Population and towns in Italy
Dense population in Northern Italy
Today, approximately 60 million people live in Italy. Most of them are of course concentrated at and around the large towns in Italy. Especially in Northern Italy around the cities of Milan, Venice and Genoa by now live more people than in Rome and Naples. Besides a few languages of minorities, like Sardinian, German and Rhaeto-Romanic, the official language in Italy is Italian. Thanks to the healthy Mediterranean food, the Italians have one of the highest life expectancy of the world. The catholic belief is also a fundament of the country.
Population numbers and immigration
During the last 150 years, the population of Italy has more than doubled from 26 million to 60 million people. And that despite wars and 8 million emigrants to Europe and the new world. Even today, Germany represents the most important country of immigration for Italian citizens with more than half a million Italians living now in Germany.
About 67% of the citizens live in and round the big towns in Italy – a majority of them in the economic superior North. The high emigration from the underdeveloped rural regions to the cities and towns in Italy was transformed into a suburbanization in the 1960s and leads to a growth of the small towns and suburbs. The results were huge cities such as Rome, Milan, Naples and Turin with several million inhabitants.
Today, Italy developed from a former country of emigration to a destination for refugees from Africa and the former countries of the Eastern bloc. Estimated 7.1% of the total population are foreign citizens. The largest population groups come from Romania, Albania and Morocco.
Language, education and religion
The prevailing official language in Italy is Italian. A bare 5% of the Italian population belong to other officially recognized ethnic groups who have preserved their language. The biggest group are the Sardines with 1.5 million speakers, followed by the Reto-Romans in Friul with 700.000 speakers and the German-speakers in South Tyrol with 300.000 language members. Small minorities on Sardinia have Catalan as their mother tongue while at the Aaostatal valley near Triest and in Apulia French, Slovenian and Greek minorities remained.
Some of the largest towns in Italy locate excellent universities. Bologna and Parma host the oldest universities of Europe, but also Modena, Rome, Siena, Pavia, Perugia, Padua and Naples have an excellent reputation.
Little astonishing is the huge influence of the Catholic Church on the country. Italy is to an outweighing part catholic. The big influence of the church on lifestyle, population and towns in Italy is visible not only with the presence of the Vatican in Rome but also by the comparatively high numbers of priest and cardinals.
