Repubblica Italiana Italian Republic
Flag Coat of arms Anthem: Il Canto degli Italiani (also known as Inno di Mameli) The Song of the Italians	Location of  Italy  (dark green) – on the European continent  (light green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (light green)  —  [Legend]
Capital (and largest city) Rome 41°54′N, 12°29′E Official languages Italian1 Demonym Italian Government Parliamentary republic  -  President Giorgio Napolitano  -  Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Independence    -  Unification 17 March 1861   -  Republic 2 June 1946  EU accession 25 March 1957 (founding member) Area  -  Total 301,318 km² (71st) 116,346.5 sq mi   -  Water (%) 2.4	Population  -  October 2007 estimate 59,619,290[1] (23rd)  -  October 2001 census 57,110,144   -  Density 197.6/km² (54th) 511.7/sq mi GDP (PPP) 2007 estimate  -  Total $1.888 trillion[2] (8th)  -  Per capita $32,319[3] (20th) GDP (nominal) 2007 estimate  -  Total $2.067 trillion[4] (7th)  -  Per capita $35,386[5] (18th) Gini (2000) 36 (medium)  HDI (2005) ▲ 0.941 (high) (20th) Currency Euro (€)2 (EUR) Time zone CET (UTC+1)  -  Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2) Internet TLD .it3 Calling code +39 1 French is co-official in the Aosta Valley; Friulian is co-official in Friuli-Venezia Giulia; German and Ladin are co-official in the province of Bolzano-Bozen; Sardinian is co-official in Sardinia. 2 Before 2002, the Italian Lira. The euro is accepted in Campione d'Italia (but the official currency is the Swiss Franc).[6] 3 The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.

Italy [ˈɪtəli] (help·info) (Italian: Italia), officially the Italian Republic, (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within the Italian Peninsula, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland.

Italy has been the home of many European cultures, such as the Etruscans and the Romans, and later was the birthplace of the movement of the Renaissance, that began in Tuscany and spread all over Europe. Italy's capital Rome was for centuries the center of Western civilization, it also spawned the Baroque movement and seats the Catholic Church. Italy possessed a colonial empire from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

Today, Italy is a democratic republic and a developed country with the 8th-highest Quality-of-life index,[7] rating in the world. It is a founding member of what is now the European Union (having signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957), and a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is a member of the G8 (having the world's 7th largest nominal GDP), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Trade Organization (WTO), the Council of Europe, the Western European Union, the Central European Initiative, and a Schengen state. It has the world's 8th largest defence budget and shares NATO's nuclear weapons. On January 1, 2007, Italy began a two year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.