ligures, the Veneti, the Iapygians, and many others – were Indo-European peoples, most of them specifically of the Italic group. The main historic peoples of possible non-Indo-European or pre-Indo-European heritage include the Etruscans of central and northern Italy, the Elymians and the Sicani in Sicily, and the prehistoric Sardinians, who gave birth to the Nuragic civilisation. Other ancient populations being of undetermined language families and of possible non-Indo-European origin include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni, known for their rock carvings in Valcamonica, the largest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs in the world. A well-preserved natural mummy known as Ötzi the Iceman, determined to be 5,000 years old (between 3400 and 3100 BCE, Copper Age), was discovered in the Similaun glacier of South Tyrol in 1991.

The first foreign colonisers were the Phoenicians, who initially established colonies and founded various emporiums on the coasts of Sicily and Sardinia. Some of these soon became small urban centres and were developed parallel to the ancient Greek colonies; among the main centres there were the cities of Motya, Zyz (modern Palermo), Soluntum in Sicily, and Nora, Sulci, and Tharros in Sardinia.

Between the 17th and the 11th centuries BC Mycenaean Greeks established contacts with Italy. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, a number of Greek colonies were established starting at Pithecusae and eventually extending all along the southern part of the Italian Peninsula and the coast of Sicily, an area that later became known as Magna Graecia.

Ionian settlers founded Elaia, Kyme, Rhegion, Naxos, Zankles, Hymera, and Katane. Doric colonists founded Taras, Syrakousai, Megara Hyblaia, Leontinoi, Akragas, and Ghelas; the Syracusans founded Ankón and Adria; the Megarese founded Selinunte. The Achaeans founded Sybaris, Poseidonia, Kroton, Lokroi Epizephyrioi, and Metapontum; tarantini and thuriots found Herakleia. The Greek colonization placed the Italic peoples in contact with democratic forms of government and with high artistic and cultural expressions.

Ancient Rome

Main articles: Ancient Rome, Roman expansion in Italy, and Roman Italy

The Colosseum in Rome, built c. 70–80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of architecture and engineering of ancient history.

  The Roman Empire at its greatest extent, 117 AD

Ancient Rome, a settlement around a ford on the River Tiber in central Italy and conventionally founded in 753 BC, was ruled for a period of 244 years by a monarchical system, initially with sovereigns of Latin and Sabine origin, later by Etruscan kings. The tradition handed down seven kings: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus. In 509 BC, the Romans expelled the last king from their city, favouring a government of the Senate and the People (SPQR) and establishing an oligarchic republic.

The Italian Peninsula, named Italia, was consolidated into a single entity during the Roman expansion and conquest of new lands 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, Northern Africa and the Middle East. In the wake of Julius Caesar's rise and assassination in the 1st century BCE, Rome grew over the course of centuries into a massive empire stretching from Britain to the borders of Persia, and engulfing the whole Mediterranean basin, in which Greek, Roman, and many other cultures merged into a unique civilisation. The long and triumphant reign of the first emperor, Augustus, began a golden age of peace and prosperity. Roman Italy remained the metropole of the empire, and as the homeland of the Romans and the territory of the capital, maintained a special status which made it Domina Provinciarum ("ruler of the provinces", the latter being all the remaining territories outside Italy). More than two centuries of stability followed, during which Italy was referred to as the Rectrix Mundi ("governor of the world") and Omnium Terrarum Parens ("parent of all lands").

The Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time, and it was one of the largest empires in world history. At its height under Emporer Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. The Roman legacy has deeply influenced Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world; among the many legacies of Roman dominance are the widespread use of the Romance languages derived from Latin, the numerical system, the modern Western alphabet and calendar, and the emergence of Christianity as a major world religion.

Middle Ages

Main article: Italy in the Middle Ages

See also: Barbarian kingdoms

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Italy fell under the power of Odoacer's kingdom, and, later, was seized by the Ostrogoths, followed in the 6th century by a brief reconquest under Byzantine Emperor Justinian. The invasion of another Germanic tribe, the Lombards, late in the same century, reduced the Byzantine presence to the rump realm of the Exarchate of Ravenna and started the end of political unity of the peninsula for the next 1,300 years. The peninsula was therefore divided as follows: northern Italy and Tuscany formed the Lombard kingdom, with its capital in Pavia, while in central-southern Italy the Lombards controlled the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento. The remaining part of the peninsula remained under the Byzantines and was divided between the exarchate of Italy, based in Ravenna, the Duchy of Rome, the Duchy of Naples, the Duchy of Calabria and Sicily, the latter directly dependent on the Emperor of Constantinople. Invasions of the peninsula caused a chaotic succession of barbarian kingdoms and the so-called "dark ages". The Lombard kingdom was subsequently absorbed into the Frankish Empire by Charlemagne in the late 8th century and became the Kingdom of Italy. The Franks also helped the formation of the Papal States in central Italy. Until the 13th century, Italian politics was dominated by the relations between the Holy Roman Emperors and the Papacy, with most of the Italian city-states siding with the former (Ghibellines) or with the latter (Guelphs) for momentary convenience.

The Germanic Emperor and the Roman Pontiff became the universal powers of medieval Europe. However, the conflict over the investiture controversy and the clash between Guelphs and Ghibellines led to the end of the Imperial-feudal system in the north of Italy where city-states gained independence. The investiture controversy was finally resolved by the Concordat of Worms. In 1176 a league of city-states, the Lombard League, defeated the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa at the Battle of Legnano, thus ensuring effective independence for most of northern and central Italian cities.

Italian city-states such as Milan, Florence, and Venice played a crucial innovative role in financial development, devising the main instruments and practices of banking and the emergence of new forms of social and economic organization. In coastal and southern areas, the maritime republics grew to eventually dominate the Mediterranean and monopolise trade routes to the Orient. They were independent thalassocratic city-states, though most of them originated from territories once belonging to the Byzantine Empire. All these cities during the time of their independence had similar systems of government in which the merchant class had considerable power. Although in practice these were oligarchical, and bore little resemblance to a modern democracy, the relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic and artistic advancement.^[12] The four best known maritime republics were Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi; the others were Ancona, Gaeta, Noli, and Ragusa. Each of the maritime republics had dominion over different overseas lands, including many Mediterranean islands (especially Sardinia and Corsica), lands on the Adriatic, Aegean, and Black Sea (Crimea), and commercial colonies in the Near East and in North Africa. Venice maintained enormous tracts of land in Greece, Cyprus, Istria, and Dalmatia until as late as the mid-17th century.

Left: flag of the modern Italian Navy, displaying the coat of arms of Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi, the most prominent maritime republics
Right: trade routes and colonies of the Genoese (red) and Venetian (green) empires

Venice and Genoa were Europe's main gateways to trade with the East, and producers of fine glass, while Florence was a capital of silk, wool, banking, and jewellery. The wealth such business brought to Italy meant that large public and private artistic projects could be commissioned. The republics were heavily involved in the Crusades, providing support and transport, but most especially taking advantage of the political and trading opportunities resulting from these wars. Italy first felt the huge economic changes in Europe which led to the commercial revolution: the Republic of Venice was able to defeat the Byzantine Empire and finance the voyages of Marco Polo to Asia; the first universities were formed in Italian cities, and scholars such as Thomas Aquinas obtained international fame; Frederick I of Sicily made Italy the political-cultural centre of a reign that temporarily included the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Jerusalem; capitalism and banking families emerged in Florence, where Dante and Giotto were active around 1300.

In the south, Sicily had become an 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. Through a complex series of events, southern Italy developed as a unified kingdom, first under the House of Hohenstaufen, then under the Capetian House of Anjou and, from the 15th century, the House of Aragon. In Sardinia, the former Byzantine provinces became independent states known in Italian as Judicates, although some parts of the island fell under Genoese or Pisan rule until eventual Aragonese annexation in the 15th century. The Black Death of 1348 left its mark on Italy by killing perhaps one third of the population.

Early Modern

Main articles: Italian Renaissance, Italian Wars, and History of Italy (1559–1814)

Italy was the birthplace and heart of the Renaissance during the 1400s and 1500s. The Italian Renaissance marked the transition from the medieval period to the modern age as Europe recovered, economically and culturally, from the crises of the Late Middle Ages and entered the Early Modern Period. The Italian polities were now regional states effectively ruled by Princes, de facto monarchs in control of trade and administration, and their courts became major centres of the arts and sciences. The Italian princedoms represented a first form of modern states as opposed to feudal monarchies and multinational empires. The princedoms were led by political dynasties and merchant families such as the Medici in Florence, the Visconti and Sforza in the Duchy of Milan, the Doria in the Republic of Genoa, the Loredan, Mocenigo, and Barbarigo in the Republic of Venice, the Este in Ferrara, and the Gonzaga in Mantua. The Renaissance was therefore a result of the wealth accumulated by Italian merchant cities combined with the patronage of its dominant families. Italian Renaissance exercised a dominant influence on subsequent European painting and sculpture for centuries afterwards, with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Giotto, Donatello, and Titian, and architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Donato Bramante.

Following the conclusion of the western schism in favour of Rome at the Council of Constance (1415–1417), the new Pope Martin V returned to the Papal States after a three years-long journey that touched many Italian cities and restored Italy as the sole centre of Western Christianity. During the course of this voyage, the Medici Bank was made the official credit institution of the Papacy, and several significant ties were established between the Church and the new political dynasties of the peninsula. The Popes' status as elective monarchs turned the conclaves and consistories of the Renaissance into political battles between the courts of Italy for primacy in the peninsula and access to the immense resources of the Catholic Church. In 1439, Pope Eugenius IV and the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos signed a reconciliation agreement between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church at the Council of Florence hosted by Cosimo the old de Medici. In 1453, Italian forces under Giovanni Giustiniani were sent by Pope Nicholas V to defend the Walls of Constantinople but the decisive battle was lost to the more advanced Turkish army equipped with cannons, and Byzantium fell to Sultan Mehmed II.

The fall of Constantinople led to the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy, fuelling the rediscovery of Greco-Roman Humanism. Humanist rulers such as Federico da Montefeltro and Pope Pius II worked to establish ideal cities where man is the measure of all things, and therefore founded Urbino and Pienza respectively. Pico della Mirandola wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, considered the manifesto of Renaissance Humanism, in which he stressed the importance of free will in human beings. The humanist historian Leonardo Bruni was the first to divide human history in three periods: Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Modernity. The second consequence of the Fall of Constantinople was the beginning of the Age of Discovery.

Italian explorers and navigators from the dominant maritime republics, eager to find an alternative route to the Indies in order to bypass the Ottoman Empire, offered their services to monarchs of Atlantic countries and played a key role in ushering the Age of Discovery and the European colonization of the Americas. The most notable among them were: Christopher Columbus (Italian: Cristoforo Colombo), colonizer in the name of Spain, who is credited with discovering the New World and the opening of the Americas for conquest and settlement by Europeans; John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto), sailing for England, who was the first European to set foot in "New Found Land" and explore parts of the North American continent in 1497; Amerigo Vespucci, sailing for Portugal, who first demonstrated in about 1501 that the New World (in particular Brazil) was not Asia as initially conjectured, but a fourth continent previously unknown to people of the Old World (America is named after him); and Giovanni da Verrazzano, at the service of France, renowned as the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick in 1524.

Following the fall of Constantinople, the wars in Lombardy came to an end and a defensive alliance known as Italic League was formed between Venice, Naples, Florence, Milan, and the Papacy. Lorenzo the Magnificent de Medici was the greatest Florentine patron of the Renaissance and supporter of the Italic League. He notably avoided the collapse of the League in the aftermath of the Pazzi Conspiracy and during the aborted invasion of Italy by the Turks. However, the military campaign of Charles VIII of France in Italy caused the end of the Italic League and initiated the Italian Wars between the Valois and the Habsburgs. During the High Renaissance of the 1500s, Italy was therefore both the main European battleground and the cultural-economic centre of the continent. Popes such as Julius II (1503–1513) fought for the control of Italy against foreign monarchs, others such as Paul III (1534–1549) preferred to mediate between the European powers in order to secure peace in Italy. In the middle of this conflict, the Medici popes Leo X (1513–1521) and Clement VII (1523–1534) opposed the Protestant reformation and advanced the interests of their family. In 1559, at the end of the French invasions of Italy and of the Italian wars, the many states of northern Italy remained part of the Holy Roman Empire, indirectly subject to the Austrian Habsburgs, while all of Southern Italy (Naples, Sicily, Sardinia) and Milan were under Spanish Habsburg rule.

The Papacy remained a powerful force and launched the Counter-reformation. Key events of the period include: the Council of Trent (1545–1563); the excommunication of Elizabeth I (1570) and the Battle of Lepanto (1571), both occurring during the pontificate of Pius V; the construction of the Gregorian observatory, the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, and the Jesuit China mission of Matteo Ricci under Pope Gregory XIII; the French Wars of Religion; the Long Turkish War and the execution of Giordano Bruno in 1600, under Pope Clement VIII; the birth of the Lyncean Academy of the Papal States, of which the main figure was Galileo Galilei (later put on trial); the final phases of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) during the pontificates of Urban VIII and Innocent X; and the formation of the last Holy League by Innocent XI during the Great Turkish War.

The Italian economy declined during the 1600s and 1700s. Following the European wars of succession of the 18th century, the North fell under the influence of the Habsburg-Lorraine of Austria, while the south passed to a cadet branch of the Spanish Bourbons. During the Coalition Wars, northern and central Italy was reorganised by Napoleon in a number of Sister Republics of France and later as a Kingdom of Italy in personal union with the French Empire. The southern half of the peninsula was administered by Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, who was crowned as King of Naples. The 1814 Congress of Vienna restored the situation of the late 18th century, but the ideals of the French Revolution could not be eradicated, and soon re-surfaced during the political upheavals that characterised the first part of the 19th century.

During the Napoleonic era, in 1797, the first official adoption of the Italian tricolour as a national flag by a sovereign Italian state, the Cispadane Republic, a Napoleonic sister republic of Revolutionary France, took place, on the basis of the events following the French Revolution (1789–1799) which, among its ideals, advocated the national self-determination. This event is celebrated by the Tricolour Day. The Italian national colours appeared for the first time on a tricolour cockade in 1789, anticipating by seven years the first green, white and red Italian military war flag, which was adopted by the Lombard Legion in 1796.

Unification

Main article: Unification of Italy

Giuseppe Mazzini (left), highly influential leader of the Italian revolutionary movement; and Giuseppe Garibaldi (right), celebrated as one of the greatest generals of modern times^[13] and as the "Hero of the Two Worlds",^[14] who commanded and fought in many military campaigns that led to Italian unification

The birth of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of efforts by Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. By the mid-19th century, rising Italian nationalism, along with other social, economic, and military events, led to a period of revolutionary political upheaval. Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the political and social Italian unification movement, or Risorgimento, emerged to unite Italy consolidating the different states of the peninsula and liberate it from foreign control. A prominent radical figure was the patriotic journalist Giuseppe Mazzini, member of the secret revolutionary society Carbonari and founder of the influential political movement Young Italy in the early 1830s, who favoured a unitary republic and advocated a broad nationalist movement. His prolific output of propaganda helped the unification movement stay active.

The most famous member of Young Italy was the revolutionary and general Giuseppe Garibaldi, renowned for his extremely loyal followers, who led the Italian republican drive for unification in Southern Italy. However, the Northern Italian monarchy of the House of Savoy in the Kingdom of Sardinia, whose government was led by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, also had ambitions of establishing a united Italian state. In the context of the 1848 liberal revolutions that swept through Europe, an unsuccessful first war of independence was declared on Austria. In 1855, the Kingdom of Sardinia became an ally of Britain and France in the Crimean War, giving Cavour's diplomacy legitimacy in the eyes of the great powers. The Kingdom of Sardinia again attacked the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence of 1859, with the aid of France, resulting in liberating Lombardy. On the basis of the Plombières Agreement, the Kingdom of Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to France, an event that caused the Niçard exodus, that was the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers.

In 1860–1861, Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily (the Expedition of the Thousand), while the House of Savoy troops occupied the central territories of the Italian peninsula, except Rome and part of Papal States. Teano was the site of the famous meeting of 26 October 1860 between Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II, last King of Sardinia, in which Garibaldi shook Victor Emanuel's hand and hailed him as King of Italy; thus, Garibaldi sacrificed republican hopes for the sake of Italian unity under a monarchy. Cavour agreed to include Garibaldi's Southern Italy allowing it to join the union with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860. This allowed the Sardinian government to declare a united Italian kingdom on 17 March 1861. Victor Emmanuel II then became the first king of a united Italy, and the capital was moved from Turin to Florence. The title of "King of Italy" had been out of use since the abdication of Napoleon I of France on 6 April 1814.

In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II allied with Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War, waging the Third Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to annexe Venetia. Finally, in 1870, as France abandoned its garrisons in Rome during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War to keep the large Prussian Army at bay, the Italians rushed to fill the power gap by taking over the Papal States. Italian unification was completed and shortly afterwards Italy's capital was moved to Rome. Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, Cavour, and Mazzini have been referred as Italy's Four Fathers of the Fatherland.

Liberal period

Main articles: Kingdom of Italy, Italian diaspora, Italian Empire, and Military history of Italy during World War I

Victor Emmanuel II (left) and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour (right), leading figures in the Italian unification, became respectively the first king and first Prime Minister of unified Italy.

The new Kingdom of Italy obtained Great Power status. The Constitutional Law of the Kingdom of Sardinia the Albertine Statute of 1848, was extended to the whole Kingdom of Italy in 1861, and provided for basic freedoms of the new State, but electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. The government of the new kingdom took place in a framework of parliamentary constitutional monarchy dominated by liberal forces. As northern Italy quickly industrialised, the South and rural areas of the North remained underdeveloped and overpopulated, forcing millions of people to migrate abroad and fuelling a large and influential diaspora. The Italian Socialist Party constantly increased in strength, challenging the traditional liberal and conservative establishment.

Starting in the last two decades of the 19th century, Italy developed into a colonial power by forcing under its rule Eritrea and Somalia in East Africa, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in North Africa (later unified in the colony of Libya) and the Dodecanese islands. From 2 November 1899 to 7 September 1901, Italy also participated as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance forces during the Boxer Rebellion in China; on 7 September 1901, a concession in Tientsin was ceded to the country, and on 7 June 1902, the concession was taken into Italian possession and administered by a consul. In 1913, male universal suffrage was adopted. The pre-war period dominated by Giovanni Giolitti, Prime Minister five times between 1892 and 1921, was characterised by the economic, industrial, and political-cultural modernization of Italian society.

Italy entered into the First World War in 1915 with the aim of completing national unity: for this reason, the Italian intervention in the First World War is also considered the Fourth Italian War of Independence, in a historiographical perspective that identifies in the latter the conclusion of the unification of Italy, whose military actions began during the revolutions of 1848 with the First Italian War of Independence.

Italy, nominally allied with the German Empire and the Empire of Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance, in 1915 joined the Allies into World War I with a promise of substantial territorial gains, that included western Inner Carniola, former Austrian Littoral, Dalmatia as well as parts of the Ottoman Empire. The country gave a fundamental contribution to the victory of the conflict as one of the "Big Four" top Allied powers. The war on the Italian Front was initially inconclusive, as the Italian army got stuck in a long attrition war in the Alps, making little progress and suffering heavy losses. However, the reorganization of the army and the conscription of the so-called '99 Boys (Ragazzi del '99, all males born in 1899 who were turning 18) led to more effective Italian victories in major battles, such as on Monte Grappa and in a series of battles on the River Piave. Eventually, in October 1918, the Italians launched a massive offensive, culminating in the victory of Vittorio Veneto. The Italian victory, which was announced by the Bollettino della Vittoria and the Bollettino della Vittoria Navale, marked the end of the war on the Italian Front, secured the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was chiefly instrumental in ending the First World War less than two weeks later. Italian armed forces were also involved in the African theatre, the Balkan theatre, the Middle Eastern theatre, and then took part in the Occupation of Constantinople.

During the war, more than 650,000 Italian soldiers and as many civilians died, and the kingdom went to the brink of bankruptcy. The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) and the Treaty of Rapallo (1920) allowed the annexation of Trentino Alto-Adige, the Julian March, Istria and the Kvarner Gulf, as well as the Dalmatian city of Zara. The subsequent Treaty of Rome (1924) led to the annexation of the city of Fiume by Italy. Italy did not receive other territories promised by the Treaty of London (1915), so this outcome was denounced as a "mutilated victory". The rhetoric of "mutilated victory" was adopted by Benito Mussolini and led to the rise of Italian fascism, becoming a key point in the propaganda of Fascist Italy. Historians regard "mutilated victory" as a "political myth", used by fascists to fuel Italian imperialism and obscure the successes of liberal Italy in the aftermath of World War I. Italy also gained a permanent seat in the League of Nations's executive council.

Fascist regime

Main articles: Italian fascism, Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Military history of Italy during World War II, Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, Italian resistance, Italian Civil War, and Liberation of Italy

The socialist agitations that followed the devastation of the Great War, inspired by the Russian Revolution, led to counter-revolution and repression throughout Italy. The liberal establishment, fearing a Soviet-style revolution, started to endorse the small National Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini. In October 1922, the Blackshirts of the National Fascist Party organized a mass demonstration and a coup named the "March on Rome"; the Prime Minister Luigi Facta wished to declare a state of siege, but this was overruled by King Victor Emmanuel III, who, on 30 October 1922, appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, thereby transferring political power to the fascists without armed conflict. Over the next few years, Mussolini banned all political parties and curtailed personal liberties, thus forming a dictatorship. These actions attracted international attention and eventually inspired similar dictatorships such as Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain.

Italian Fascism is based upon Italian nationalism and imperialism, and in particular seeks to complete what it considers as the incomplete project of the unification of Italy by incorporating Italia Irredenta (unredeemed Italy) into the state of Italy. To the east, the Fascists claimed that Dalmatia was a land of Italian culture whose Italians, including those of Italianized South Slavic descent, had been driven out of Dalmatia and into exile in Italy, and supported the return of Italians of Dalmatian heritage. Mussolini identified Dalmatia as having strong Italian cultural roots for centuries, similarly to Istria, via the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice. To the south, the Fascists claimed Malta, which belonged to the United Kingdom, and Corfu, which belonged to Greece; to the north they claimed Italian Switzerland, and to the west claimed Corsica, Nice, and Savoy, which belonged to France. The Fascist regime produced literature on Corsica that presented evidence of the island's italianità. The Fascist regime produced literature on Nice that justified that Nice was an Italian land based on historic, ethnic, and linguistic grounds.

The Armistice of Villa Giusti, which ended fighting between Italy and Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I, resulted in Italian annexation of neighbouring parts of Yugoslavia. During the interwar period, the fascist Italian government undertook a campaign of Italianisation in the areas it annexed, which suppressed Slavic language, schools, political parties, and cultural institutions. Between 1922 and the beginning of World War II, the affected people were also the German-speaking and Ladin-speaking populations of Trentino-Alto Adige, and the French- and Arpitan-speaking regions of the western Alps, such as the Aosta valley.

Mussolini promised to bring Italy back as a great power in Europe, building a "New Roman Empire" and holding power over the Mediterranean Sea. In propaganda, Fascists used the ancient Roman motto "Mare Nostrum" (Latin for "Our Sea") to describe the Mediterranean. For this reason the Fascist regime engaged in interventionist foreign policy. In 1923, the Greek island of Corfu was briefly occupied by Italy, after the assassination of General Tellini in Greek territory. In 1925, Italy forced Albania to become a de facto protectorate. In 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and founded Italian East Africa, resulting in an international alienation and leading to Italy's withdrawal from the League of Nations; Italy allied with Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, and strongly supported Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, Italy formally annexed Albania. Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940. The Italians initially advanced in British Somaliland, Egypt, the Balkans (establishing the Governorate of Dalmatia and Montenegro, the Province of Ljubljana, and the puppet states Independent State of Croatia and Hellenic State), and eastern fronts. They were, however, subsequently defeated on the Eastern Front as well as in the East African campaign and the North African campaign, losing as a result their territories in Africa and in the Balkans.

During World War II, Italian war crimes included extrajudicial killings and ethnic cleansing by deportation of about 25,000 people, mainly Jews, Croats, and Slovenians, to the Italian concentration camps, such as Rab, Gonars, Monigo, Renicci di Anghiari, and elsewhere. Yugoslav Partisans perpetrated their own crimes against the local ethnic Italian population (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) during and after the war, including the foibe massacres. In Italy and Yugoslavia, unlike in Germany, few war crimes were prosecuted.

An Allied invasion of Sicily began in July 1943, leading to the collapse of the Fascist regime and the fall of Mussolini on 25 July. Mussolini was deposed and arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III in co-operation with the majority of the members of the Grand Council of Fascism, which passed a motion of no confidence. On 8 September, Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile, ending its war with the Allies. Shortly thereafter, the Germans, with the assistance of the Italian fascists, succeeded in taking control of northern and central Italy. The country remained a battlefield for the rest of the war, with the Allies slowly moving up from the south.

In the north, the Germans set up the Italian Social Republic (RSI), a Nazi puppet state with Mussolini installed as leader after he was rescued by German paratroopers. Some Italian troops in the south were organised into the Italian Co-belligerent Army, which fought alongside the Allies for the rest of the war, while other Italian troops, loyal to Mussolini and his RSI, continued to fight alongside the Germans in the National Republican Army. Also, the post-armistice period saw the rise of a large anti-fascist resistance movement, the Resistenza. As result, the country descended into civil war; the Italian resistance fought a guerrilla war against the Nazi German occupiers and Italian Fascist forces, while clashes between the Fascist RSI Army and the Royalist Italian Co-Belligerent Army were rare. In late April 1945, with total defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north, but was captured and summarily executed near Lake Como by Italian partisans. His body was then taken to Milan, where it was hung upside down at a service station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise.

Hostilities ended on 29 April 1945, when the German forces in Italy surrendered. Nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) died in the conflict, society was divided and the Italian economy had been all but destroyed; per capita income in 1944 was at its lowest point since the beginning of the 20th century. The aftermath of World War II left Italy also with an anger against the previously popular Victor Emmanuel III for his endorsement of the Fascist regime for the previous twenty years. These frustrations contributed to a revival of the Italian republican movement and abdication of Victor Emmanuel.

Postwar era

Main article: History of modern Italy

In 1946, Italians voted 61% - 39% in favor of keeping the monarchy on 1 June. This was the first time Italian women voted at the national level. Victor Emmanuel III's son, Umberto II, was coronated the next year. The new constitution was approved in 1948, keeping the country under a consitutional monarchy. Under the Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947, areas next to the Adriatic Sea were annexed by Yugoslavia causing the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus, which led to the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), the others being ethnic Slovenians, ethnic Croatians, and ethnic Istro-Romanians, choosing to maintain Italian citizenship. Later, the Free Territory of Trieste was divided between the two states. Italy lost all of its colonial possessions, formally ending the Italian Empire. The Italian border today has existed since 1975, when Trieste was formally re-annexed to Italy.

Fears of a possible Communist takeover proved crucial for the 18 April 1948 election when the Christian Democrats, under Alcide De Gasperi, obtained a landslide victory. Consequently, in 1949 Italy became a member of NATO. The Marshall Plan revived the Italian economy which, until the late 1960s, enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth commonly called the "Economic Miracle". In the 1950s, Italy became one of the six founding countries of the European Communities, a forerunner of the European Union.

From the late 1960s until the early 80s, the country experienced the Years of Lead, a period characterised by economic crisis, especially after the 1973 oil crisis, widespread social conflicts and terrorist massacres.

In the 1980s, for the first time since 1945, two governments were led by non-Christian-Democrat premiers: one republican and one socialist; the Christian Democrats remained, however, the main government party. In 1983, the relatively popular Umberto II died, succeeded by his scandle-ridded son Victor Emmanuel IV. Following corruption allegations, he abdicated on 29 April 1990 in favor of his 18 year-old son Emmanuel Philibert. The economy recovered and Italy became the world's fifth-largest industrial nation after it gained entry into the G7 in the 1970s. However, the Italian national debt greatly increased, passing 65% of the country's GDP.

Italy faced terror attacks between 1992 and 1993 perpetrated by the Sicilian Mafia as a consequence of new anti-mafia measures launched by the government. One year later (May–July 1993), tourist spots were attacked, leaving 10 dead and 93 injured and causing severe damage to cultural heritage such as the Uffizi Gallery. The Catholic Church openly condemned the Mafia, and an anti-Mafia priest was shot dead in Rome.

In the early 1990s, voters – disenchanted with political paralysis, massive public debt and extensive corruption (known as Tangentopoli) uncovered by the Clean Hands (Mani Pulite) investigation – demanded radical reforms. The scandals involved all major parties, but especially those in the government coalition: the Christian Democrats, who ruled for almost 50 years, underwent a severe crisis and eventually disbanded, splitting into several factions. The Communists reorganised as a social-democratic force. During the 1990s and 2000s, centre-right (dominated by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi) and centre-left coalitions (led by university professor Romano Prodi) alternately governed the country.

Amidst the Great Recession, Berlusconi resigned in 2011, and was replaced by the technocratic cabinet of Mario Monti. Following the 2013 general election, the Vice-Secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta formed a new government at the head of a right-left Grand coalition. In 2014, challenged by the new Secretary of the PD Matteo Renzi, Letta resigned and was replaced by Renzi. The new government started constitutional reforms. On 4 December 2016, the new constitution was approved by voters, making the country more federalized and changing the Senate's function to simply passing or denying laws already passed by the Chamber of Deputies.

In the European migrant crisis of the 2010s, Italy was the entry point and leading destination for most asylum seekers entering the EU. Between 2013 and 2018, the country took in over 700,000 migrants and refugees, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, which caused strain on the public purse and a surge in support for far-right or euro-sceptic parties. The 2018 general election was characterised by a strong showing of the Five Star Movement and the Lega. Professor Giuseppe Conte became Prime Minister at the head of a populist coalition between these two parties. After only fourteen months the League withdrew its support from Conte, who formed a new government coalition between the Five Star Movement and the centre-left.

In 2020, Italy was severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Conte's government imposed a national lockdown. With more than 155,000 confirmed victims, Italy was one of the countries with the highest deaths in the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic caused a severe economic disruption, in which Italy was one of the most affected countries.

In February 2021, after a government crisis within his majority, Conte was forced to resign and Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, formed a national unity government supported by most of the main parties, pledging to oversee implementation of economic stimulus to face the crisis caused by the pandemic. On 22 October 2022, Matteo Renzi was re-elected Prime Minister, heading a left-wing coalition between the Socialist PD-IDP, the liberal pro-Europe A-IV,and his Social Liberal Party.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Italy

Further information: Geology of Italy, Volcanism of Italy, List of rivers of Italy, List of lakes of Italy, and List of islands of Italy

See also: Italy (geographical region)

Italy, whose territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region, is located in Southern Europe and it is also considered a part of western Europe, between latitudes 35° and 47° N, and longitudes 6° and 19° E. To the north, Italy borders France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia and is roughly delimited by the Alpine watershed, enclosing the Po Valley and the Venetian Plain. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula and the two Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Sardinia (the two biggest islands of the Mediterranean), in addition to many smaller islands. The sovereign states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland.

The country's total 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. Including the islands, Italy has a coastline and border of 7,600 kilometres (4,722 miles) on the Adriatic, Ionian, Tyrrhenian seas, and borders shared with France (488 km (303 mi)), Austria (430 km (267 mi)), Slovenia (232 km (144 mi)) and Switzerland (740 km (460 mi)). San Marino (39 km (24 mi)) and Vatican City (3.2 km (2.0 mi)), both enclaves, account for the remainder.

Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) in the Aosta Valley, the highest point in the European Union

Apennine landscape in Marche

Over 35% of the Italian territory is mountainous. The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone, and the Alps form most of its northern boundary, where Italy's highest point is located on Mont Blanc summit (Monte Bianco) (4,810 m or 15,780 ft). Other worldwide-known mountains in Italy include the Matterhorn (Monte Cervino), Monte Rosa, Gran Paradiso in the West Alps, and Bernina, Stelvio and Dolomites along the eastern side.

The Po, Italy's longest river (652 kilometres or 405 miles), flows from the Alps on the western border with France and crosses the Padan plain on its way to the Adriatic Sea. The Po Valley is the largest plain in Italy, with 46,000 km² (18,000 sq mi), and it represents over 70% of the total plain area in the country.

Many elements of the Italian territory are of volcanic origin. Most of the small islands and archipelagos in the south, like Capraia, Ponza, Ischia, Eolie, Ustica and Pantelleria are volcanic islands. There are also active volcanoes: Mount Etna in Sicily (the largest active volcano in Europe), Vulcano, Stromboli, and Vesuvius (the only active volcano on mainland Europe).

The five largest lakes are, in order of diminishing size: Garda (367.94 km² or 142 sq mi), Maggiore (212.51 km² or 82 sq mi, whose minor northern part is part of Switzerland), Como (145.9 km² or 56 sq mi), Trasimeno (124.29 km² or 48 sq mi) and Bolsena (113.55 km² or 44 sq mi). Four different seas surround the Italian Peninsula in the Mediterranean Sea from three sides: the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea in the south, and the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west. The longest Italian river is the Po, which flows for either 652 km (405 mi) or 682 km (424 mi). Most of the rivers of Italy drain either into the Adriatic Sea or the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Although the country includes the Italian peninsula, adjacent islands, and most of the southern Alpine basin, some of Italy's territory extends beyond the Alpine basin and some islands are located outside the Eurasian continental shelf. These territories are the comuni of: Livigno, Sexten, Innichen, Toblach (in part), Chiusaforte, Tarvisio, Graun im Vinschgau (in part), which are all part of the Danube's drainage basin, while the Val di Lei constitutes part of the Rhine's basin and the islands of Lampedusa and Lampione are on the African continental shelf.

Environment

See also: List of national parks of Italy, List of regional parks of Italy, and List of Marine Protected Areas of Italy

After its quick industrial growth, Italy took a long time to confront its environmental problems. After several improvements, it now ranks 84th in the world for ecological sustainability. National parks cover about 5% of the country, while the total area protected by national parks, regional parks and nature reserves covers about 10.5% of the Italian territory, to which must be added 12% of coasts protected by marine protected areas.

In the last decade, Italy has become one of the world's leading producers of renewable energy, ranking as the world's fourth largest holder of installed solar energy capacity and the sixth largest holder of wind power capacity in 2010. Renewable energies provided approximately 37% Italy's energy consumption in 2020. However, air pollution remains a severe problem, especially in the industrialised north, reaching the tenth highest level worldwide of industrial carbon dioxide emissions in the 1990s. Italy is the twelfth-largest carbon dioxide producer.

Extensive traffic and congestion in the largest metropolitan areas continue to cause severe environmental and health issues, even if smog levels have decreased dramatically since the 1970s and 1980s, and the presence of smog is becoming an increasingly rarer phenomenon and levels of sulphur dioxide are decreasing.

Many watercourses and coastal stretches have also been contaminated by industrial and agricultural activity, while because of rising water levels, Venice has been regularly flooded throughout recent years. Waste from industrial activity is not always disposed of by legal means and has led to permanent health effects on inhabitants of affected areas, as in the case of the Seveso disaster. The country has also operated several nuclear reactors between 1963 and 1990 but, after the Chernobyl disaster and a referendum on the issue the nuclear programme was terminated, a decision that was overturned by the government in 2008, planning to build up to four nuclear power plants with French technology. Since then, the country has begun investing more into nuclear energy.

Deforestation, illegal building developments and poor land-management policies have led to significant erosion all over Italy's mountainous regions, leading to major ecological disasters like the 1963 Vajont Dam flood, the 1998 Sarno and 2009 Messina mudslides. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 3.65/10, ranking it 142nd globally out of 172 countries.

Biodiversity

Main articles: Fauna of Italy and Flora of Italy

Further information: Italian garden

Italy has probably the highest level of faunal biodiversity in Europe, with over 57,000 species recorded, representing more than a third of all European fauna, and the highest level of biodiversity of both animal and plant species within the European Union. Italy's varied geological structure contributes to its high climate and habitat diversity. The Italian peninsula is in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, forming a corridor between central Europe and North Africa, and has 8,000 km (5,000 mi) of coastline. Italy also receives species from the Balkans, Eurasia, and the Middle East. Italy's varied geological structure, including the Alps and the Apennines, Central Italian woodlands, and Southern Italian Garigue and Maquis shrubland, also contribute to high climate and habitat diversity.

The fauna of Italy includes 4,777 endemic animal species, which include the Sardinian long-eared bat, Sardinian red deer, spectacled salamander, brown cave salamander, Italian newt, Italian frog, Apennine yellow-bellied toad, Italian wall lizard, Aeolian wall lizard, Sicilian wall lizard, Italian Aesculapian snake, and Sicilian pond turtle. In Italy, there are 119 mammals species, 550 bird species, 69 reptile species, 39 amphibian species, 623 fish species, and 56,213 invertebrate species, of which 37,303 insect species.

The flora of Italy was traditionally estimated to comprise about 5,500 vascular plant species. However, as of 2005, 6,759 species are recorded in the Data bank of Italian vascular flora. Italy has 1,371 endemic plant species and subspecies, which include Sicilian Fir, Barbaricina columbine, Sea marigold, Lavender cotton, and Ucriana violet. Italy is a signatory to the Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats and the Habitats Directive, both affording protection to Italian fauna and flora.

Italy has many botanical gardens and historic gardens, some of which are known outside the country. The Italian garden is stylistically based on symmetry, axial geometry and on the principle of imposing order over nature. It influenced the history of gardening, especially French gardens and English gardens. The Italian garden was influenced by Roman gardens and Italian Renaissance gardens.

The Italian wolf is the national animal of Italy, while the national tree of the country is the strawberry tree. The reasons for this choice are related to the fact that the Italian wolf, which inhabits the Apennine Mountains and the Western Alps, features prominently in Latin and Italian cultures, such as in the legend of the founding of Rome, while the green leaves, white flowers and red berries of the strawberry tree, which is native to the Mediterranean region, recall the colours of the flag of Italy.

Climate

Main article: Climate of Italy

The climate of Italy is influenced by the large body of water of the Mediterranean Sea that surrounds Italy on every side except the north. These seas constitute a reservoir of heat and humidity for Italy. Within the southern temperate zone, they determine a Mediterranean climate with local differences due to the geomorphology of the territory, which tends to make its mitigating effects felt, especially in high pressure conditions.

Because of the length of the peninsula and the mostly mountainous hinterland, the climate of Italy is highly diverse. In most of the inland northern and central regions, the climate ranges from humid subtropical to humid continental and oceanic. The climate of the Po valley geographical region is mostly humid subtropical, with cool winters and hot summers. The coastal areas of Liguria, Tuscany and most of the South generally fit the Mediterranean climate stereotype (Köppen climate classification).

Conditions on the coast are different from those in the interior, particularly during winter months 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. Average winter temperatures vary from around 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 across the country with lingering cold, foggy and snowy periods in the north and milder, sunnier conditions in the south. Summers are hot across the country, except for at high altitude, particularly in the south. Northern and central areas can experience occasional strong thunderstorms from spring to autumn.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Italy

Italy has been a constitutional monarchy since unification. Democracy was reastablished in 1946 following the end of WWII and death of Mussolini. In 2017, Italy adopted a new constitution that federalized the country and reduced the power of the Senate. In Italy, the King is seen as the figurehead of the state, and his job is to unify the people, as well as sign any laws that pass parliament so long as they are constitutional.

Government

Main article: Government of Italy

Emmanuel Philibert
King of Italy
since 1990

Matteo Renzi
Prime Minister of Italy
since 2022

Italy has a parliamentary government based on a mixed proportional and majoritarian voting system. The parliament is bicameral: the Chamber of Deputies that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio, drafts laws and, if they pass, move on to the Senate of Italy that meets in Palazzo Madama. The Prime Minister, officially President of the Council of Ministers (Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is Italy's head of government. The Prime Minister and the cabinet are nominally appointed by the King of Italy and must pass a vote of confidence in Parliament to come into office. To remain the Prime Minister has to pass also eventual further votes of confidence or no confidence in Parliament.

The Prime Minister is the President of the Council of Ministers – which holds effective executive power – and must receive a vote of approval from it to execute most political activities. The office is similar to those in most other parliamentary systems, but the head of the Italian government is not authorised to request the dissolution of the Parliament of Italy.

Another difference with similar offices is that the overall political responsibility for intelligence is vested in the President of the Council of Ministers. By virtue of that, the Prime Minister (as well as the King) has exclusive power to coordinate intelligence policies, determine the financial resources and strengthen national cyber security; apply and protect State secrets; authorise agents to carry out operations, in Italy or abroad, in violation of the law.

A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italian citizens permanently living abroad: 8 Deputies and 4 Senators elected in four distinct overseas constituencies.

Italy's four major parties are the Social Liberals, the Democratic Party, Partito Popolare, and Lega Nord. During the 2022 general election these 4 parties and their joint lists won 326 out of 400 seats available in the Chamber of Deputies and 165 out of 200 in the Senate. The center-left coalition, which included Matteo Renzi's Social Liberals, Elly Schlein's Democratic Party, and Carlo Calenda's Action-Italia Viva, won a majority of the seats in parliament. The rest of the seats were taken by opposition parties which included the right-wing coalition of Giorgia Meloni's People's Party, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, and Matteo Salvini's Northern League, as well as the far-left Socialist Action, and a number of regionalist parties.

Law and criminal justice

Main articles: Law of Italy, Judiciary of Italy, and Law enforcement in Italy

The law of Italy has a plurality of sources of production. These are arranged in a hierarchical scale, under which the rule of a lower source cannot conflict with the rule of an upper source (hierarchy of sources). The Constitution is the main source. The judiciary of Italy is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. The Supreme Court of Cassation is the highest court in Italy for both criminal and civil appeal cases. The Constitutional Court of Italy (Corte Costituzionale) rules on the conformity of laws with the constitution and is a post–World War II innovation.

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 of which being the Sicilian Mafia, which would later expand into some foreign countries including the United States. Mafia receipts may reach 6% of Italy's GDP.

A 2009 report identified 610 comuni which have a large Mafia presence, where 13 million Italians live and 14.6% of the Italian GDP is produced. The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, nowadays probably the most powerful crime syndicate of Italy, accounts alone for 2% of the country's GDP. However, at 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate 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.

The Italian law enforcement system is complex, with multiple police forces. The national policing agencies are the Polizia di Stato (State Police), the Arma dei Carabinieri, the Guardia di Finanza (Financial Guard), and the Polizia Penitenziaria (Prison Police), as well as the Guardia Costiera (Coast Guard Police). At the local level, there are the Polizia Provinciale (Provincial Police) and Polizia Municipale (Municipal Police).

Italy is regarded as being behind other Western European nations with regards to LGBT rights. Additionally, Italy's law prohibiting torture is considered behind international standards.

Foreign relations

Main article: Foreign relations of Italy

Italy is a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU), and of NATO. Italy was admitted to the United Nations in 1955, and it is a member and a strong supporter of a wide number of international organisations, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, and the Central European Initiative. Its recent or upcoming turns in the rotating presidency of international organisations include the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2018, the G7 in 2017 and the EU Council from July to December 2014. Italy is also a recurrent non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, the most recently in 2017.

Italy strongly supports multilateral international politics, endorsing the United Nations and its international security activities. In 2013, Italy had 5,296 troops deployed abroad, engaged in 33 UN and NATO missions in 25 countries of the world. Italy deployed troops in support of UN peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Mozambique, and East Timor and provides support for NATO and UN operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. Italy deployed over 2,000 troops in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) from February 2003.

Italy supported international efforts to reconstruct and stabilise Iraq, but it had withdrawn its military contingent of some 3,200 troops by 2006, maintaining only humanitarian operators and other civilian personnel. In August 2006 Italy deployed about 2,450 troops in Lebanon for the United Nations' peacekeeping mission UNIFIL. Italy is one of the largest financiers of the Palestinian National Authority, contributing €60 million in 2013 alone.

Military

Main article: Italian Armed Forces

See also: List of wars involving Italy

The Italian Army, Navy, Air Force and Carabinieri collectively form the Italian Armed Forces, under the command of the High Council of Defence, presided over by the Prime Minister of Italy, as established by article 87 of the Constitution of Italy. According to article 78, the Parliament has the authority to declare a state of war and vest the necessary powers in the Government.

Despite not being a branch of the armed forces, the Guardia di Finanza ("Financial Guard") has military status and is organized along military lines. Since 2005, military service is voluntary. In 2010, the Italian military had 353,202 personnel on active duty, of which 124,778 are Carabinieri. As part of NATO's nuclear sharing strategy Italy also hosts 90 United States B61 nuclear bombs, located in the Ghedi and Aviano air bases.

The Regio Esercito (Royal Army) is the national ground defence force. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft the Mangusta attack helicopter, in the last years deployed in EU, NATO and UN missions. It also has at its disposal many Leopard 1 and M113 armoured vehicles. It was formed in 1946 from what remained of the army after World War II.

The Regia Marina (Royal Navy) is a blue-water navy. In modern times the Italian Navy, being a member of the EU and NATO, has taken part in many coalition peacekeeping operations around the world. The Italian Navy in 2014 operates 164 vessels in service, including minor auxiliary vessels.

The Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force) in 2021 operates 219 combat jets. A transport capability is guaranteed by a fleet of 27 C-130Js and C-27J Spartan. The Italian Air Force was founded as an independent service arm on 28 March 1923 by King Victor Emmanuel III. 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 the different branches of the Carabinieri report to separate ministries for each of their individual functions, the corps reports to the Ministry of Internal Affairs when maintaining public order and security.

Administrative divisions

Apulia

Basilicata

Calabria

Sicily

Molise

Campania

Abruzzo

Lazio

Umbria

Marche

Tuscany

Sardinia

Emilia-Romagna

Liguria

Piedmont

Friuli-
Venezia Giulia

Aosta
Valley

Trentino-
Alto Adige

Veneto

Lombardy

Adriatic Sea

Ionian Sea

Mediterranean Sea

Tyrrhenian Sea

Ligurian Sea

Italy is constituted by 20 regions (regioni)—each of these regions having an autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on additional matters, 107 provinces (province) or metropolitan cities (città metropolitane), and 7,904 municipalities (comuni). This is a list of regions in Italy:

• Abruzzo
• Aosta Valley
• Apulia
• Basilicata
• Calabria
• Campania
• Emilia-Romagna
• Friuli-Venezia Giulia
• Lazio
• Liguria
• Lombardy
• Marche
• Molise
• Piedmont
• Sardinia
• Sicily
• Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol
• Tuscany
• Umbria
• Veneto

Economy

Main article: Economy of Italy

See also: History of coins in Italy and List of largest Italian companies

Italy has a major advanced capitalist mixed economy, ranking as the third-largest in the eurozone and the seventh-largest in the world by nominal GDP the eighth-largest national wealth and the third-largest central bank gold reserve. A founding member of the G7, the eurozone and the OECD, it is regarded as one of the world's most industrialised nations and a leading country in world trade and exports. It is a developed country, ranked 26th on the Human Development Index. It also performs well in life expectancy, healthcare and education. The country is well known for its creative and innovative business, a large and competitive agricultural sector (with the world's largest wine production), and for its influential and high-quality automobile, machinery, food, design and fashion industry.

Italy is the world's sixth-largest manufacturing country, characterised by a smaller number of global multinational corporations than other economies of comparable size and many dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises, notoriously clustered in several industrial districts, which are the backbone of the Italian industry. This has produced a manufacturing sector often focused on the export of niche market and luxury products, that if on one side is less capable to compete on the quantity, on the other side is more capable of facing the competition from China and other emerging Asian economies based on lower labour costs, with higher quality products. Italy was the world's tenth-largest exporter in 2019. Its closest trade ties are with the other countries of the European Union. Its largest export partners in 2019 were Germany (12%), France (11%), and the United States (10%).

The automotive industry is a significant part of the Italian manufacturing sector, with over 144,000 firms and almost 485,000 employed people in 2015, and a contribution of 8.5% to Italian GDP. Stellantis is currently the world's fifth-largest auto maker. The country boasts a wide range of acclaimed products, from compact city cars to luxury supercars such as Maserati, Pagani, Lamborghini, and Ferrari.

The Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena is the world's oldest or second oldest bank in continuous operation, depending on the definition, and the fourth-largest Italian commercial and retail bank. Italy has a strong cooperative sector, with the largest share of the population (4.5%) employed by a cooperative in the EU. The Val d'Agri area, Basilicata, hosts the largest onshore hydrocarbon field in Europe. Moderate natural gas reserves, mainly in the Po Valley and offshore Adriatic Sea, have been discovered in recent years and constitute the country's most important mineral resource. Italy is one of the world's leading producers of pumice, pozzolana, and feldspar. Another notable mineral resource is marble, especially the world-famous white Carrara marble from the Massa and Carrara quarries in Tuscany.

Italy is part of a monetary union, the eurozone, and of the European single market, which represents more than 500 million consumers. Several domestic commercial policies are determined by agreements among European Union (EU) members and by EU legislation. Italy introduced the common European currency, the euro in 2002. It is a member of the eurozone which represents around 330 million citizens. Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank.

Italy was hit hard by the financial crisis of 2007–08, that exacerbated the country's structural problems. Effectively, after a strong GDP growth of 5–6% per year from the 1950s to the early 1970s, and a progressive slowdown in the 1980–90s, the country virtually stagnated in the 2000s. The political efforts to revive growth with massive government spending eventually produced a severe rise in public debt, that stood at over 101.8% of GDP in 2017. For all that, the largest chunk of Italian public debt is owned by national subjects, a major difference between Italy and Greece, and the level of household debt is much lower than the OECD average.

A gaping North–South divide is a major factor of socio-economic weakness. It can be noted by the huge difference in statistical income between the northern and southern regions and municipalities. The richest province, Alto Adige-South Tyrol, earns 152% of the national GDP per capita, while the poorest region, Calabria, 61%. The unemployment rate (11.1%) stands slightly above the eurozone average, but the disaggregated figure is 7.8% in the North and 17.2% in the South. The youth unemployment rate (31.7% in March 2018) is extremely high compared to EU standards.

Agriculture

Main article: Agriculture in Italy

Val d'Orcia, Tuscany (above) and vineyards in Langhe and Montferrat, Piedmont (below). Italy is the world's largest wine producer, as well as the country with the widest variety of indigenous grapevine in the world.

According to the last national agricultural census, there were 1.6 million farms in 2010 (−32.4% since 2000) covering 12,700,000 ha or 31,382,383 acres (63% of which are located in Southern Italy). The vast majority (97%) are family-operated and small, averaging only 8 ha (20 acres) in size. Of the total surface area in agricultural use (forestry excluded), grain fields take up 31%, olive tree orchards 8.2%, vineyards 5.4%, citrus orchards 3.8%, sugar beets 1.7%, and horticulture 2.4%. The remainder is primarily dedicated to pastures (25.9%) and feed grains (11.6%).

Italy is the world's largest wine producer, and one of the leading in olive oil, fruits (apples, olives, grapes, oranges, lemons, pears, apricots, hazelnuts, peaches, cherries, plums, strawberries and kiwifruits), and vegetables (especially artichokes and tomatoes). The most famous Italian wines are probably the Tuscan Chianti and the Piedmontese Barolo. Other famous wines are Barbaresco, Barbera d'Asti, Brunello di Montalcino, Frascati, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Morellino di Scansano, and the sparkling wines Franciacorta and Prosecco.

Quality goods in which Italy specialises, particularly the already mentioned wines and regional cheeses, are often protected under the quality assurance labels DOC/DOP. This geographical indication certificate, which is attributed by the European Union, is considered important in order to avoid confusion with low-quality mass-produced ersatz products.

Transport

Main article: Transport in Italy

See also: Railway stations in Italy

Italy was the first country in the world to build motorways, the so-called autostrade, reserved for fast traffic and for motor vehicles only. Regarding the national road network, in 2002 there were 668,721 km (415,524 mi) of serviceable roads in Italy, including 6,487 km (4,031 mi) of motorways, state-owned but privately operated by Atlantia. In 2005, about 34,667,000 passenger cars (590 cars per 1,000 people) and 4,015,000 goods vehicles circulated on the national road network.

The national railway network, state-owned and operated by Ferrovie Reali Italiani (FRI), 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 FRI. Higher-speed trains are divided into three categories: Frecciarossa (English: red arrow) trains operate at a maximum speed of 300 km/h on dedicated high-speed tracks; Frecciargento (English: silver arrow) trains operate at a maximum speed of 250 km/h on both high-speed and mainline tracks; and Frecciabianca (English: white arrow) trains operate on high-speed regional lines at a maximum speed of 200 km/h. Italy has 11 rail border crossings over the Alpine mountains with its neighbouring countries.

Italy is the fifth in Europe by the number of passengers by air transport, with about 148 million passengers or about 10% of the European total in 2011. In 2022 there were 45 civil airports in Italy, including the two hubs of Malpensa International Airport in Milan and Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome. Since October 2021, Italy's flag carrier airline is ITA Airways, which took over the brand, the IATA ticketing code, and many assets belonging to the former flag carrier Alitalia, after its bankruptcy.

In 2004 there were 43 major seaports, including the seaport of Genoa, the country's largest and second-largest in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2005 Italy maintained a civilian air fleet of about 389,000 units and a merchant fleet of 581 ships. The national inland waterways network has a length of 2,400 km (1,491 mi) for commercial traffic in 2012.

Italy has been the final destination of the Silk Road for many centuries. In particular, the construction of the Suez Canal intensified sea trade with East Africa and Asia from the 19th century. Since the end of the Cold War and increasing European integration, the trade relations, which were often interrupted in the 20th century, have intensified again and the northern Italian ports such as the deep-water port of Trieste in the northernmost part of the Mediterranean with its extensive rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe are once again the destination of government subsidies and significant foreign investment.

Energy

Main article: Energy in Italy

Further information: Renewable energy in Italy and Electricity sector in Italy

In the last decade, Italy has become one of the world's largest producers of renewable energy, ranking as the second largest producer in the European Union and the ninth in the world. Nuclear power, wind power, hydroelectricity, and geothermal power are also significant sources of electricity in the country. Renewable sources account for 55.1% of all electricity produced in Italy, with nuclear alone reaching 27.6%, followed by hydro at 12.6%, solar at 5.7%, wind at 4.1%, bioenergy at 3.5%, and geothermal at 1.6%. The rest of the national demand is covered by fossil fuels (23.6% natural gas and 8.4% oil) and by imports. Eni, with operations in 79 countries, is considered one of the seven "Supermajor" oil companies in the world, and one of the world's largest industrial companies.

Solar energy production alone accounted for almost 9% of the total electric production in the country in 2014, making Italy the country with the highest contribution from solar energy in the world. The Montalto di Castro Photovoltaic Power Station, completed in 2010, is the largest photovoltaic power station in Italy with 85 MW. Other examples of large PV plants in Italy are San Bellino (70.6 MW), Cellino san Marco (42.7 MW) and Sant' Alberto (34.6 MW). Italy was the first country in the world to exploit geothermal energy to produce electricity. Italy had managed four nuclear reactors until the 1980s. Nuclear power in Italy was abandoned following a 1987 referendum (in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Soviet Ukraine). This changed in 2008 however, and since then the country has heavily invested into nuclear power, aiming to do away with fossil fuels altogether in the next decade.

Science and technology

Main article: Science and technology in Italy

See also: List of Italian inventions and discoveries

Through the centuries, Italy has fostered the scientific community that produced many major discoveries in physics and other sciences. During the Renaissance Italian polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Michelangelo (1475–1564) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) made contributions in a variety of fields, including biology, architecture, and engineering. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), an astronomer, physicist, engineer, and polymath, played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. He is considered the "father" of observational astronomy, modern physics, the scientific method, and modern science.

Other astronomers such as Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625–1712) and Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835–1910) made discoveries about the Solar System. In mathematics, Joseph Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia, 1736–1813) was active before leaving Italy. Fibonacci (c. 1170 – c. 1250), and Gerolamo Cardano (1501–1576) made fundamental advances in mathematics. Luca Pacioli established accounting to the world. Physicist Enrico Fermi (1901–1954), a Nobel prize laureate, led the team in Chicago that developed the first nuclear reactor. He is considered the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He, Emilio G. Segrè (1905–1989) who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton), Bruno Rossi (1905–1993) a pioneer in Cosmic Rays and X-ray astronomy) and a number of Italian physicists were forced to leave Italy in the 1930s by Fascist laws against Jews.

Other prominent physicists include: Amedeo Avogadro (most noted for his contributions to molecular theory, in particular, the Avogadro's law and the Avogadro constant), Evangelista Torricelli (inventor of barometer), Alessandro Volta (inventor of electric battery), Guglielmo Marconi (inventor of radio), Galileo Ferraris and Antonio Pacinotti, pioneers of the induction motor, Alessandro Cruto, pioneer of light bulb and Innocenzo Manzetti, eclectic pioneer of auto and robotics, Ettore Majorana (who discovered the Majorana fermions), Carlo Rubbia (1984 Nobel Prize in Physics for work leading to the discovery of the W and Z particles at CERN). Antonio Meucci is known for developing a voice-communication device which is often credited as the first telephone. Pier Giorgio Perotto in 1964 designed one of the first desktop programmable calculators, the Programma 101.

In biology, Francesco Redi has been the first to challenge the theory of spontaneous generation by demonstrating that maggots come from eggs of flies and he described 180 parasites in detail and Marcello Malpighi founded microscopic anatomy, Lazzaro Spallanzani conducted research in bodily functions, animal reproduction, and cellular theory, Camillo Golgi, whose many achievements include the discovery of the Golgi complex, paved the way to the acceptance of the Neuron doctrine, Rita Levi-Montalcini discovered the nerve growth factor (awarded 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). In chemistry, Giulio Natta received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963 for his work on high polymers. Giuseppe Occhialini received the Wolf Prize in Physics for the discovery of the pion or pi-meson decay in 1947. Ennio De Giorgi, a Wolf Prize in Mathematics recipient in 1990, solved Bernstein's problem about minimal surfaces and the 19th Hilbert problem on the regularity of solutions of Elliptic partial differential equations.

Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) is the largest underground research centre in the world. ELETTRA, Eurac Research, ESA Centre for Earth Observation, Institute for Scientific Interchange, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics conduct basic research. Trieste has the highest percentage of researchers in Europe in relation to the population. Italy was ranked 26th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023. There are numerous 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), as well as science museums such as the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, the Città della Scienza in Naples, and the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence.

Within this great Italian History of Science and Technology, modern times tell a different and more technologically divergent story. The North–South divide is a significant factor that leads to a vast difference in income between the Northern and Southern regions, which brings up the topic of the Digital Divide in Italy. The long history of this divided peninsula, now a unified nation-state, details the complex problems of underdeveloped areas in the South. As expected, these problems of underdevelopment and poverty still linger today, also reflected in the concept of the digital divide between the North and South. The Global digital divide is broadly described as the technological differences between underdeveloped and developed countries. While this does not necessarily mean that people have no access to technology, it is made clear that this equates to differences in technology, such as the Internet and household electronics. Digital inequalities between Northern and Southern Italy exist and are still prevalent, especially when related to education, though these differences are changing.

Tourism

Main article: Tourism in Italy

People have visited Italy for centuries, yet the first to visit the peninsula for touristic reasons were aristocrats during the Grand Tour, beginning in the 17th century, and flourishing in the 18th and the 19th century. This was a period in which European aristocrats, many of whom were British, visited parts of Europe, with Italy as a key destination. For Italy, this was in order to study ancient architecture, local culture and to admire the natural beauties.

Nowadays Italy is the fourth most visited country in international tourism, with a total of 53.8 million international arrivals in 2016. The total contribution of travel & tourism to GDP (including wider effects from investment, the supply chain and induced income impacts) was EUR162.7bn in 2014 (10.1% of GDP) and generated 1,082,000 jobs directly in 2014 (4.8% of total employment).

Factors of tourist interest in Italy are mainly culture, cuisine, history, fashion, architecture, art, religious sites and routes, wedding tourism, naturalistic beauties, nightlife, underwater sites, and spas. Winter and summer tourism are present in many locations in the Alps and the Apennines, while seaside tourism is widespread in coastal locations on the Mediterranean Sea. Italy is the leading cruise tourism destination in the Mediterranean Sea. Small, historical and artistic Italian villages are promoted through the association I Borghi più belli d'Italia ({lit. 'The Most Beautiful Villages of Italy').

The most visited regions of Italy, measured by nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments, are Veneto, Tuscany, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, and Lazio. Rome is the 3rd most visited city in Europe, and the 12th in the world, with 9.4 million arrivals in 2017, while Milan is the 27th worldwide with 6.8 million tourists. In addition, Venice and Florence are also among the world's top 100 destinations.

Italy is also the country with the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world (58). Out of Italy's 58 heritage sites, 53 are cultural and 5 are natural. In Italy there is a broad variety of hotels, going from 1–5 stars. According to ISTAT, in 2017, there were 32,988 hotels with 1,133,452 rooms and 2,239,446 beds. As for non-hotel facilities (campsites, tourist villages, accommodations for rent, agritourism, etc.), in 2017 their number was 171,915 with 2,798,352 beds.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Italy

See also: Italians, Italian diaspora, Genetic history of Italy, List of cities in Italy, and Racism in Italy

At the beginning of 2020, Italy had 65,817,116 inhabitants. The resulting population density, at 218 inhabitants per square kilometre (566/sq mi), is higher than that of most Western European countries. However, the distribution of the population is widely uneven. The most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (that accounts for almost a half of the national population) and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples, while vast regions such as the Alps and Apennines highlands, the plateaus of Basilicata and the island of Sardinia, as well as much of Sicily, are sparsely populated. Urbanization in the South has begun to change this, however.

The population of Italy almost doubled during the 20th century, but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven because of large-scale internal migration from the rural South to the industrial cities of the North, a phenomenon which happened as a consequence of the Italian economic miracle of the 1950–1960s. High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they started to decline. The population rapidly aged; by 2010, one in five Italians was over 65 years old, and the country currently has the fifth oldest population in the world, with a median age of 46.5 years. However, in recent years Italy has experienced significant growth in birth rates. The total fertility rate has also climbed from an all-time low of 1.18 children per woman in 1995 to 1.41 in 2008, albeit still below the replacement rate of 2.1 and considerably below the high of 5.06 children born per woman in 1883. Nevertheless, the total fertility rate is expected to reach 1.6–1.8 in 2030.

From the late 19th century until the 1960s Italy was a country of mass emigration. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000 Italians emigrated each year. The diaspora concerned more than 25 million Italians and it is considered the biggest mass migration of contemporary times. As a result, today more than 4.1 million Italian citizens are living abroad, while at least 60 million people of full or part Italian ancestry live outside of Italy, most notably in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, the United States, Canada, Australia, and France.

v t e Largest cities or towns in Italy 2022 Census of the Kingdom of Italy
	Rank	Name	Region	Pop.	Rank	Name	Region	Pop.
Rome Milan	1	Rome	Lazio	3,748,109	11	Bologna	Emilia-Romagna	387,971	Naples Turin
	2	Milan	Lombardy	2,354,196	12	Bari	Apulia	316,015
	3	Naples	Campania	1,913,462	13	Trieste	Friuli-Venezia-Giulia	298,417
	4	Turin	Piedmont	1,341,600	14	Parma	Emilia-Romagna	296,885
	5	Palermo	Sicily	1,130,167	15	Cagliari	Sardinia	267,851
	6	Genoa	Liguria	858,745	16	Venice	Veneto	250,369
	7	Florence	Tuscany	560,930	17	Messina	Sicily	218,786
	8	Taranto	Apulia	488,098	18	Padua	Veneto	206,496
	9	Verona	Veneto	455,588	19	Brescia	Lombardy	196,567
	10	Catania	Apulia	398,762	20	Prato	Tuscany	195,820

Immigration

Main article: Immigration to Italy

In 2021, Italy had about 6.17 million foreign residents, making up 10.8% of the total population. The figures include more than half a million children born in Italy to foreign nationals (second generation immigrants) but exclude foreign nationals who have subsequently acquired Italian citizenship; in 2016, about 201,000 people became Italian citizens. The official figures also exclude illegal immigrants, who estimated to number at least 470,000 as of 2008.

Starting from the early 1980s, until then a linguistically and culturally homogeneous society, Italy begun to attract substantial flows of foreign immigrants. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more recently, the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union, large waves of migration originated from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe (especially Romania, Albania, Ukraine, and Poland). Another source of immigration is neighbouring North Africa (in particular, Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia), with soaring arrivals as a consequence of the Arab Spring. Furthermore, in recent years, growing migration fluxes from Asia-Pacific (notably China and the Philippines) and Latin America have been recorded.

Currently, about one million Romanian citizens (around 10% of them being ethnic Romani people) are officially registered as living in Italy, representing the largest migrant population, followed by Albanians and Moroccans with about 500,000 people each. The number of unregistered Romanians is difficult to estimate, but the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network suggested in 2007 that there might have been half a million or more.

As of 2010, the foreign born population of Italy was from the following regions: Europe (44%), Africa (27%), Asia (21%), the Americas (8%) and Oceania (0.06%). The distribution of foreign population is geographically varied in Italy: in 2020, 61.2% of foreign citizens lived in Northern Italy (in particular 36.1% in the North West and 25.1% in the North East), 24.2% in the centre, 10.8% in the South, and 3.9% in the Islands.

Languages

Main articles: Languages of Italy, Italian language, Regional Italian, and Geographical distribution of Italian speakers

Italy's official language is Italian, as stated by the framework law no. 482/1999 and Trentino Alto-Adige's special Statute, which is adopted with a constitutional law. Around the world there are an estimated 72 million native Italian speakers and another 22 million who use it as a second language. Italian is often natively spoken in a regional variety, not to be confused with Italy's regional and minority languages; however, the establishment of a national education system led to a decrease in variation in the languages spoken across the country during the 20th century. Standardisation was further expanded in the 1950s and 1960s due to economic growth and the rise of mass media and television (the state broadcaster RAI helped set a standard Italian).

Twelve "historical minority languages" (minoranze linguistiche storiche) are formally recognised: Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovene, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan, and Sardinian. Four of these also enjoy a co-official status in their respective region: French in the Aosta Valley; German in South Tyrol, and Ladin as well in some parts of the same province and in parts of the neighbouring Trentino; and Slovene in the provinces of Trieste, Gorizia and Udine. A number of other Ethnologue, ISO and UNESCO languages are not recognised by Italian law. Like France, Italy has signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but has not ratified it.

Because of 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 in Italy: almost 800,000 people speak Romanian as their first language (21.9% of the foreign residents aged 6 and over). Other prevalent mother tongues are Arabic (spoken by over 475,000 people; 13.1% of foreign residents), Albanian (380,000 people), and Spanish (255,000 people).

Religion

Main article: Religion in Italy

Religiosity in Italy remains somewhat strong, though it is declining, it has been historically characterized by the dominance of Catholicism since the Great Schism. According to a 2023 Ipsos survey, 67% of the country's residents are Catholic, 4% are Protestants, 3% other Christians (74% are Christians overall), 22% are irreligious, 2% prefer not to say, 1% are Muslims, are 1% adhere to other religions. Many Catholics are nominal; the Associated Press describes Italian Catholicism as "a faith that’s... nominally embraced but not always lived." Italy has the world's fifth-largest Catholic population, the largest in Europe.

In 2011, minority Christian faiths in Italy included an estimated 1.5 million Orthodox Christians. Protestantism has been growing in recent years. One of the longest-established minority religious faiths in Italy is Judaism. Italy has for centuries welcomed Jews expelled from other countries, notably Spain. However, about 20% of Italian Jews were killed during the Holocaust. This, together with the emigration which preceded and followed World War II, has left only around 28,400 Jews in Italy.

The Holy See, the episcopal jurisdiction of Rome, contains the central government of the Catholic Church. It is recognised by other subjects of international law as a sovereign entity, headed by the Pope, who is also the Bishop of Rome, with which diplomatic relations can be maintained. Often incorrectly referred to as "the Vatican", the Holy See is not the same entity as the Vatican City State because the Holy See is the jurisdiction and administrative entity of the Pope. The Vatican City came into existence only in 1929. There are also 120,000 Hindus, 70,000 Sikhs, and 22 gurdwaras across the country.

Since 1985, Catholicism is no longer officially the state religion. However, the Italian 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, since no Muslim communities have yet signed a concordat with the Italian state. Taxpayers who do not wish to fund a religion contribute their share to the state welfare system.

Education

Main article: Education in Italy

Education in Italy is free and mandatory from ages six to sixteen, and consists of five stages: kindergarten (scuola dell'infanzia), primary school (scuola primaria), lower secondary school (scuola secondaria di primo grado), upper secondary school (scuola secondaria di secondo grado), and university (università).

Primary education 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 education 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 vocational education.

In 2018, the Italian secondary education was evaluated as about the OECD average. Italy scored at the OECD average in reading and science, and near OECD average in mathematics. Mean performance in Italy remained steady in reading, science, and mathematics. Trento and Bolzano scored at an above the national average in reading. Compared to school children in other OECD countries, children in Italy missed out on a greater amount of learning due to absences and indiscipline in classrooms. A signifigant gap exists between northern schools, which perform about average, and schools in the south, that had somewhat poorer results.

Tertiary education in Italy is divided between public universities, private universities and the prestigious and selective superior graduate schools, such as the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. 33 Italian universities were ranked among the world's top 500 in 2019, the third-largest number in Europe after the United Kingdom and Germany. Bologna University, founded in 1088, is the oldest university in continuous operation, as well as one of the leading academic institutions in Italy and Europe. The Bocconi University, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, LUISS, Polytechnic University of Turin, Polytechnic University of Milan, Sapienza University of Rome, and University of Milan are also ranked among the best in the world.

Health

Main articles: Health in Italy and Healthcare in Italy

Life expectancy in the country is 80 for males and 85 for females, placing the country 5th in the world. In comparison to other Western countries, Italy has a relatively low rate of adult obesity (below 10%), as there are several health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. The proportion of daily smokers was 22% in 2012, down from 24.4% in 2000 but still slightly above the OECD average. Smoking in public places including bars, restaurants, night clubs and offices has been restricted to specially ventilated rooms since 2005. In 2013, UNESCO added the Mediterranean diet to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of Italy (promoter), Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, and Croatia.

The Italian state runs a universal public healthcare system since 1978. However, healthcare is provided to all citizens and residents by a mixed public-private system. The public part is the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, which is organised under the Ministry of Health and administered on a devolved regional basis. Healthcare spending accounted for 9.7% of GDP in 2020. Italy's healthcare system is consistently ranked among the best in the world. In 2018 Italy's healthcare is ranked 20th in Europe in the Euro Health Consumer Index.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Italy

Italy is considered one of the birthplaces of western civilization and a cultural superpower. Divided by politics and geography for centuries until its eventual unification in 1861, Italy's culture has been shaped by a multitude of regional customs and local centres of power and patronage. Italy has had a central role in Western culture for centuries and is still recognised for its cultural traditions and artists. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a number of courts competed to attract architects, artists and scholars, thus producing a legacy of monuments, paintings, music and literature. Despite the political and social isolation of these courts, Italy has made a substantial contribution to the cultural and historical heritage of Europe.

Architecture

Main article: Architecture of Italy

Italy is known for its considerable architectural achievements, such as the construction of arches, domes and similar structures during ancient Rome, the founding of the Renaissance architectural movement in the late-14th to 16th centuries, and being the homeland of Palladianism, a style of construction which inspired movements such as that of Neoclassical architecture, and influenced the designs which noblemen built their country houses all over the world, notably in the UK, Australia and the US during the late 17th to early 20th centuries.

The city of Venice, built on 117 islands

The Duomo and the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Along with pre-historic architecture, the first people in Italy to truly begin a sequence of designs were the Greeks and the Etruscans, progressing to classical Roman, then to the revival of the classical Roman era during the Renaissance and evolving into the Baroque era. The Christian concept of a Basilica, a style of church architecture that came to dominate the early Middle Ages, was invented in Rome. They were known for being long, rectangular buildings, which were built in an almost ancient Roman style, often rich in mosaics and decorations. The early Christians' art and architecture were also widely inspired by that of the pagan Romans; statues, mosaics and paintings decorated all their churches.

The Romanesque movement, which went from approximately 800 AD to 1100 AD, was one of the most fruitful and creative periods in Italian architecture, when several masterpieces, such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the Piazza dei Miracoli, and the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan were built. It was known for its usage of Roman arches, stained glass windows, and also its curved columns which commonly featured in cloisters. The main innovation of Italian Romanesque architecture was the vault, which had never been seen before in the history of Western architecture.

Castel del Monte, Apulia

The Royal Palace of Caserta

A flowering of Italian architecture took place during the Renaissance. Filippo Brunelleschi contributed to architectural design with his dome for the Cathedral of Florence, a feat of engineering that had not been accomplished since antiquity. A popular achievement of Italian Renaissance architecture was St. Peter's Basilica, originally designed by Donato Bramante in the early 16th century. Also, Andrea Palladio influenced architects throughout Western Europe with the villas and palaces he designed in the middle and late 16th century; the city of Vicenza, with its twenty-three buildings designed by Palladio, and twenty-four Palladian Villas of the Veneto are listed by UNESCO as part of a World Heritage Site named City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.

The Baroque period produced several outstanding Italian architects in the 17th century, especially those known for their churches. The most original work of all late Baroque and Rococo architecture is the Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi, dating back to the 18th century. Luigi Vanvitelli began in 1752 the construction of the Royal Palace of Caserta. In this large complex, the grandiose Baroque-style interiors and gardens are opposed to a more sober building envelope. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries Italy was affected by the Neoclassical architectural movement. Villas, palaces, gardens, interiors and art began to be based on Roman and Greek themes.

During the Fascist period, the so-called "Novecento movement" flourished, based on the rediscovery of imperial Rome, with figures such as Gio Ponti and Giovanni Muzio. Marcello Piacentini, responsible for the urban transformations of several cities in Italy and remembered for the disputed Via della Conciliazione in Rome, devised a form of simplified Neoclassicism.

Visual art

Main article: Italian art

The history of Italian visual arts is significant to the history of Western painting. Roman art was influenced by Greece and can in part be taken as a descendant of ancient Greek painting. Roman painting does have its own unique characteristics. The only surviving Roman paintings are wall paintings, many from villas in Campania, in Southern Italy. Such paintings can be grouped into four main "styles" or periods and may contain the first examples of trompe-l'œil, pseudo-perspective, and pure landscape.

The Italian Renaissance is said by many to be the golden age of painting; roughly spanning the 14th through the mid-17th centuries with a significant influence also out of the borders of modern Italy. In Italy, artists like Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Titian took painting to a higher level through the use of perspective, the study of human anatomy and proportion, and through their development of refined drawing and painting techniques. Michelangelo was active as a sculptor from about 1500 to 1520; his works include his David, Pietà, and Moses. Other Renaissance sculptors include Lorenzo Ghiberti, Luca Della Robbia, Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Andrea del Verrocchio.

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 are replaced by the troubled expressions of Pontormo and the emotional intensity of El Greco.

In the 17th century, among the greatest painters of Italian Baroque are Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Artemisia Gentileschi, Mattia Preti, Carlo Saraceni, and Bartolomeo Manfredi. Subsequently, in the 18th century, Italian Rococo was mainly inspired by French Rococo, since France was the founding nation of that particular style, with artists such as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Canaletto. Italian Neoclassical sculpture focused, with Antonio Canova's nudes, on the idealist aspect of the movement.

In the 19th century, major Italian Romantic painters were Francesco Hayez, Giuseppe Bezzuoli and Francesco Podesti. Impressionism was brought from France to Italy by the Macchiaioli, led by Giovanni Fattori, and Giovanni Boldini; Realism by Gioacchino Toma and Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo. In the 20th century, with Futurism, primarily through the works of Umberto Boccioni and Giacomo Balla, Italy rose again as a seminal country for artistic evolution in painting and sculpture. Futurism was succeeded by the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, who exerted a strong influence on the Surrealists and generations of artists to follow like Bruno Caruso and Renato Guttuso.

Literature

Main article: Italian literature

Formal Latin literature began in 240 BC, when the first stage play was performed in Rome. Latin literature was, and still is, highly influential in the world, with numerous writers, poets, philosophers, and historians, such as Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Ovid and Livy. The Romans were also famous for their oral tradition, poetry, drama and epigrams. In early years of the 13th century, Francis of Assisi was considered the first Italian poet by literary critics, with his religious song Canticle of the Sun.

Another Italian voice originated in Sicily. At the court of Emperor Frederick II, who ruled the Sicilian kingdom during the first half of 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 the notary Giacomo da Lentini, inventor of the sonnet form, though the most famous early sonneteer was Petrarch.

Guido Guinizelli is considered the founder of the Dolce Stil Novo, a school that added a philosophical dimension to traditional love poetry. This new understanding of love, expressed in a smooth, pure style, influenced Guido Cavalcanti and the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri, who established the basis of the modern Italian language; his greatest work, the Divine Comedy, is considered among the finest works of world literature; furthermore, the poet invented the difficult terza rima. Two major writers of the 14th century, Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, sought out and imitated the works of antiquity and cultivated their own artistic personalities. Petrarch achieved fame through his collection of poems, Il Canzoniere. Petrarch's love poetry served as a model for centuries. Equally influential was Boccaccio's The Decameron, one of the most popular collections of short stories ever written.

Italian Renaissance authors produced works including Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, an essay on political science and modern philosophy in which the "effectual truth" is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal; Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished romance Orlando Innamorato; and Baldassare Castiglione's dialogue The Book of the Courtier which describes the ideal of the perfect court gentleman and of spiritual beauty. The lyric poet Torquato Tasso in Jerusalem Delivered wrote a Christian epic in ottava rima, with attention to the Aristotelian canons of unity.

Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile, who have written The Facetious Nights of Straparola (1550–1555) and the Pentamerone (1634) respectively, printed some of the first known versions of fairy tales in Europe. In the early 17th century, some literary masterpieces were created, such as Giambattista Marino's long mythological poem, L'Adone. The Baroque period also produced the clear scientific prose of Galileo as well as Tommaso Campanella's The City of the Sun, a description of a perfect society ruled by a philosopher-priest. At the end of the 17th century, the Arcadians began a movement to restore simplicity and classical restraint to poetry, as in Metastasio's heroic melodramas. In the 18th century, playwright Carlo Goldoni created full-written plays, many portraying the middle class of his day.

Romanticism coincided with some ideas of the Risorgimento, the patriotic movement that brought Italy political unity and freedom from foreign domination. Italian writers embraced Romanticism in the early 19th century. The time of Italy's rebirth was heralded by the poets Vittorio Alfieri, Ugo Foscolo, and Giacomo Leopardi. The works by Alessandro Manzoni, the leading Italian Romantic, are a symbol of the Italian unification for their patriotic message and because of his efforts in the development of the modern, unified Italian language; his novel The Betrothed was the first Italian historical novel to glorify Christian values of justice and Providence, and it is generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature.

In the late 19th century, a realistic literary movement called Verismo played a major role in Italian literature; Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana were its main exponents. In the same period, Emilio Salgari, writer of action-adventure swashbucklers and a pioneer of science fiction, published his Sandokan series. In 1883, Carlo Collodi also published the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, the most celebrated children's classic by an Italian author and one of the most translated non-religious books in the world. A movement called Futurism influenced Italian literature in the early 20th century. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti wrote Manifesto of Futurism, called for the use of language and metaphors that glorified the speed, dynamism, and violence of the machine age.

Modern literary figures and Nobel laureates are Gabriele D'Annunzio from 1889 to 1910, nationalist poet Giosuè Carducci in 1906, realist writer Grazia Deledda in 1926, modern theatre author Luigi Pirandello in 1936, short stories writer Italo Calvino in 1960, poets Salvatore Quasimodo in 1959 and Eugenio Montale in 1975, Umberto Eco in 1980, and satirist and theatre author Dario Fo in 1997.

Philosophy

Main article: Italian philosophy

Over the ages, Italian philosophy and literature had a vast influence on Western philosophy, beginning with the Greeks and Romans, and going onto Renaissance humanism, the Age of Enlightenment and modern philosophy. Philosophy was brought to Italy by Pythagoras, founder of the Italian school of philosophy in Crotone, Magna Graecia. Major Italian philosophers of the Greek period include Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles and Gorgias. Roman philosophers include Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca the Younger, Musonius Rufus, Plutarch, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Clement of Alexandria, Sextus Empiricus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Augustine of Hippo, Philoponus of Alexandria and Boethius.

Italian Medieval philosophy was mainly Christian, and included philosophers and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism, who reintroduced Aristotelian philosophy to Christianity. Notable Renaissance philosophers include: Giordano Bruno, one of the major scientific figures of the western world; Marsilio Ficino, one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the period; and Niccolò Machiavelli, one of the main founders of modern political science. Machiavelli's most famous work was The Prince, whose contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political realism and political idealism. Italy was also affected by the Enlightenment, a movement which was a consequence of the Renaissance. University cities such as Padua, Bologna and Naples remained centres of scholarship and the intellect, with several philosophers such as Giambattista Vico (widely regarded as being the founder of modern Italian philosophy) and Antonio Genovesi. Cesare Beccaria was a significant Enlightenment figure and is now considered one of the fathers of classical criminal theory as well as modern penology. Beccaria is famous for his On Crimes and Punishments (1764), a treatise that served as one of the earliest prominent condemnations of torture and the death penalty and thus a landmark work in anti-death penalty philosophy.

Italy also had a renowned philosophical movement in the 1800s, with Idealism, Sensism and Empiricism. The main Sensist Italian philosophers were Melchiorre Gioja and Gian Domenico Romagnosi. Criticism of the Sensist movement came from other philosophers such as Pasquale Galluppi (1770–1846), who affirmed that a priori relationships were synthetic. Antonio Rosmini, instead, was the founder of Italian idealism. During the late 19th and 20th centuries, there were also several other movements which gained some form of popularity in Italy, such as Ontologism (whose main philosopher was Vincenzo Gioberti), anarchism, communism, socialism, futurism, fascism and Christian democracy. Giovanni Gentile and Benedetto Croce were two of the most significant 20th-century Idealist philosophers. Anarcho-communism first fully formed into its modern strain within the Italian section of the First International. Antonio Gramsci remains a relevant philosopher within Marxist and communist theory, credited with creating the theory of cultural hegemony. Italian philosophers were also influential in the development of the non-Marxist liberal socialism philosophy, including Carlo Rosselli, Norberto Bobbio, Piero Gobetti and Aldo Capitini. In the 1960s, many Italian left-wing activists adopted the anti-authoritarian pro-working class leftist theories that would become known as autonomism and operaismo.

Early Italian feminists include Sibilla Aleramo, Alaide Gualberta Beccari, and Anna Maria Mozzoni, though proto-feminist philosophies had previously been touched upon by earlier Italian writers such as Christine de Pizan, Moderata Fonte, and Lucrezia Marinella. Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori is credited with the creation of the philosophy of education that bears her name, an educational philosophy now practised throughout the world. Giuseppe Peano was one of the founders of analytic philosophy and the contemporary philosophy of mathematics. Recent analytic philosophers include Carlo Penco, Gloria Origgi, Pieranna Garavaso, and Luciano Floridi.

Theatre

Main article: Theatre of Italy

Italian theatre originates from the Middle Ages, with its background dating back to the times of the ancient Greek colonies of Magna Graecia, in Southern Italy, the theatre of the Italic peoples and the theatre of ancient Rome. It can therefore be assumed that there were two main lines of which the ancient Italian theatre developed in the Middle Ages. The first, consisting of the dramatization of Catholic liturgies and of which more documentation is retained, and the second, formed by pagan forms of spectacle such as the staging for city festivals, the court preparations of the jesters and the songs of the troubadours. The Renaissance theatre marked the beginning of the modern theatre due to the rediscovery and study of the classics, the ancient theatrical texts were recovered and translated, which were soon staged at the court and in the curtensi halls, and then moved to real theatre. In this way the idea of theatre came close to that of today: a performance in a designated place in which the public participates. In the late 15th century two cities were important centres for the rediscovery and renewal of theatrical art: Ferrara and Rome. The first, vital centre of art in the second half of the fifteenth century, saw the staging of some of the most famous Latin works by Plautus, rigorously translated into Italian.

During the 16th century and on into the 18th century, commedia dell'arte was a form of improvisational theatre, and it is still performed today. Travelling troupes of players would set up an outdoor stage and provide amusement in the form of juggling, acrobatics and, more typically, humorous plays based on a repertoire of established characters with a rough storyline, called canovaccio. Plays did not originate from written drama but from scenarios called lazzi, which were loose frameworks that provided the situations, complications, and outcome of the action, around which the actors would improvise. The characters of the commedia usually represent fixed social types and stock characters, each of which has a distinct costume, such as foolish old men, devious servants, or military officers full of false bravado. The main categories of these characters include servants, old men, lovers, and captains.

The first recorded commedia dell'arte performances came from Rome as early as 1551, and was performed outdoors in temporary venues by professional actors who were costumed and masked, as opposed to commedia erudita, which were written comedies, presented indoors by untrained and unmasked actors. By the mid-16th century, specific troupes of commedia performers began to coalesce, and by 1568 the Gelosi became a distinct company. Commedia often performed inside in court theatres or halls, and also in some fixed theatres such as Teatro Baldrucca in Florence. Flaminio Scala, who had been a minor performer in the Gelosi published the scenarios of the commedia dell'arte around the start of the 17th century, really in an effort to legitimise the form—and ensure its legacy. These scenari are highly structured and built around the symmetry of the various types in duet: two Zanni, vecchi, innamorate and innamorati, among others.

In commedia dell'arte, 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, whose name is on a contract of actors from 10 October 1564, has been referred to as the first Italian actress known by name, with Vincenza Armani and Barbara Flaminia as the first primadonnas and the first well-documented actresses in Europe.

The Ballet dance genre also originated in Italy. It began during the Italian Renaissance court as an outgrowth of court pageantry, where aristocratic weddings were lavish celebrations. Court musicians and dancers collaborated to provide elaborate entertainment for them. At first, ballets were woven into the midst of an opera to allow the audience a moment of relief from the dramatic intensity. By the mid-seventeenth century, Italian ballets in their entirety were performed in between the acts of an opera. Over time, Italian ballets became part of theatrical life: ballet companies in Italy's major opera houses employed an average of four to twelve dancers; in 1815 many companies employed anywhere from eighty to one hundred dancers.

The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples is the oldest continuously active venue for public opera in the world, opening in 1737, decades before both Milan's La Scala and Venice's La Fenice theatres.

Music

Main article: Music of Italy

From folk music to classical, music is an intrinsic part of Italian culture. Instruments associated with classical music, including the piano and violin, were invented in Italy, and many of the prevailing classical music forms, such as the symphony, concerto, and sonata, can trace their roots back to innovations of 16th- and 17th-century Italian music.

Italy's most famous composers include the Renaissance composers Palestrina, Monteverdi, and Gesualdo; the Baroque composers Scarlatti, Corelli, and Vivaldi; the Classical composers Paisiello, Paganini, and Rossini; and the Romantic composers Verdi and Puccini. Modern Italian composers such as Berio and Nono proved significant in the development of experimental and electronic music.^{[citation needed]} While the classical music tradition still holds strong in Italy, as evidenced by the fame of its innumerable opera houses, such as La Scala of Milan and San Carlo of Naples (the oldest continuously active venue for public opera in the world), and performers such as the pianist Maurizio Pollini and tenor Luciano Pavarotti, Italians have been no less appreciative of their thriving contemporary music scene.

Italy is widely known for being the birthplace of opera. Italian opera was believed to have been founded in the early 17th century, in cities such as Mantua and Venice. Later, works and pieces composed by native Italian composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini, are among the most famous operas ever written and today are performed in opera houses across the world. La Scala opera house in Milan is also renowned as one of the best in the world. Famous Italian opera singers include Enrico Caruso and Alessandro Bonci.

Introduced in the early 1920s, jazz took a particularly strong foothold in Italy, and remained popular despite the xenophobic cultural policies of the Fascist regime. Today, the most notable centres of jazz music in Italy include Milan, Rome, and Sicily. Later, Italy was at the forefront of the progressive rock and pop movement of the 1970s, with bands like PFM, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Le Orme, Goblin, and Pooh. The same period saw diversification in the cinema of Italy, and Cinecittà films included complex scores by composers including Ennio Morricone, Armando Trovaioli, Piero Piccioni, and Piero Umiliani. In the early 1980s, the first star to emerge from the Italian hip hop scene was singer Jovanotti. Italian metal bands include Rhapsody of Fire, Lacuna Coil, Elvenking, Forgotten Tomb, and Fleshgod Apocalypse.

Italy contributed to the development of disco and electronic music, with Italo disco, known for its futuristic sound and prominent use of synthesisers and drum machines, being one of the earliest electronic dance genres, as well as European forms of disco aside from Euro disco (which later went on to influence several genres such as Eurodance and Nu-disco).

Producers such as Giorgio Moroder, who won three Academy Awards and four Golden Globes for his music, were highly influential in the development of electronic dance music. Today, Italian pop music is represented annually with the Sanremo Music Festival, which served as inspiration for the Eurovision song contest, and the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto. Singers such as Mina, Andrea Bocelli, Grammy winner Laura Pausini, Zucchero, Eros Ramazzotti, Elisa, Tiziano Ferro and Mahmood have attained international acclaim.

Gigliola Cinquetti, Toto Cutugno, and Måneskin won the Eurovision Song Contest, in 1964, 1990, and 2021 respectively.

Cinema

Main article: Cinema of Italy

The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the Lumière brothers began motion picture exhibitions. The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII in 1896. In the 1910s the Italian film industry developed rapidly. In 1912, the year of the greatest expansion, 569 films were produced in Turin, 420 in Rome and 120 in Milan. Cabiria, a 1914 Italian epic film directed by Giovanni Pastrone, is considered the most famous Italian silent film. It was also the first film in history to be shown in the White House. The oldest European avant-garde cinema movement, Italian futurism, took place in the late 1910s.

After a period of decline in the 1920s, the Italian film industry was revitalized in the 1930s with the arrival of sound film. A popular Italian genre during this period, the Telefoni Bianchi, consisted of comedies with glamorous backgrounds. Calligrafismo was instead in a sharp contrast to Telefoni Bianchi-American style comedies and is rather artistic, highly formalistic, expressive in complexity and deals mainly with contemporary literary material. Cinema was later used by Benito Mussolini, who founded Rome's renowned Cinecittà studio also for the production of Fascist propaganda until World War II.

After the war, Italian film was widely recognised and exported until an artistic decline around the 1980s (though recently this has begun to change). Notable Italian film directors from this period include Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Dussio Tessari and Roberto Rossellini; some of these are recognised among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Movies include world cinema treasures such as Bicycle Thieves, La Dolce Vita, 8½, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West. The mid-1940s to the early 1950s was the heyday of neorealist films, reflecting the poor condition of post-war Italy.

As the country grew wealthier in the 1950s, a form of neorealism known as pink neorealism succeeded, and starting from the 1950s through the commedia all'italiana genre, and other film genres, such as sword-and-sandal followed as spaghetti Westerns, were popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Actresses such as Sophia Loren, Giulietta Masina and Gina Lollobrigida achieved international stardom during this period. Erotic Italian thrillers, or gialli, produced by directors such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento in the 1970s, also influenced the horror genre worldwide. In recent years, the Italian scene has received only occasional international attention, with movies like Cinema Paradiso written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, Mediterraneo directed by Gabriele Salvatores, Life Is Beautiful directed by Roberto Benigni, Il Postino: The Postman with Massimo Troisi and The Great Beauty directed by Paolo Sorrentino.

The aforementioned Cinecittà studio is today the largest film and television production facility in Europe, where many international box office hits were filmed. In the 1950s, the number of international productions being made there led to Rome's being dubbed "Hollywood on the Tiber". More than 3,000 productions have been made on its lot, of which 90 received an Academy Award nomination and 47 of these won it, from some cinema classics to recent rewarded features (such as Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, The English Patient, The Passion of the Christ, and Gangs of New York).

Italy is the most awarded country at the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, with 15 awards won, 3 Special Awards and 32 nominations. As of 2016, Italian films have also won 14 Palmes d'Or, 12 Golden Lions and 9 Golden Bears. The list of the 100 Italian films to be saved was created with the aim to report "100 films that have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978".

Sport

Main article: Sport in Italy

The most popular sport in Italy is football. Italy's national football team is one of the world's most successful teams with four FIFA World Cup victories (1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006). Italian clubs have won 48 major European trophies, making Italy the second most successful country in European football. Italy's top-flight club football league is named Serie A and is followed by millions of fans around the world.

Other popular team sports in Italy include basketball, volleyball and rugby. Italy's male and female national volleyball teams are often featured among the world's best. The Italian national basketball team's best results were gold at Eurobasket 1983 and EuroBasket 1999, as well as silver at the Olympics in 2004. Lega Basket Serie A is widely considered one of the most competitive in Europe. Italy's rugby national team competes in the Six Nations Championship, and is a regular at the Rugby World Cup. The men's volleyball team won three consecutive World Championships (in 1990, 1994, and 1998) and earned the Olympic silver medal in 1996, 2004, and 2016.

Italy has a long and successful tradition in individual sports as well. Bicycle racing is a familiar sport in the country. Italians have won the UCI World Championships more than any other country, except Belgium. The Giro d'Italia is a cycling race held every May and constitutes one of the three Grand Tours. Alpine skiing is also a widespread sport in Italy, and the country is a popular international skiing destination, known for its ski resorts. Italian skiers achieved good results in Winter Olympic Games, Alpine Ski World Cup, and tennis has a significant following in Italy, ranking as the fourth most practised sport in the country. The Rome Masters, founded in 1930, is one of the most prestigious tennis tournaments in the world. Italian professional tennis players won the Davis Cup in 1976 and the Fed Cup in 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2013.

Motorsports are also extremely popular in Italy. Italy has won, by far, the most MotoGP World Championships. Italian Scuderia Ferrari is the oldest surviving team in Grand Prix racing, having competed since 1948, and statistically the most successful Formula One team in history with a record of 232 wins. The Italian Grand Prix of Formula 1 is the fifth oldest surviving Grand Prix, having been held since 1921. It is also one of the two Grand Prix present in every championship since the first one in 1950. Every Formula 1 Grand Prix (except for the 1980) has been held at Autodromo Nazionale Monza. Formula 1 was also held at Imola (1980–2006, 2020) and Mugello (2020). Other successful Italian car manufacturers in motorsports are Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati, and Fiat.

Historically, Italy has been successful in the Olympic Games, taking part from the first Olympiad and in 47 Games out of 48, not having officially participated in the 1904 Summer Olympics. Italian sportsmen have won 522 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, and another 106 at the Winter Olympic Games, for a combined total of 628 medals with 235 golds, which makes them the fifth most successful nation in Olympic history for total medals. The country hosted two Winter Olympics and will host a third (in 1956, 2006, and 2026), and one Summer games (in 1960).

Fashion and design

Main articles: Italian fashion and Italian design

Italian fashion has a long tradition. Milan, Florence, and Rome are Italy's main fashion capitals. According to Top Global Fashion Capital Rankings 2013 by Global Language Monitor, Rome ranked sixth worldwide while Milan was twelfth. Previously, in 2009, Milan was declared the "fashion capital of the world" by Global Language Monitor itself. Major Italian fashion labels, such as Gucci, Armani, Prada, Versace, Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana, Missoni, Fendi, Moschino, Max Mara, Trussardi, and Ferragamo, to name a few, are regarded as among the finest fashion houses in the world. Jewellers like Bvlgari, Damiani, and Buccellati have been founded in Italy. Also, the fashion magazine Vogue Italia, is considered one of the most prestigious fashion magazines in the world. The talent of young, creative fashion is also promoted, as in the ITS young fashion designer competition in Trieste.

Italy is also prominent in the field of design, notably interior design, architectural design, industrial design and urban design. The country has produced some well-known furniture designers, such as Gio Ponti and Ettore Sottsass, and Italian phrases such as "Bel Disegno" and "Linea Italiana" have entered the vocabulary of furniture design. Examples of classic pieces of Italian white goods and pieces of furniture include Zanussi's washing machines and fridges, the "New Tone" sofas by Atrium, and the post-modern bookcase by Ettore Sottsass, inspired by Bob Dylan's song "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again". Today, Milan and Turin are the nation's leaders in architectural design and industrial design. The city of Milan hosts Fiera Milano, Europe's largest design fair. Milan also hosts major design and architecture-related events and venues, such as the "Fuori Salone" and the Salone del Mobile, and has been home to the designers Bruno Munari, Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani and Piero Manzoni.

Cuisine

Main articles: Italian cuisine and Italian meal structure

The Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BC. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, and Jewish. Significant changes occurred with the discovery of the New World with the introduction of items such as potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers and maize, now central to the cuisine but not introduced in quantity until the 18th century. Italian cuisine is noted for its regional diversity, abundance of difference in taste, and is known to be one of the most popular in the world, wielding strong influence abroad.

The Mediterranean diet forms the basis of Italian cuisine, rich in pasta, fish, fruits and vegetables and characterised by its extreme simplicity and variety, with many dishes having only four to eight ingredients. Italian cooks rely chiefly on the quality of the ingredients rather than on elaborate preparation. Dishes and recipes are often derivatives from local and familial tradition rather than created by chefs, so many recipes are ideally suited for home cooking, this being one of the main reasons behind the ever-increasing worldwide popularity of Italian cuisine, from America to Asia. Ingredients and dishes vary widely by region.

Italian cuisine relies heavily on traditional products; the country has a large number of traditional specialities protected under EU law. Cheese, cold cuts and wine are central to Italian cuisine, with many regional declinations and Protected Designation of Origin or Protected Geographical Indication labels, and along with pizza and coffee (especially espresso) form part of Italian gastronomic culture. Desserts have a long tradition of merging local flavours such as citrus fruits, pistachio and almonds with sweet cheeses like mascarpone and ricotta or exotic tastes as cocoa, vanilla and cinnamon. Gelato, tiramisu and cassata are among the most famous examples of Italian desserts, cakes and patisserie.

Italian meal structure is typical of the European Mediterranean region and differs from North, Central, and Eastern European meal structure, though it still often consists of breakfast (colazione), lunch (pranzo), and dinner (cena). However, much less emphasis is placed on breakfast, and breakfast itself is often skipped or involves lighter meal portions than are seen in non-Mediterranean Western countries. Late-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, called merenda (pl.: merende), are also often included in this meal structure.

The marketing phenomenon consisting of words and images, colour combinations (the Italian tricolour) and geographical references for brands that are evocative of Italy to promote and market agri-food products that have nothing to do with Italian cuisine is known by the name of Italian Sounding.

Public holidays, festivals and folklore

Main articles: Public holidays in Italy, Traditions of Italy, and Folklore of Italy

Public holidays celebrated in Italy include religious, national and regional observances. Italy's National Day, the Festa d'Italia (Unification Day), is celebrated on 17 March each year, with the main celebration taking place in Rome, and commemorates the birth of Italy in 1861. The ceremony of the event organized in Rome includes the deposition of a laurel wreath as a tribute to the Italian Unknown Soldier at the Altare della Patria by the King of Italy and the Prime Minister, and a military parade along Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome.

The Saint Lucy's Day, which takes place on 13 December, is popular among children in some Italian regions, where she plays a role similar to Santa Claus. In addition, the Epiphany in Italy is associated with the folkloristic figure of the Befana, a broomstick-riding old woman who, in the night between 5 and 6 January, bringing good children gifts and sweets, and bad ones charcoal or bags of ashes. The Assumption of Mary coincides with Ferragosto on 15 August, the summer vacation period which may be a long weekend or most of the month.

The Italian national patronal day, on 4 October, celebrates Saints Francis and Catherine. Each city or town also celebrates a public holiday on the occasion of the festival of the local patron saint, for example: Rome on 29 June (Saints Peter and Paul), Milan on 7 December (Saint Ambrose), Naples on 19 September (Saint Januarius), Venice on 25 April (Saint Mark the Evangelist), and Florence on 24 June (Saint John the Baptist).

There are many festivals and festivities in Italy. Some of them include the Palio di Siena horse race, Holy Week rites, Saracen Joust of Arezzo, Saint Ubaldo Day in Gubbio, Giostra della Quintana in Foligno, and the Calcio Fiorentino. In 2013, UNESCO has included among the intangible cultural heritage some Italian festivals and pasos (in Italian "macchine a spalla"), such as the Varia di Palmi, the Macchina di Santa Rosa in Viterbo, the Festa dei Gigli in Nola, and faradda di li candareri in Sassari.

Other festivals include the carnivals in Venice, Viareggio, Satriano di Lucania, Mamoiada, and Ivrea, mostly known for its Battle of the Oranges. The Venice International Film Festival, awarding the "Golden Lion" and held annually since 1932, is the oldest film festival in the world and one of the "Big Three" alongside Cannes and Berlin.

References