This article is about the demographic features of the population of Italy, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

Italy has the fifth-highest population density in Europe — about 196 persons per square kilometer (490 per square mile).

Population

In October 2007, Italy officially reached more than 59.5 million¹ persons. Italy currently has the fourth largest population in the European Union, and the 23rd largest population in the world. Italy's population density at 196.1 persons per kilometre is the fifth highest in the European Union. The highest density is in Northern Italy, as one third of the country contains almost half of the Italian population. After World War II, Italy saw an economic boom which led to rural population moving to the cities, and in the same time it turned from a nation characterized by massive emigration to a net immigrant-receiving country. High fertility persisted until the 1970s when it plunged below replacement so as of 2007, one in five Italians was pensioners. Despite this, thanks mainly to the immigration of 1980s and 1990s, in 2000s Italy saw natural population growth for the first time in years.²

Families: 23,907,410 (58,802,902 Italians in a familiar status, 2.5 Italians per family)

• Most populated comune (residents) Rome
• Least populated comune (residents) Morterone (LC) 33
• Greatest human density (residents per km²) Portici (NA) 13,032.1
• Greatest comune territory (km²) Rome (RM) 1,285.30
• Smallest comune territory (km²) Fiera di Primiero (TN) 0.15

Metropolitan areas

According to the OECD³ these are the major Italian metropolitan areas:

• Milan (7.4 million)
• Rome (3.7 million)
• Naples (3.1 million)
• Turin (2.2 million)

Cities ranked by population

not representing metropolitan areas: from the December 2004 Istat report (www.istat.it):

Immigration

Traditionally a country of emigrants, in the last 20 years Italy has become a country of immigration, with about 4.9% of the population fitting that description. 156,179 foreigners were counted in the 1971 census, (Source: Italian Caritas); according to the last figure (Caritas est. 2006⁴), 3.7 million immigrants live legally in Italy, while estimates for undocumented immigrants vary from 0.8 million to 2 million. Italy has periodically legalized unauthorized foreigners in the past.

Officially, at the end of 2006, foreigners comprised 5% of the population or 2,938,922 persons,⁵ an increase of 270,000 since the previous year. In some Italian cities, such as Brescia, Milan, Padua, and Prato, immigrants total more than 10% of the population.

The most recent wave of migration has been from surrounding European nations, particularly Eastern Europe, replacing North Africans as a major source of migrants. Around 500,000 Romanians are officially registered as living in Italy, but unofficial estimates put the actual number at double that figure or perhaps even more.⁶ As of 2006, migrants came from other parts of Europe (47.75%), North Africa (17.77%), Asia (17.43%), Latin America (8.90%). Smaller groups came from sub-Saharan Africa, and North America.⁵

Many illegal immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe work as day laborers in the agriculture of Southern Italy, especially in the citrus and olive groves of Calabria and the tomato factories of Puglia. African immigrants typically pay smugglers in Libya for a transit to the Italian island of Lampedusa. From there they are transferred to detention camps in mainland Italy and eventually released; their deportion orders are not enforced. Working conditions are poor, and in 2006 Médecins sans Frontières opened free clinics for undocumented migrants in Calabria.⁸

Emigrants by ethnicity in 2008:

Source: Corriere della Sera, http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2007/10_Ottobre/30/migrants.shtml.

Languages

Main articles: Languages of Italy and Italian dialects

The official and common language is Italian.

Officially recognized minority language groups are:

Source: Ministero degli Interni del Governo Italiano.

Official status:

• German is co-official in the province of Bolzano-Bozen, where in 1991 there were 287,503 German and 116,914 Italian speaking people.
• Standard French is co-official in the Aosta Valley, but the spoken dialects of this region, and of some northern valleys of Piedmont, are more precisely Franco-Provençal, which boasts some differences from standard French.

Religion

Main article: Religion in Italy

See also: Christianity in Italy, Islam in Italy, Jews in Italy, Buddhism in Italy, and List of Italian religious minority politicians

Roman Catholicism is by far the largest religion in the country, although the Catholic Church is no longer officially the state religion. 87.8% of Italians identified as Roman Catholic,¹⁰ although only about one-third of these described themselves as active members (36.8%). Other Christian groups in Italy include more than 700,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians,¹¹ including 470,000 newcomers¹² and some 180,000 Greek Orthodox, 550,000 Pentecostals and Evangelicals (0.8%), of whom 400,000 are members of the Assemblies of God, 235,685 Jehovah's Witnesses (0.4%),¹³ 30,000 Waldensians,¹⁴ 25,000 Seventh-day Adventists, 22,000 Mormons, 15,000 Baptists (plus some 5,000 Free Baptists), 7,000 Lutherans, 5,000 Methodists (affiliated to the Waldensian Church).¹⁵ The country's oldest religious minority is the Jewish community, comprising roughly 45,000 people (0.06%). It is no longer the largest non-Christian group. As a result of significant immigration from other parts of the world, some 825,000 Muslims¹⁶ (1.4% of the total population) live in Italy, though only 50,000 are Italian citizens. In addition, there are 110,000 Buddhists (0.2%)¹⁷,¹⁸¹² 70,000 Sikhs,¹⁹ and 70,000 Hindus (0.1%) in Italy.

Demographic statistics from the CIA World Factbook

The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.

Population estimate

58,751,711 (Istat 2006)

Population estimate

59,131,287 (Istat 2007)

Age structure

0-14 years: 14.07% (male 4,278,614; female 4,043,286) (2007)

15-64 years: 66.5% (male 19,519,205; female 19,497,430) (2007)

65 years and over: 19.94% (male 4,920,622; female 6,872,130) (2007)

Median age

total: 42.2 years

male: 40.7 years

female: 43.7 years (2004 est.)

Birth rate

9.53 births/1,000 population (Istat 2006)

Death rate

9.49 deaths/1,000 population (Istat 2006)

Net migration rate

2.06 migrant(s)/1,000 population (Istat 2005)

Sex ratio

at birth: 1.07 male(s)/female

under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female

total population: 0.96 male(s)/female

(2004 est.)

Infant mortality rate

total: 5.83 deaths/1,000 live births

male: 6.42 deaths/1,000 live births

female: 5.19 deaths/1,000 live births

(2004 est.)

Life expectancy at birth

total population: 79.81 years

male: 76.88 years

female: 82.94 years

(2005)

Total fertility rate

1.37 children born/woman (2008)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate

0.5% (2001 est.)

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS

140,000 (2001 est.)

HIV/AIDS - deaths

less than 1,000 (2003 est.)

Nationality

noun: Italian(s)

adjective: Italian

Ethnic groups

Italian: 94.96%, other European (mostly Albanian, Romanian, Ukrainian and others) 2.5%, African (mostly North African Arab) 1.5%, others 1%²⁰

Religious groups

Roman Catholic: 87%, other Christians: 3%, Muslim: 1.5%

Literacy

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 98.6%

male: 99%

female: 98.3%

(2003 est.)

Genetic

In a very recent and thorough study (2007) which analysed 699 Italian individuals from 12 different regions in continental Italy ²¹, the most common Y-dna haplogroups observed were :

• R1b (40%)
• J (22 %)
• E1b1b (12.6 %)
• G (10.8 %)
• I (7.5 %)
• K (3.7%)
• R1a (2.8%)

See also

• List of Italians
• Italian diaspora

References

External links

• Demographic page (English)

The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the copyrighted Wikipedia "Demographics of Italy" article.