Italy is a parliamentary republic in Southern Europe. To the north, Italy borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. To the south, it consists of the Italian Peninsula and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and many other smaller islands.  The sovereign states of San Marino and the Vatican  are enclaves within Italy. Italy has a largely temperate climate. With 61 million inhabitants, Among the world’s most developed countries, Italy has the 4th-largest economy in the European Union.

With the development of diverse cultures, Italy’s capital and largest commune, Rome, has for centuries been the leading political and religious center of Western civilization, serving as the capital of both the Roman Empire and Christianity. During the Dark Ages, Italy endured cultural and social decline in the face of repeated invasions by Germanic tribes, Byzantines, Muslims and Normans.

Beginning around the 11th century, various Italian cities, communes and maritime republics rose to great prosperity through shipping, commerce and banking and Italian culture flourished, especially during the Renaissance, which produced many notable scholars, artists, such as Leonardo daVinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli.

Meanwhile, Italian explorers such as Polo, Columbus, Vespucci, and Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Italy remained fragmented into many warring states for the rest of the Middle Ages, subsequently falling prey to larger European powers. Italy entered a long period of decline that lasted until the beginning of the 18th century.

Italian independence resulted in the unification of most of present-day Italy between 1859 and 1866.[ From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, the new Kingdom of Italy rapidly industrialized and acquired a colonial empire becoming a Great Power.  Despite victory in World War I as one of the Big Four with permanent membership in the security council of the League of Nations, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, which favored the establishment of a Fascist dictatorship in 1922 ending in military defeat, economic destruction and civil war. In the years that followed, Italy reinstated democracy, and enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, becoming one of the most developed nations in the world.

Italy was a founding member of NATO in 1949 and one of the Inner Six of the European Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993.